Ducks Unlimited Podcast

Jimbo Robinson: Welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. We are very excited about today's episode. We are joined in Studio One, Waterfowl Way by John Nelson and John Hubner. Huberner. Huberner. There we go. Also, Justin Aycock, manager of youth engagement programs here at Ducks Unlimited. But the two special guests are here today from USA Clay Target League. Welcome guys. Thank you.

John Nelson: Thank you for having us. It's quite an honor to be here at headquarters.

Jimbo Robinson: Absolutely. Thanks for having us. It's been fun so far. We've ventured to Bass Pro Pyramid, had lunch, spent the day talking about ways to get more student athletes involved in the shooting leagues and especially the clay target league. So, Justin, I think you're going to lead us off here.

Justin Aycock: Yep. Tell us a little bit about USA Clay. What is USA Clay and the league?

John Nelson: Well, we're the independent provider of clay target shooting sports to secondary and post-secondary schools. And so we get students involved within the clay target shooting sports, and it's usually as an extracurricular activity through their high schools or colleges. And since 2008, when the league started with 30 kids and three teams, it's quickly grown to become really the largest clay target shooting sport organization in the country.

Justin Aycock: So when you say post-secondary and secondary schools, you mean like high schools? So this is a component of like high school athletics and university athletics?

John Nelson: It is, yeah. So when it comes to the high schools, whether it's a high school or homeschool association, we get those kids involved. And then once they graduate, whether they're going on to a two-year technical college, community college, four-year university, or any type of art school, we have a college clay target league for them to get involved as really kind of more of an activity that they can participate that's not sanctioned by the college athletic associations.

Justin Aycock: So tell me a little bit about what the Klay Target League, how's it structured? I'm listening to this podcast and I'm a parent and I have a kid that's in middle school to high school and I'm interested in getting them involved in shooting sports. What's the process with USA Klay? What does the league look like? What is that?

John Nelson: So what we do is we run what we call virtual competitions. That means that a team can form at a school with the school's approval, so we're a school-sponsored sport, that they would compete at their local shooting range. So we've eliminated the cost of travel and the timeliness of that. And those virtual competitions occur during a spring or fall season that we run. The spring season consists of a few weeks where we have those competitions that occur anytime from Sunday until Saturday night when those teams have to get their shoot in. And then at the end of the season, we conclude that with state tournaments, you know, where everyone is included to participate. And it really allows a lot of flexibility for the coaches and for the families so kids can participate in other activities and other sports and not to really be involved in a sport that requires seven days a week participation in that.

Jimbo Robinson: You said the word virtual twice and I know that post-COVID, the word virtual can scare people. What does that mean as it relates to the shooting league?

John Nelson: Yeah, what that means is we don't do head-to-head competitions. And so for these families, unlike other sports, it requires the scheduling. You have to have a field, you have to have referees and others, we're a self-refereeing sport. And so the coaches and those families are responsible for taking care of their scores. And then they can conduct that event at any time during the week. So in many cases, a lot of teams will shoot two to three times a week to accommodate busy schedules for families and kids. And then they post those scores online. So they send that to the league. The league does its calculations based on a couple scoring methods that we have. And then we post the results of that on Saturday night. So then teams and individual student athletes can determine how they're doing in their competitions.

Justin Aycock: So John, let me ask you a question. I know before you came to the league, you were a coach. What types of clay target shooting are you guys doing with the league? I know there's a myriad of different things that could be out there. So what is the focus of the league?

John Huberner: Yeah. So, uh, I can go through it from a team perspective. Uh, I coached, uh, a team in Minnesota and that team currently shoots five stand sporting clays, uh, skeet and trap. So we start everybody, every student athlete starts off in trap. That way they, they learn the basics and then they move on, uh, to skeet five stand and or sporting clays.

Justin Aycock: So there's a myriad of different ways to compete within the league.

John Huberner: Yes, there is. What seems to be the most popular? Probably sporting clays because it's the most dynamic.

Jimbo Robinson: And so 100, 100 total?

John Huberner: Yeah.

Jimbo Robinson: On sporting clays?

John Huberner: Most of the student-athletes compete from front to back for all of their time with us in trap, and I would say that a large chunk of those also participate in the other three disciplines.

