Aidan Caldwell wanted to get involved in athletics at Aquinas High School when he started there last year. His first thought was football, but he decided to try out for a different team instead. And he’s glad he did.
On Friday, Nov. 19, and Saturday, Nov. 20, the sophomore will be competing with the shooting team in the state championships in Savannah, Ga. Last week, Caldwell took first place in sporting clays and was the top shooter overall in the inaugural CSRA Scholastic Shooting Tournament. Senior Wesley Pittman was second at that tournament in trap shooting.
Caldwell didn’t have a lot of experience with sporting clays, skeet and trap shooting when he joined the team.
“I’d shot with a friend a few times,” he said. “I seemed to have a knack for it.”
He learned a lot his first year with the team, but he realized that to be able to compete at a higher level, he was going to have to invest more time and effort. His raw talent wasn’t enough despite going to the state tournament.
“I didn’t do too great,” he said of last year’s outing. “I was a little too early into it. You have to shoot 100 out of 100.”
However, that sparked his desire to put in the extra time he knew would be required.
Now, Caldwell spends a lot of time mainly at Pinetucky Gun Club in Blythe, but also at the Palmetto Shooting Complex in Edgefield, sharpening his skills.
“I go there all the time,” he said. “I just enjoy it.”
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Even in the off-season, Caldwell is part of other teams including a 4-H team.
In June, he was a member of the Columbia County Shotgun Team, traveling to Nebraska with head coach Tripp Ellis and other members, Joshua Ellis and Nate Williford, for the national championships.
The Columbia County shooting team was one of five from the state of Georgia to compete, according to the Georgia 4-H website. In all, 570 shooters from 32 states competed during the five-day event.
Caldwell said skeet and trap are the most technical of the three events, sporting clays requires some extra skill.
According to a blog at the National Rifle Association’s website, trap shooting involves aiming at targets traveling away from the shooter. They are at predictable heights, but the angles vary. Shooters fire five times at five different locations for a total of 25 shots.
In skeet, it’s about crossing targets, the blog continued. Two machines that are 40 meters apart launch clay targets at constant trajectories and velocity.
Sporting clays is often called “golf for shotguns,” the website said, and provides an experience more like hunting in the field with different machine setups and target presentations.
Caldwell said trap is his least favorite of the three.
While he hasn’t decided on a college major at this point, Caldwell does know that he intends to spend the next couple of years improving his skills in an attempt to snag a scholarship for shooting. Various colleges including Georgia Southern have shooting programs.
Charmain Z. Brackett is the Features Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach her at charmain@theaugustapress.com
