and published in the November-December 1989 issue of “Sporting Clays” magazine.  

How about a super, super fast target? A target that can travel an excess of 200 yards. One that is guaranteed not to be the same for everyone. A target on which sometimes two shots are permitted, but many seasoned shooters only load one because a second is a waste of shell.

It’s stick birds, “the ultimate target,” says Jim White of Cairo, Georgia. “If you can master the stick bird game, you can master any (shooting) game.” says Doug Fuller  NSCA National Champion

“It’s the most economical and lifelike way of reproducing the flight paths of real birds.” Said Johnny Cantu of Houston, Texas.

Simply put, stick birds are sticks designed to hold clay birds on one end and be held near the other end. The shafts can be broomstick-like and made of wood,  golf club-like with rubber grips, or almost anything imaginable in between. The heads vary from “Y” shaped tension holders to clips attached to flat-faced holding devices. However they are designed these sticks are long, two-handed throwers that in skillful hands will get the maximum trickiness out of any clay target. Don’t confuse these sticks with the short hand throwers that have been around forever.

White is one of the “Georgia boys,” a dedicated group of shotgunners and throwers who play a serious game of stick birds.

Cantu is the shooting instructor at Greater Houston Gun Club. He’s been shooting stick birds for 10 years and throwing them for the past four. Because of his expertise at throwing, Cantu said, “I hardly get to shoot stick birds anymore.”

That duel, the match up of human thrower against human shooter, is stick birds’ biggest appeal. The only comparable endeavor in shotgunning is hand thrown, or columbaire, pigeons. “But stick birds are bloodless.” White said.

Another analogy is baseball with its pitcher vs. hitter match up. Just as a pitcher can’t live by his fastball alone, a stick bird thrower can’t get by solely on speed. And a hitter who can’t handle a low inside pitch will survive in the big time about as long as shotgunner who closes one eye.

Like a pitcher working the corners, a good stick bird thrower will probe for a shooter’s weaknesses. Like a hitter digging in at the plate, a good shooter must prove he can handle every target the thrower can present. Call it mind games:  A little show on that life-hand target, the thrower might say to himself, should I throw him another, or will he be expecting it? Meanwhile, the shooter might be telling himself to watch for another low- left target.

“A good stick bird thrower has to be imaginative and smart.” Cantu said. “His job is to keep the race going and to keep it interesting.”

      “A thrower can make it as easy or as hard as he wants.” White said. “There’s such a wide spectrum/”

Because it’s still at an informal stage, stick birds’ playing field can be adapted to the circumstances. White and the shooters from Georgia have plenty of space on which to sheet. Their playing field is roughly 80 yards wide and long enough to accommodate a safe shot-fall zone. A line 25 yards in front of the throwing and shooting area marks the distance the clay must be thrown to be legal. Just remember a shooter’s eyes still must cover a width of 80 yards as well as everything from the horizon up to almost 12 o’clock high.

“A thrower can throw vertical targets and upside down targets,” White said. “They can roll over, drop right outside the (boundary) line, or go straight up in the air.” Don’t forget, the targets can travel blazingly fast, agonizingly slow, or somewhere in between.

Cantu often plays stick birds at the gun club. He uses on of the skeet/trap layouts for a smaller playing field. The skeet houses mark the side boundaries, and the front edge of the trap bunker marks the distance boundary. Whatever size field, a duel of wits is sure to follow. In White’s game, even the thrower has a money incentive to perform well. “We play knock-down, drag-out stick bird games,” White said. The games can either be a stick bird version of “miss and out,” a five- or 10-bird race, or a good old practice session.

When White started shooting stick birds “to cut down shooting expenses, he was using an extra-full choke and 1 3/4-dram, 1 1/4-oz. Loads of No. 7 1/2s. He insisted on hard lead of plated shot. He now has worked down to improved modified or full chokes and 3 ¼, 1 ¼ loads of hard 7 1/2s. “You need a shell you can count on.” He said. He estimates most shooters are hitting the targets – at least the super-fast ones – between 55 and 90 yards. Also, note the singular reference to “shell.”  Although two shots are sometimes permitted in White’s game, “we rely on one shot,” White said. “The second shot is a waste of a shell.”