John Nelson: Yeah, what's unique about that competition side of it is just about 100% of the teams start out with trap, simply because there's a lot of kids that are new to the sport. And so, because trap's a lot easier to start out at, versus a sporting clays type of experience, is it provides a really nice opportunity for these kids that have never held a shotgun before, to try to shoot at a target that's moving at 42 miles an hour. So it can be kind of a challenge for some of these, but as we've learned is the more the kids really participate in it, the easier the sport becomes. And if you're a young person and they all have good hand and eye coordination, they make the sport look really easy after a while.

Jimbo Robinson: Yeah. So I know Justin asked, how do you get started? And one of the things you said was that the local, do you all help schools find local ranges?

John Nelson: We do, you know, whether it's a range that's currently hosting a different team, you know, that understands the process and the league and how that works, or we'll be working with state agencies to find out where those ranges are. It's, it's amazing how many ranges that are out there that is not known to the public. There may be just a small range that's down the road. We have people that have built ranges. They built a house on private, a trap house on private property. And so it takes a, they gotta get to a range. It provides the best, fairest, and most safe environment for these student-athletes to participate in.

John Huberner: And John mentioned a safe environment. So safety is our number one pillar. Um, we want the kids to be safe. We want them to have fun. And then the marksmanship piece is, is the last pillar for us. And it's worked out great because when you teach them early on all the safety factors and then they start having fun, it's remarkable how their, how their scores matriculate up over the years.

Justin Aycock: And you guys, you mentioned getting the kids interested in shooting. That kind of ties into the next thing that I want to look at a little bit is R3. And I know we've probably mentioned this earlier in the podcast, R3 is retention, reactivation, and recruitment of hunters. How does USA Clay impact R3? I mean, I think it's a pretty compelling story, but how does that impact?

John Nelson: It's a great story. When you look at the three components, as you mentioned, it'll start with recruit. I mean, the Clay Target League last year added over 13,000 brand new student athletes to the league. And so when you look at what's happening from the recruitment's data, I don't know of anyone else within the country that is attracting that many. new people to a sport, of which 60% of those new athletes have never shot at a clay target before. 35% of them had to take firearm safety training in order to participate in the league. So we're talking about thousands and thousands of kids. that had to get that certification to come in. And then when you talk about retention, obviously, as John had mentioned too, I mean, because we have safety fund and marksmanship is by providing a great environment, a safe environment, that's a lot of fun, that's family orientated, it really helps retain these kids in coming into the league. And so when you look at our athlete retention rate, which is about 95%, The league is doing a great job of it. And the average stay within these athletes are five to six years that are on these clay target teams. So it's doing a good part of that. And then lastly, the reactivation part of it. We'll have students that leave these teams, go off to college and guess what happens? They come back and they become coaches on these teams. And so they go away from college, they may not be shooting, they may get away from it because their studies and trying to find that career path, but they come back. And then we've also seen it on the reactivation. When you look at coaches who've been out of the sport or not part of it for many years, and now all of a sudden they're enthused about having a team of young people where they can become mentors. And we're seeing families now that are coming back to the shooting range because their young people are involved in clay target shooting sports. So when you look at it from a family type event, there's not many sports where an entire family can be standing on a trapline, participating in a sport that they all love.

Jimbo Robinson: What's one of the hardest things about, what's the one stumbling block in the recruitment?

John Huberner: From the recruitment side, I would say it's just getting the league out to states that it's not currently big in. As John said, we started in Minnesota with 30 kids and three high schools, and we have a big contingent in the upper Midwest. And so for us, getting that messaging out that this is a safe, completely Title IX sport that nobody sits on the bench, everybody's scores matter. It's the safest high school activity in the country to get that message out, to get folks to understand what it is we do, and to get their student-athletes involved.

John Nelson: Yeah, well one thing that since the beginning of this league is very important for us as an organization that we had the school support on this. It had to be sponsored by the school and what we mean by sponsor is the team had to use the school name just as they do in other high school sports. As you can imagine, in our early days, when we would go into a school and say, hey, guess what? We've got a great activity that's for everyone. There's no benchwarmers, as John said, and we want this to be a school sponsor activity. And oh, by the way, it involves a shotgun. And we had a lot of doors closed on us. And it would have been pretty easy in our early days to say, you know what? Let's skip the school side of it, and let's just go without the school sponsor. But what we found out in talking to young people in early days, it was very important for them to be recognized as student athletes. And what comes with that? Yearbook recognition, lettering. And the only way that that can happen is if you get the support from the school to do that. So we did everything we possibly could to make clay target look and smell and taste and feel just like other high school sport. And because we stuck with that. The battleship in the pond has turned 180 degrees. So in our old days, it was parents and students that were contacting us saying, how do I get this started at the school? But now, almost half of our contacts that come in to talk about starting in a team comes from school administrators because they see the value of what ClayTarget does. And they've seen these clay target teams quickly become one of the largest teams at the school. So school administrators, athletic directors, superintendents, principals, teachers, all see the value of the sport. And now because of the success and what's been going on, it validates it all on its own.

