Shooting clubs in Ohio see growth

Ohio figures prominently in the history of trap shooting.

MIDDLETOWN, Ohio (AP) — Membership has grown every year at Middletown Sportsmen’s Club outside Cincinnati for the last five years, one example of what trapshooting club operators say is a growing recreational interest in blasting orange clay targets from the sky.

Just since last year, the club has grown from 1,700 members to more than 2,000, club manager Patrick Byrd said.

Nationally, the number of people participating in some sort of shooting sport — including trap and skeet shooting — increased by 9 percent between 1998 and 2005, the National Shooting Sports Foundation said. That trend includes southwest Ohio, where trapshooting has a rich history.

One of the first documented trapshooting competitions was held in Cincinnati around 1831, according to the Trapshooting Hall of Fame and Museum in Vandalia. And Cincinnati-native George Ligowski is believed to have invented the clay-pigeon target in the 1880s, Mason councilman and amateur trapshooter David Nichols said.

The Grand American World Trapshooting Championships were held annually for 81 years in Vandalia, and over the years featured trick shooter Annie Oakley and movie and television cowboy star Roy Rogers. The tournament was moved to Illinois in 2005, partly because of expansion plans at nearby Dayton International Airport.

The Cincinnati area has clubs in Fairfield, Milford, Indian Hill and Middletown, as well as a large club across the Ohio River in Owenton, Ky.

“It’s addicting,” Nichols said. “One of the remarkable things — from 9 to 90 you can do this — even folks with disabilities.”

Shooting was once thought to be a sport for the wealthy, but gun sports are increasingly being used in fundraisers and as team-building experiences, said Cincinnati Bell CEO and president Jack Cassidy.

“No beginner that I’ve ever shot with didn’t want to come back for more,” he said. “It’s a sport that pits you against the target, no social structure and no elitism.”

Every June, Cassidy and others take part in the Boomer Esiason Sporting Clays event near Cincinnati, raising more than $2.5 million for Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and other charities over the last decade.

The event also benefits the Boomer Esiason Foundation, which raises money to fight cystic fibrosis. Gunnar Esiason, the teenage son of the former Cincinnati Bengals quarterback, continues to fight the disease.