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iTrapshooter.com: Let’s start at the beginning. Brad, you grew up hunting and were very good at it. It’s not naturally true that a good hunter is a good trapshooter. How did you make the transition and become so good at trap?
Brad: I always had good eye/hand coordination and I played baseball. I loved baseball. If I could’ve had my pick of all professions, a major league baseball player is what I would have wanted to do. I played ball through high school, played in the Latin American league. I played a lot of baseball so I had the basics of eye/hand coordination down and I’ve always loved guns. I’ve got a picture of myself when I was five years old, the first thing I ever shot was a sparrow with a Daisy BB gun. I’ve always hunted. And I think between growing up with a gun and understanding about a gun, and then playing sports – baseball, I bowled, played pool, golfed – you know, all the things kids used to do before they had video games.
So I had that competitive edge. I was a catcher in baseball and when you’re catching you’re watching everybody else. You’re sitting there, you’re watching the pitcher and the batter, and talking with the umpire. You’ve kind of got your head in the game. And when I started trapshooting, I was better then the average probably -
When I was 9 years old, I had a single barrel 16 gauge Iver Johnson that I broke 9 out of 10 and won a can of peaches. That was my first thing that I’d ever won. But I didn’t shoot, it was very little, because it was a waste of shells, I’d rather hunt. So I knew the basics of shooting when I started. But then, what really got me in to trapshooting, I duck hunted and my cousin and I just sucked at shooting at ducks one year. So that’s when I took up shooting.
I approached trapshooting by watching other people. You know, when I started I watched Hiram Bradley, Britt Robinson, Larry Gravestock. I saw Johnny Sternberger shoot before he quit, Buford Bailey and some of the other ones that shot in the 70’s. I started in ‘74. So I watched, when I went to the Grand that first year, when I wasn’t shooting I watched everybody else shoot and tried to see what they all had in common. One thing I noticed, they were all smooth. Some of them put their guns up high, some of them put them low. Some had different stances. But the really good shots had no wasted movement. They were smooth and they repeated good at the same execution every time. So I kind of analyzed them and I think I made myself a better shooter faster, by studying the sport.
“When I was 9 years old, I had a single barrel 16 gauge Iver Johnson that I broke 9 out of 10 and won a can of peaches. That was my first thing that I’d ever won.”
Hall of Fame Brad Dysinger
An iTrapshooter.com interview
Copyright 2012
All Rights Reserved.
Brad Dysinger
Trapshooting Hall of Fame
Ohio State Trapshooting Hall of Fame
18 Time All-
2
Times Captain Industry Team
Grand American Notables
1976 High Over-
(lost shoot-
1978
Clay Target Champion
1987 Clay Target Runner-
1988 High Over All 986 x 1000
1988
All-
1989 Clay Target Champion
1989 Budweiser
(Preliminary) Handicap
Champion
1989 High Over All Runner-
7 Consecutive 200 x 200 at Grand
Over Three Years
14
Trophies in One year at Grand
as Industry Shooter
1990 100 Straight from 27
State Championships
Singles, Doubles, Handicap and All-
Championships in both
Ohio and Maryland
1975 Ohio State Handicap Champion from 27 (the largest handicap
won by a 27-
the time -
August 28, 1977 Broke 100 straight
from
27 to give Grand Slam (17th person)
Won over 1000 trophies at trap shoots in 38
States and Provinces
Won Flyer Shoots in Illinois, Texas, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Florida
Other
Ohio State Association Director 2006 to present -