Cantu was throwing for Gil Ash, a member of NSCA’s advisory council, and his wife Vicki. Ash did load two shells, a 3 ¼, 1 ¼ for his barrel choked light-modified and a 3 ¾, 1 ¼ for his improved modified barrel. Being a long-time sporting clays shooter, Ash started with a low gun, which is not required. Cantu wouldn’t recommend it, either. “I have to think that a mounted gun is the way to play this game,” he said. Ash, however, finds the low-gun start actually helps his sporting clays game.

Cantu was throwing for fun that afternoon on the skeet field. “As a shooter, you have to have faith that the thrower won’t hit you in the side of the face,” Cantu said. Cantu’s stick bird safety lesson continued between throws. “I have felt shot columns go past my head,” he continued, quickly adding that Ash wasn’t the shooter. “And I’ve felt targets go past my head,” Ash countered.

White’s shooting buddies use a screen to separate thrower, shooter, and spectators. That way, all are offered some degree of protection. In Cantu’s game, it’s thrower’s choice of where thrower and shooter stand. “It’s too easy if the shooter stands too close,” Cantu said. “Usually, I don’t take a bath for a couple of days before throwing,” he joked.

Cantu started throwing from skeet four, while Ash was standing near skeet three. Sometimes, he and Ash would switch places, and sometimes Cantu would stay on skeet four and move Ash near skeet five.

Cantu’s throwing style changed with the difficulty factor he wanted to put on a target. Sometimes his stance resembled a golfer’s approach to a nine-iron shot. Other times he looked like a baseball batter standing in the box. He showed various other moves, too. In addition to adjusting the tension on the thrower, “the angle on the head and the attitude of the target” as it’s thrown can affect how and where a clay bird flies, Cantu said.

No, it doesn’t help a shooter to sneak a look at the thrower’s motion. “You have to be looking out there,” Cantu said, indicating the vast spaces where the target will first be visible and, hopefully, broken. “If you watch the thrower, you will never see the target.”

Cantu’s arsenal of stick birds includes those with handles fashioned from golf shafts and wood. He also attached a pair of plastic hand throwers to one shaft so he can throw doubles.

“The golf shaft doesn’t work you as hard physically,” Cantu said. “On a good day, I feel I’m throwing 200 to 235 yards.

Throwing a good target requires the thrower to “rotate and throw (the) hips like a quarterback or a baseball pitcher,” Cantu said. Wrist action is more like using a “bullwhip than a tennis racket or a baseball bat. Throw the hips out and snap, but don’t break the wrists,” Cantu said. The thrower’s physical size doesn’t appear to affect his ability to throw targets. White can also throw an assortment of tricky targets. “The Georgia boys are very clever throwers,” said Cantu, who has witnessed their prowess in the past.

Like learning any new game, throwing stick birds takes some getting used to. “Sometimes a target is thrown so the shooter doesn’t even see it,” White said. “It’s so embarrassing when it happens.”

“It’s humbling (to miss) at first, “Cantu said. “Most of the better shooters have just enough ego to come back and try again. Against an imaginative thrower, 50 percent is an excellent score,” Cantu said. “If you can shoot 25 to 30 percent, you’re doing pretty well,” Cantu said. “Not bad at all.”

Ash, who was honing his reflexes for an upcoming shoot, looked like he was shooting better than 50 percent, and he sometimes connected with his second shot. Cantu was throwing into a headwind, however, which certainly would give some advantage to a shooter. A skeet field also offers the optimum background for shooting. “Throwing targets into trees will lower the scores.” Cantu said. The Georgia shoots often are held over water, which offers the opportunity to throw low, diving targets, White said. Ash remembers shooting stick birds from a bluff. “You had to watch everything above the horizon, plus that deep valley,” he said.

Shooting stick birds is great practice for other clay-target sports as well as hunting. “Pigeons are amazingly slow to the eye if you’ve shot stick birds the day before,” Cantu said. As an instructor, Cantu often uses stick birds to finish off a lesson – if the student’s goal is to become a better bird hunter. “Those dipping, diving targets make you pay attention, just like out in the field,” Cantu said.

But too much shooting at too-fast targets can throw off a shooter’s timing. Cantu noted. Missing a front of a target or slowing down your swing to allow the target to catch up are two potential pitfalls of too much stick birds. Many sporting clays regulars have made the same observation on opening day of bird season.

Currently stick birds is a grass-roots shotgunning sport. Shooters here and there are playing the game, and quite a few players are designing their stick birds. There is the story of the fellow who is supposed to have crafted a 15-foot long stick bird, but he’s still figuring out how to throw with it.