Justin Aycock: I think that's one of the things that I've really appreciated about being out at the clay target league and other you shooting things is to see, you know, coming from an education background, being a former coach, not everybody's going to make the team. Not everybody's got the ability to be on there, but with shooting sports, it's a completely level field. Anyone can do it. You know, the accommodations are in place, you know, for kids. You know, if you got a kid that's in a wheelchair, he's not going to play football, but he can shoot in the clay league. And I take one example I take with me is I was at a collegiate shoot one day. And I noticed a young lady who had lost part of her arm, and she was still shooting. She's missing part of her forearm. And she caught my attention early on because I'm just at a distance. I'm there sitting there talking to folks, and I look, and her mount's different. I'm like, that's odd. She's throwing up funny, but I've been at enough shoots that every kid has their own unique way of mounting. getting on the bird. And then she comes walking by a little bit later. I'm like, wow, that is really cool. That speaks volumes to this. Like, you know, you can go in and anybody can do this. It's open to everybody. There's no, you don't have to be the most athletic kid in the school. Anybody can shoot.

John Nelson: Yeah. And the parents will say it the best. You don't have to be the tallest, the fastest, the strongest to participate in this sport. And in going to what she said, we actually have one academy that is completely made up of kids with learning disabilities. But guess what? ClayTarget is the only team that they have at the school. And so it's obviously a popular sport with them. And if there's any support that's needed on the line to ensure that everything's being followed, there's coaches that can stand right behind student athletes and help them participate.

Justin Aycock: I know we've talked a lot about, you know, we mentioned R3, and I think that's something to kind of bring into focus. I don't think a lot of people realize the impact of shooting sports on conservation, because it does tie back. There's, you know, the Pittman-Robertson money ties back into this, and the growth of shooting sports speaks to DU's mission. It helps drive that conservation, and there's more shooters now that will be considered non-hunters, but yet they vastly support the use of that funding for conservation. You know, for DU, working with the Clay Target League is a win-win situation for us. We're getting more kids involved in shooting, which increases the opportunity for them to hunt, but it's still driving conservation on the back end.

Jimbo Robinson: What is the Pittman-Robertson for people that may not know?

Justin Aycock: So, Pittman-Robertson is the Wildlife and Restoration Act. So, essentially, every time you buy a firearm or ammunition, there is an excise tax that's placed on the manufacturer of 10 to 11 percent, depending upon the firearm or ammunition. And that money goes into a fund that is used for wildlife conservation, restoration, as well as hunter education. So when you have kids that are in the league that are shooting, what is the average kid in the league probably shooting in a week, would you say?

John Nelson: Well, based on the surveys that we have, it's interesting, especially related to Pittman-Robertson dollars, is every family in the league is responsible for purchasing one firearm a year. Now, that may not seem like a lot, one per year, but we have 50,000 families in the league. That's 50,000 firearms per household that's being purchased.

Jimbo Robinson: Why do they have to purchase one?

John Nelson: Well, they don't. But when we do surveys within there is they're purchasing it for whatever reasons. It's not just for us. Right. But when you look at the makeup of the league is when we have an athlete that comes in the league at sixth grade, You go two or three years or four or even six years down the road until they're a senior, not only their physical attributes change, but their shooting skills change. Can you use the same shotgun you shot as a sixth grader, as a 12th grader? No, you cannot. And so the contributions that's happening financially through PR, you also look at too, and what's interesting about you know, kids that are shooting clay targets, I mean, they're going through a box of shells in about 10 minutes. On average, our student-athletes, every single student-athlete's going through seven cases of ammunition a year. So you take seven cases times 50,000 student-athletes, you're talking about hundreds of thousands of cases of shotgun ammunition that they're using. You look at the excise tax that goes with that, It's a considerable amount, and there's not many people that are out there in the shooting sport or hunting community that are going through that much ammunition a year.

