Dave ain't here - he won't know...

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Anyone ever shot clays off a cruise ship?

Always wanted to do that, then again it does require one to actually go on a cruise.

Folks I have spoken with , said it was fun, and different from skeet, trap and other clay games. Also a whole lot different that shooting off a boat when folks are shooting at you as well...

Now I have shot from canoes, johnboats, bass boats, a barge, and somesuch, but except for some impromtu training and some ...err...well..."events" (that'll cover it) not all my shooting was at clays.

So anyone shoot clays while on a cruise? Like to hear about it, the challenges and all...

Nah...don't worry Dave, like I said, he won't know, and the Staff and Mods, don't worry about them, I'll run a distraction(s) in another forum somewhere...

I have my role around this forum, just getting Oleg, Staff and Mods trained was not easy, I have to keep training them too...

You folks are welcome...

Steve
 
Last rumor I heard there was only 1 comapny that still allowed shooting. I think they were out of Norway. This was all Errornet knowledge. Can anybody back this up?

I too would like to try it out.
 
Not here. The only "cruise" I've done was on a 44' catamaran down in the BVIs. We didn't exactly have room for stuff like that, as we had every square inch of extra space packed with food, rum and wine (at least when we started).

Ahh... good times!! :)
 
I shot a squirrel out of a tree from the seat of my kayak once, and years ago I shot a big musky that was only partially submerged, sunning himself on top of a sandbank with his back above the waterline.

That'd pretty much be the extent of my waterborne shooting. Us rednecks don't go in much for cruises. :cool:
 
I went on a cruise to the Bahamas a few years ago and there was no shooting. US Customs are a little crazy about weapons. I also did a cruise to Ensenada Mexico and no guns there either.

While I think it would be a blast :)p, pun intended), I don't know of any that allow it.

Ed
 
Best I recall one of the cruises that allowed was Alaskan. [Not sure what line, they went on an "Alaskan Cruise" all I know ] Folks viewed glaciers , whales and such. Number of years ago so perhaps no longer offered.

The folks said one of the hardest aspects was no horizon (false horizon ? help me out Nautical and Navy folks) skewing "land brains" perception of distance, which skewed leads.

Just find the thought of doing this not only fun, also learning some new perceptions with shotguns, shooting in general, might be interesting to discuss for a change.

I do recall it was NOT inexpensive. Seems the guns were NICE! Dedicated trap gun BT99, Some O/Us, some SxSs and of course nice wood and all for pump and semis.

"High dollar guns, a nice variety to better fit a variety of shooter sizes and skill/ experience level" I think he used a Perazzi MX8, and later a Model 12 trap gun.
 
My brother went, have no idea the cruise line but he shot a rizzini and thought higly of it enough to buy a similar one. said it was hard, the wind played havoc, said it was more like shooting geese on windswept prairie, but it was cheap, maybe 5 dollars a round?
 
I shot clays off the back of a cruiser ship, one of them dull grey ones where everyone wears the same clothes. Some vacation, they sent us all sorts of un-cool places and made us work the ENTIRE TIME!!!

Honestly, back then, I couldn't hit a barn from the inside as far as clays were concerned so I don't know if it was any harder than on land or not.
 
You're going about it the wrong way.
I live about 25 miles from lake michigan.
Once a year we used to go on a friend's yacht, and bring several long black plastic cases?, and a dozen cardboard boxes? on board with us.
Once you get a few miles out, out comes the thrower.
Out on the water you don't even need any hearing protection unless you shoot right next to the cabin. Just stay 10 miles from anybody, and nobody cares, or needs to know.
It's eerily quiet shooting a shotgun without hearing protection on the water.
You could shoot all day out there, and your ears wouldn't ring once.
Calm water is the best.
I'm sure you could charter a boat for a 'fishing' cruise, as long as you kept it a private party, and the captain had done that kind of tour before.
 
Out on the water you don't even need any hearing protection unless you shoot right next to the cabin. Just stay 10 miles from anybody, and nobody cares, or needs to know.
It's eerily quiet shooting a shotgun without hearing protection on the water.
You could shoot all day out there, and your ears wouldn't ring once.
Click to expand...

