My girls were the youngest and least experienced shooters in attendance, which was clear when looking at the other shooters. The older, more experienced boys used shooting jackets, slings and wrist pads to help steady their gun.
The shooting coaches, as well as Fino and I, have encouraged my girls to try the shooting jackets but both of them refuse. They claim the jackets are tight and feel awkward, which to their way of thinking outweighs the elbow and shoulder pad benefits. And they can't utilize a sling without the jacket (the sling attaches to to the jacket and gun to help the shooter steady the shot) so that's not something they use either. But the girls enjoy their time on the range and as I was chatting with one of the coaches he told me, "Kids have to learn how to just shoot so it doesn't matter if they use the jackets. There aren't any slings and jackets in the woods when they go out hunting." (And this is one of the reasons I like the 4-H shooting sports program, they encourage kids to be safe with a rifle and learn at their own pace. Competition is second to the kids enjoying their target shooting experience.) The girls have absolutely no plans to shoot any real life animals but the fun shoot did mix things up during the last round with some new targets.
These targets were quite a bit smaller than the usual bulls-eyes and according to L, "The little animals were even more tiny through the gun sights!"
Their usual targets are on much larger paper and the bulls-eyes provide a much larger target to take aim. Even though these animal targets presented an advanced shooting challenge for the girls, they gave them a whirl. Neither of them managed to hit any of the animals on their target but they didn't seem to mind.
When we downloaded the pictures at home later G. said, "See mom, I was saving the animals. Yeah, that's it! I missed every one on purpose." That's one way to spin the results of a challenging round of target shooting.
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