Asking a question about casual sporting clays. Is there an established etiquette around taking your turn during a round of casual clays?

If I’m shooting alone and come upon a large group, should I just skip the station and move in front of the? Would that be rude?

Do I then backtrack and shoot it?

If I’m shooting in a group and a single shooter comes up behind, should we stop and let that person shoot the station and move on?

I see people starting at the last station and moving backwards through them. When they get to me, who yields the station?

Nothing is really causing me angst, but I love the sport and want to make sure I respect the unwrittens.

Thank you!

As long as you are just shooting a casual round.....

If shooting alone, my rule of thumb is to shoot as quickly as I can while having minimal impact on other shooters. If I come upon a large group, I will go around. I will then come back and shoot that station later (if I can). I only would shoot it if it was 'open'.

If I am part of a group, I do not feel obligated to make way for a single shooter, and would encourage them to go by if the course is open in front of me and come back and shoot the station later.

If I am shooting alone or in a group, and I am shooting the course out of order (i.e. coming back to shoot a station, shooting in reverse order, re-shooting a station), I will always yield to the shooter or group of shooters who are shooting in order. I feel they have the right of way and I should yield.

I also will usually hang back from a station if I do not know the shooters and give them some space.

I will say, my course can get busy, but it is never backed up. There is almost always some room for some flexibility in shooting. My preferred method is shoot the odd stations on the way out, and evens on the way back.

Finally, it goes without saying, during a tournament things are different. I shoot the course in order.

Thank you!

pretty much my approach. I usually shoot alone (well, my wife likes to come and push the buttons ). Never had a problem.

dp

I shoot casual every weekend; usually with the same 3 guys. We always step aside and let single (or double) shooters shoot the station ahead of us when they catch up to us. Sometimes they accept and sometimes they will skip ahead to the next station - either is good with us.

If on pace with other shooters, we hang back and give the shooters ahead of us plenty of room to finish and not rush them. I definitely have a pet peeve of shooters coming onto the station, putting guns in racks, talking and hanging close when we are not quite finished. Hanging back is polite, and safer.

If the course is not busy, we often offer if a single shooter wants to shoot with us. Sometimes they accept, sometimes not - have met some new friends this way.

In practice situations I treat it the same way as on a golf course. Let faster groups play through. In tournaments you just have to ride it out and wait.

Pretty much my approach. If I'm in a group that's moving slower, let the single folks who are shooting faster go ahead. If I'm by myself, I'll either wait or go around, unless a group lets me shoot first. Whoever gets to the station first gets to shoot first.

True, but if my group pulls up just a second before a solo shooter, we'll let him go ahead, especially if he's walking so he doesn't have to double back.

Same here.

Thank you all. This is really how I’ve been handling. The only “issue” I’ve had is when people start unloading their stuff before we are done.....that kind of bugs me. My boys and I always hang back on the trail until the group in front is done.

A lot of that will depend on where the stand is in relation to the trail; sometimes the stand is just a few feet; other times it is much further. If there is room, I'll place my gun in the rack and stand quietly watching the shooters in the squad in front; or of they are short and need a hand pulling, I'll offer to pull (never to score) just to help them out. That's usually for a squad of 2 or 3

One of the worse thing a shooter can do is start at the end and move backwards.

It screws everything up.

If you don't have time to wait then go fishing.

Depends on the situation. I have had the course manager ask us to start backwards because of group that just got started that would take a long time. The way the course was set up the last 4 stations if taken in reverse would spit you out back by the club house so we basically did 13, 12, 11, 10, and then 1-9. This allowed the large slow group to put some distance on us by the time we got back to 1. Worked well and nobody was messing up the flow. I would not decide on my own to just start backwards without talking to the club manager though.

When I was talking about going backward I didn't mean when the course owner ask you to.