Guns: Gator Skeet and Trap

If sporting clays is akin to golf with a shotgun, skeet and trap are the driving range and putting green, respectively. The best place I know of in Gainesville to hone your skills in busting those clay pigeons is "Gator Skeet and Trap," located behind the Gainesville airport. It's a friendly place, with shotgun rentals available and the various ranges open to the public for reasonable fees. It's also only about 15 minutes away from the University of Florida, which is convenient.

Playing these clay games is a lot of fun in and of itself. There's a visceral thrill in seeing those orange discs evaporate into powder from a well-placed load of shot, a kind of immediate feedback that you don't necessarily get from other types of recreational shooting. Additionally, though, skeet and trap are good ways to make sure your self-defense skills with a shotgun are up to par, as Oleg's picture here demonstrates:

I haven't been back there in a long time, but I do recall their fantastic Olympic-style bunker trap system. Hitting those clays as they rocketed away from you was quite a challenge: