I was just wondering how many of you wing shooters practice in the off season or maybe just do a tune-up right before season opens?

I shoot 5 stand, and trap, year round, including during hunting season. It's been curtailed by the stay at home orders in my state.

I'll do a tune up with my hunting guns in early fall at 5 stand.

My feelings are that the best practice for bird shooting is shooting birds, however, any practice is better than no practice. Crows were good practice but now you can't shoot them in the off season. I never liked the idea of shooting anything when they are nesting anyway. Nuisance birds like starlings & feral pigeons are always good if you can find them in shootable concentrations. Other than traveling to S. America, clays are the only other alternative I know about. So, a few years ago I bought a trap. I am always happier when I'm shooting!

I shoot ( or used to ) informal skeet as practice pretty much year round. Don`t shoot " regular " presentations (doubles ), just have the puller throw multiple singles from more realistic angles.

Yup

When I can’t shoot birds I shoot clays. My preference now is sporting, but I’ve shot skeet, and trap too. Skeet according to original rules with a low gun and up to 3 second delay for the bird upon call is probably the best hunting practice. It’s the reason the game was invented. Trap with premounted is not as useful. Sporting has many obtuse targets now that don’t resemble hunting shots as much, but low gun and no show birds on each station can replicate that surprise type flush. I guess what to shoot depends on what you hunt. There is not much that replicates lying on your back, punching up through a door and sitting on your butt like field hunting waterfowl unless you sit down while shooting clays I guess.

I don't have much opportunity for upland birds, but year around skeet, 5 stand and sporting clays sure did improve my duck shooting.

Yep, dove mostly for me. Well, and turkey, but....

Clays (sporting, 5-stand, skeet, wobble trap and variations like skrap) year-round. I belong to a small private club and we have our own ranges, so we can do a lot of interesting stuff. Pigeons and starlings when we can find them, and I take at least one trip south of the border for dove/pigeon every year. Hunting season just means we shoot birds too as well as clays!

For dove practice, agreed on low-gun skeet. For flushing birds, low gun trap/wobble trap works well too.

All good responses here. I shoot as often as I can, consistent with work, honey-dos and range access.

I've been limited previously by the need to use a Trius trap. It's better than nothing, but it's laborious, and offers virtually no variety in target behavior.

But I've just assembled a Raven 50 clay trap on a wobbler. Haven't used it yet, but I plan to fix that this weekend. Hope I'll be able to get that beast on the truck!

Absolutely. Pigeons and sparrows with small gauge guns are sporty and a lot of fun...as was mentioned, when you can find enough.

Duplicate - sorry.

A friend and I just finished setting up our own 5 stand as we live over 50 miles
From the closest range. We have 11 machines of which 2 are rabbits one battle, one wobble and a teal. Two elevated stands with machines on them and lights for night shooting.

I also shoot sporting lays when I can.

BUT, nothing takes the place of live birds. IMO

I built myself a skeet field 140 yards from my front door in my field out front........I shoot several days a week.

Its been several decades since bird numbers and season lengths allowed one enough shooting to learn on wild birds. That is why I shoot a lot of clays. There is no other way to put in the trigger time needed to learn to shoot well and no better way to consistently replicate opportunity types that give one trouble. I shoot a fair number of crows, starlings, pigeons, training birds, and the like but clay pigeons are what gets me in my best shooting shape.

Redhat,

For a very long time I had a corporate membership to the Nimacolin Shooting Academy, here in Western Pa, did a lot of teaching for Grouse gunning and shot a lot of clays each week myself. I gave up the membership a while back, and now only shoot on occasion. I do train Grouse dogs and shoot a lot of training birds which keeps my muscle memory intact for gunning wild birds.

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

I shoot sporting clays weekly during the summer.