by John Beagle

The Sportsmen's Club is located in the hills northwest of downtown Middletown Ohio, Middletown.

All three major forms of competitive shooting (trap shooting, skeet shooting and sporting clays) are available at the Middletown Sportsmen's club.

Middletown Sportsmen's Club is a private, incorporated, member-owned club, that is open to the public for invitational events or as a guest of a club member.

The clubhouse is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10:00am to 9:00pm or dark whichever comes first.

The club grounds are closed on Monday, Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Membership Information
Membership at Middletown Sportsmen's Club is a family style membership that covers spouse and children under the age of 18.  New membership requests are subject to approval by the clubs board of officers.

Fee Structure

Initiation Fee - $40
Annual Membership - $60
Guest Membership - $60
Lake Membership - $45
Archery Membership - Currently being waived

(The guest membership provides the member the ability to take one guest to the rifle/pistol range.)

Membership is Jan 1 Through Dec 31 and is not prorated

About Trap Shooting:
Trap shooting has been a sport since at least 1793 when it used real birds, usually the then-extremely abundant Passenger Pigeon. Fake birds were introduced around the time of the American Civil War as the Passenger Pigeon was nearing extinction and sufficient numbers were not reliably available. Clay targets were introduced in the 1880's.

The layout of modern trap shooting is different from skeet shooting in that there is only one house that releases targets and the shooters only move through 5 different positions.

About Skeet Shooting:
Skeet is a recreational and competitive activity where participants attempt to break clay disks flung into the air at high speed from a variety of angles. For the American version of the game, the clay discs are 4 and 5/16 inches in diameter, one and 1/8 inches thick, and fly a distance of 60 yards (+/- 2 yards). The international version of skeet uses a target that is slightly larger in diameter (110mm), shorter in cross section (25mm vs. 1 1/8 inches), and has a thicker dome center, making it harder to break. International targets are also thrown a longer distance from similar heights (over 70 yards), resulting in a faster target speed.

About Sporting Clays
Sporting Clays is a form of clay pigeon shooting. Often described as golf with a shotgun, the sport differs from trap and skeet shooting in that:

1. It is considered by many to be more difficult than trap or skeet.
2. It involves shooting clay targets at multiple locations (called stations).
3. Unlike trap and skeet, which are games of repeatable target presentations, sporting clays targets are thrown in a great variety of trajectories, angles, speeds, elevations and distances.

The original idea behind sporting clays was to create an experience that more closely reflects actual hunting conditions. Whereas top-tier trap and skeet professionals may have hit ratings nearing 100%, the best sporting clay shooters hit their targets only about 93% to 95% of the time.

Website: http://www.middletownsportsmensclub.com/
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