Justin Aycock: When you think about the hunting community, if you go an entire duck season, if you shoot three, four boxes of shells, you're not going to shoot a case in a season for the average hunter. These kids are shooting a case a week, so it has a great impact there, and obviously it's impacting on R3. Kind of as a side note with that, the next thing I would say is, John, do you have any stories of kids learning to shoot? and bringing their families into shooting and hunting through the league. I mean, I know we've talked about today, anecdotally, we've heard these different stories of, you know, I know I shared one that one of my staffers brought to me that the mother had, kid had become active in shooting with the league and she knew nothing about firearms, so she was reaching out trying to find out about firearms training classes because she wanted to support her child. Have you heard any of those kind of stories, just anecdotally?

John Huberner: Yeah, just so I've got a couple of real-life examples. I'll start with something that John mentioned. The team that I was coaching, right now there are four previous student-athletes who have gone to college, come back, and are now coaching on the team. So they're definitely re-engaged. And what we're finding is that you take these families that have student athletes that are on the team, they are now able to compete with their mother, with their father, and do it as a family activity. I will tell you that we've seen a lot of growth over the last couple of years with folks who don't understand firearms. Their children want to shoot, so they get involved with the team. They either help with scoring, they help with team management, etc. And what you're finding is now they are getting into the shooting sport world simply through osmosis, if you will, by being exposed to it all the time and spending time with their student-athletes.

Justin Aycock: I think that's very impactful. I mean, it gets to the root of what we're trying to do, and that kind of brings me along to one of the last ones I want to talk about. Here with Duxillien, we have the Team Resource Assistance Program, which is something we came here with DU a few years ago to try to help youth shooting sports team fundraise. And looking at that, we kind of, coming out of COVID, we began to look at the R3 realm and expanding what we do with our youth engagement programs. And we had conversations with the league, and John, you may not realize this, but you were the emphasis for the TRAP program. The conversation you and I had for about an hour on our first conversation, and I asked you, what is one of the challenges that you face with your teams? And you said funding. Funding's a challenge. And I told you, well, we've had something that might work. I don't know. Let me get back with you. That conversation ended, and you kind of gave me the timeline of when some of your new stuff on the website was launching, and I carried that conversation back to a meeting with David Schussler, our chief fundraising officer, and I told him what your challenge was, and I said, you know, we had a program, we looked at this with another organization with youth, but it required us to do some certain things, and David looked at me, he's like, why can't we just run it out of headquarters? And I said, no, we can. We had that conversation, and you told me in a month the website was going to be launched. And I told David, I said, David, there are new websites launching. If we have something, we can put it on there, but it's got to be done in a month.

John Huberner: And it got done.

Justin Aycock: It got done in a month. We sat down, and we went through that program. And in a week's time, we had the initial draft done. We immediately brought in our graphics team and other folks and began to build it out. And it was ready to launch. Everything was to you guys to launch on your website in a month. And it was a slow start out that first year. We kind of soft launched it, and then we made it out to your national shoot that summer, and it really took off from there. And the feedback from the teams was positive. So, you know, my question to you is, based on what you've heard from teams, how has the TRAP program impacted your teams?

John Huberner: Yeah, this one is near and dear to my heart because fundraising is what I do for the league, obviously, and I will tell you that there are, and I'll use the city in which I live, Lakeville, there are 288 organizations of young people in that town, and all of them are trying to raise money. All of them have basically the same resources. I can sell popcorn. I can sell a little booklet that has a car wash coupon and a pizza coupon. I can sell chocolate bars or I can sell Christmas wreaths, right? So your program is different than any other program. It's self-sufficient, it's encapsulated, and it allows teams to have access to fundraising materials that they wouldn't have access to before. It makes it so easy for teams to be able to fundraise. that it is, for all intents and purposes, I would call it a no-brainer for teams who want to raise money. The teams that I know that have used it, there is zero trepidation and there's 100% success rate with it so far.

Justin Aycock: I appreciate hearing that. I know we talked about that in our second year, we were at your national shoot and we had coaches start coming back who had used it and we started getting like the thank yous like, hey man, this is really great. And for those of the folks that are listening, it's basically it's a turnkey fundraising program where you know, do use resources there. The teams have no upfront costs, so they're able to get their marketing materials from us, and they can have the items drop shipped to the winners when they're done. And we started that second year after we had launched it, we had teams coming back in at the national event, thanking us for it. And one of the funniest things that happened there, and I was talking with my team in the field, we were there, we started having coaches come back in, and we would be talking to another coach about the TRAP program. And they would stop and say, are you, are you, they look at the person, the coach, are you looking at doing this? And they'd be like, yeah, yeah. And they would just start explaining. We have one lady in Lansing that she got in there and she just started going. And my staff just kind of stopped and looked at me and I'm like, I just came to look like this. shut up and let her talk. And she just is explaining it. And then the funniest part of it was the guy that she was talking to kind of let me, I'm like, just listen to her. She's telling you exactly what I want to tell you. And, um, that's just been year after year with the clay league, having folks come back for that. I know we had, um, one of the teams that we know out of New York uses the program every year to pay for all of their kids to be able to travel to the national competition. So it's, you know, that's the impact we want to see. That's what we were shooting for with the program. So it's good to hear that from you guys.

