Good reminder! Thanks. As soon as the four feet of snow melts on my property I'm building a cool plinking gallery for my 10 year old daughter. :REOutArchery02:
She's one lucky girl to have a dad like you!
We've found that when making a range set-up for kids it's all about variety of targets and not just making holes in paper. Kids
love reactive targets, things that spin, fall or explode. We use a couple of differnet kinds of spinner targets that are impact resetting so you don't need to pause and reset everything. Also clay pidgeons make a fun "exploding" target as well as ballons (air or water), small cling wrap bundles with baby powder, and the old stand by, aluminum cans. Also when we use paper targets we use the Shoot-N-C type targets so the kidlins can spot their shots easier.
Once the kids got comfortable and confident with their shooting we moved them off the bench and have them practice shooting offhand, vertical rested, off shooting sticks, seated resting of knees, and prone. Any of these might be necessary when out chasing critters and even if they never plan on hunting these different positions make target practice more interesting. And since most of our hunting is out of elevated stands, I placed carboard deer silhouettes at various positions around the stand and had them practice firing from their stands so they got use to shooting from a higher angle and at variety of distances. So far it's worked out great as when the moment comes the kids already know what to do and don't start doubting themselves. Worked for my wife also who bagged his first deer in the fall. Though you could ask my boy Cameron what
buck fever is, as he now understands the meaning of the phrase...:elkgrin:
My kids play video games and love to spend time outside whether its hiking, plinking or hunting. Sometimes we the hardest thing we have to pry them away from is their books. All of these can be fun if you don't make any of them your overriding obsession. It's all about encouragement, making the time to spend with them and then showing them by example.