Jimbo Robinson: What is the average student athlete ballpark? What's his cost for a year?

John Huberner: Well, that varies. So there's minimal costs, i.e. there is a cost to be in the league. Beyond that, it is if your team has uniforms, which most have team jerseys. It depends on what kind of shotgun you use, what kind of ammunition you use, how much ammunition. I know that when both of my younger two boys were participating, my wife always had some angst because between the two, we were going through 13 cases of ammo every season. And so it got expensive, but only from the standpoint that they were practicing more and more and more as they went. So I would say it's probably on par with most other school activities as it relates to an overall cost.

John Nelson: Yeah, we see a lot of differences between teams that'll do their own fundraising efforts. Obviously, the Trap Program is one of those that will, in some cases, the kids are shooting for free because the team's doing all the fundraising efforts for them, or we'll see teams that are charging hundreds of dollars to help offset some of those costs. You know, and going back is, you know, one thing that's unique about us is we're a very data-driven organization. We do a lot of surveys, and so we know a lot of information about teams and students, but when we asked the coaches about what's the number one concern about longevity within your team, fundraising was number one answer. And so what the challenges has always been for these teams is the average team size that comes into our league is about 13, 14 student athletes. Five years later, that number has more than doubled. And so what also has doubled? The costs that go with it. And so in order to keep these teams and keep them sustained and for new coaches that are coming in, we see a transition of coaches also. is when you have standard programs that work, that are in place, the next generation of coaches and athletes already have proven places for these fundraising efforts. The TRAP program's one of those where it's been consistent. The success is by its use. When you look at when the TRAP program started, it's 500% increase in participation number of teams is what it was just a handful of years ago. If it didn't work, that number would be at zero. And so that's what's beautiful about the program is the usage of it. The teams appreciate it. And what it does is it checks all the boxes where teams are concerned about fundraising. Is there money needed up front? How am I going to deliver products? Are the products I receive good products? Everything that the TRAP program stands for checks all those boxes and it makes it easy for the coaches to run those fundraising programs.

Justin Aycock: I think that was one of the things when we launched the TRAP program that there was an added benefit was I was formerly, before coming in my role here with Ducks Unlimited, I was a volunteer shooting coach. And I had been a DU volunteer, so I understood fundraising. And we understood that side of that. It's what we do for a living, and that's how we're able to identify these items. We know what the hot trends are because we're hosting 4,000 events a year across the country. And the intention in creating this, when David and I sat down, was to create a turnkey program that was just as dead simple as it could be. Let coaches coach. Don't worry about fundraising. We handle all the details. It's all you have to do. You're going online. You're ordering everything. We're taking care of all the marketing materials and things of that nature. You can ship everything directly to your winners. And you don't have to deal with that aspect of it. And that's been one of the things we've heard back from the coaches is like, this is the simplest thing for us to run. We can do it year in and year out. We changed the merchandise and we put it out in our area. Biggest complaints that I've ever heard at your shoots were, we didn't order enough tickets and we sold out too fast. I had one coach come in the second year we were running it and she said, I sold out in two days. I needed more tickets. And we're like, you can run another one, you know, and she's like, didn't know I could do that. You know, it's, it's getting past those hurdles, but I think it's, that's been good. And that's the impact we want to have. We want to see more kids shooting because it's, it's just beneficial for our three, for everyone involved.

Jimbo Robinson: And it's a win-win for both of us. I heard it in the car today. How do we get more? shotguns in more responsible kids' hands to be a student athlete. And for us, it's brand recognition, and we know that at some point, they will either become a conservationist or maybe become into hunting. One of the things, a story that came up at a dove hunt, a guy was there, and it was his first dove hunt, and I asked him, I said, how did you How was it? And he was like, God, it was, oh, it was incredible. And, uh, I said, what, what inspired you? And he goes, well, man, I shot clay targets as a kid and through high school with buddies. And, uh, when I got to college, it kind of faded. And then in my current role in his job, he got invited to go on a pheasant hunt last year, went and it kind of sparked that old interest. And he was a lot better than what his buddies had thought. because he had shot in high school and he actually gained a lot of respect. He said, it was kind of funny, some of the outdoorsy people in his office kind of stopped by and started talking to him about, hey man, hunting season's around. And he's like, man, I haven't hunted. Hunting is not what brought me into this. Shooting clay targets is what did. And now, but it's a part of that. And I think that that's the goal for all of us is to get more people involved in shooting sports.

John Huberner: Especially our young athletes, you know, we talked about our three and and I've been asked several times You know what the league brings to our three and the league brings to our three a mass amount of student athletes who want to do something with the skill set that that they are getting with us. And I heard this at nationals this year, this is a sport that they can do with their grandparents all the way through to when their grandparents. And a large portion of our student athletes do transfer their skill sets over into the conservation world or the hunting world. So it's really, really, really cool to see how we're impacting R3 without saying that we're in the R3 world.

John Nelson: Well, and the beauty of it is when we talk about, and we say it often, is we're creating the next generation of outdoor enthusiasts. As a clay target league, we don't really do much in the education about what else is available in outdoor conservation. And organizations like Ducks Unlimited have to reach these people to teach them more about what's available to them to continue those efforts as they get into an adulthood. And that's why the correlation between our mutual organizations works so well for a long-term strategy to create that next generation. And as we stated, as the coaches and these students are coming back to the league, we're too young yet to have a full generation into it, but we're getting close as we're seeing these young people now that are becoming adult mentors and coaches to these younger people. And that's what this is all about, that if we don't do that, then we're going to continue to go backwards in declining participation in hunting and recreational shooting sports.

Justin Aycock: And that's one thing, being at the national shoots and the state shoots, with you guys talking about the kids coming through, they're not as focused on the fundraising side. That's obviously mom, dad, the coaches that are footing the bill. But they come in and ask us a lot about duck hunting and that aspect of it. The kids that are hunters are the ones that are interested in it. I think there's a real good point of what you guys are focusing on and why we want to be engaged there is we know that there's an age group, 14 to around 17, they do a lot of peer-to-peer influencing and kids are talking to their peers at school about what they're doing, their hobbies, and that's drawing more people into the sport. We're hearing those anecdotal stories, so I think that's a wonderful, wonderful story to hear. And we're sort of bridging those gaps between the hunting world, the shooting world, and our three all together.

Jimbo Robinson: Is there anything else we can do for y'all as we close out this episode? Not only this episode, but your visit here to headquarters. Is there anything else Ducks Unlimited can do to help USA play Target League?

John Nelson: You know, the best thing that's in the best interest for all of us is to spread the word about here's an activity that's available to young people, to shooting range, to the shooting sport community, that get a team started at your local school. You know, visit a shooting range that you probably knew that was never there. Take firearm safety training and education and learn about firearms safety training. I'll go back to really the core of this message was a superintendent's message to me as I sat in a meeting with a whole pile of superintendents talking about shooting sports and how that could work and how everyone was a little uneasy about that. And I had a superintendent say, folks, we have two options here. We can teach kids about the use of firearms and ammunition in school or on the street. Which one do you want? And boy, I'll tell you, you talk about some eyes that opened. I couldn't have said it any better than that. And so the more and more that we can get some of these young people out in the clay target league and getting these teams started, having these adult mentors and parents helping these young people become adults and be in the shooting sport community is good for everyone. So as I would say to Ducks Unlimited and anyone else that's listening, get a clay target team started at your school and you'll see the benefits to everyone.

Jimbo Robinson: Take a kid shooting, right? I mean, you said it best there. We need mentors. We need… It's not… And the message doesn't even have to be take a kid hunting, right? It's just take a kid shooting. and teach him about what you know about not only shooting sports, but safety and safety at the range and everything. And at the end of the day, it'll bring more people in and bring them in the right way.

Justin Aycock: All right, guys, I want to thank you guys for joining us today. You gave us a good insight into the Clay League. And I want to thank you for coming down to Memphis and joining us here.

Jimbo Robinson: Thank you all very much for listening to another episode of the Ducks Unlimited podcast. We want to thank John and John for being here with us today. Thanks Justin Aycock, our lead staff member behind this program. And Justin works nonstop for shooting sports and for all of our youth engagement programs and for bringing these here today. And from all of us here at One Waterfowl Way, thank you and have a great day.