:uhoh: Just because it doesn't hurt doesn't mean it's a good idea. If you value your hearing, use hearing protection whenever you can.
 
Heck, never been on a cruise to shoot skeet off of. Most of my time at sea has been on small craft (less than 40') fishing boats not floating wedding cake ho-tels. SAW 'em plenty of times, coming and going in the shipping lanes off the NC coast and coming into the Cape Fear River a couple of times, but never set foot on one.

Only on-board at- sea shotgunning was limited to a little stainless steel .410 Snake Charmer used on one of my friend's boats to subdue eating size sharks (4-5') before bringing them aboard to add to the catch of black sea bass, flounder, grouper, king mackerel, spanish mackerel, dorado and whatever else edible got caught that day. A load of #6 out of a 3" .410 applied to the correct spot does a good job quelling a shark, and you do NOT want to bring one aboard not properly quietened down. A shark has to be of a pretty good size before there is enough meat on it to not throw back to grow some more, and one big enough to eat is big enough to hurt you (heck, one NOT big enough to eat can hurt you).

There was this 8 footer that Wild Bill decided to bring home (he didn't carry a gun at sea) one time near the end of a trip, dragged it backwards by the tail for a few miles till he thought he had drowned it (after all that's what the books said) then heaved it over the stern. It came alive when it hit the deck, chomped on a 178-qt. cooler for a while, ripped the fighting chair loose from the deck leaving teethmarks in the aluminum pedestal and treed everybody up on the bow of the boat. They managed to shove the shark back overboard without anyone getting chomped and let it go, having had sufficient entertainment for the afternoon.

They tell me there are species and size and creel limits on sharks now and some species it's not legal to keep. We never abused the resource and we liked eating shark, always figured that if one of us ever got et it was just payback. Never shot any clay birds out there though.

lpl/nc (old man without the sea)
 
Never been on a love boat type cruise. I've heard of other U.S. Navy ships shooting clay off of the fantail though. Our DD small arms consisted of the M9, 870, and M-14s. Famfire quals were off the fantail, punching holes into the waves. Or in the case of the 25MM, the target was the killer tomato. The fantail was the place to do things that's for sure (golf, fishing, stogie night, steel beach picnics, etc.).

Tgtblln.jpg

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If they don't allow clay shooting, why would I go on a cruise?

Hanging out on a boat sounds like the most boring (and fattening) week I can possibly imagine.
 
I did.
many years ago, letsee..maybe...1977? Carnivale was the line.
It was fun, but it was different. I remember standing in a short line. Paying a couple bucks for 4 shots. Having a choice between a double or a pump, both 12g. The wind and the pitch and roll of the ship made for some funky target action. The trap was off the stern and all targets went aft and down pretty quickly. Some seasoned shooters were stumped by the fast chang-ups, some shooters were obviously novice. A crewperson loaded the shotgun of choice and handed it to the shooter, and also made sure the shotgun stayed pointed aft.
I have alway shot low mount and with an instinctive style I've always thought of as "snap shooting". Regardless of what you call it, I broke my four. I remember thinking that some of those folks were making it harder than they needed to.
When I stepped away a big tan Texan stepped out of the line and said, "I'll bet you're a dove hunter, right?"
I wasn't at the time, but I shot my share of quail and pheasant. I had a nice chat with him and he told me about going to Mexico to shoot whitewing doves. First time I ever heard of that. We talked briefly about shooting technique and watched some other folks shoot.
I've heard the cruises are a little different now.
 
For those of you north of the Mason-Dixon line who read the post by "Card", I thought I'd better chime in that a "Musky" in NC is a muskrat, not a gamefish.
 
Bullet Bob said:
For those of you north of the Mason-Dixon line who read the post by "Card", I thought I'd better chime in that a "Musky" in NC is a muskrat, not a gamefish.
Click to expand...
No, Bob - in this case I was talking about the fish, but I probably should have mentioned that it happened in West Virginia and around 20 years ago.

I grew up on the banks of the Gauley river, which had a decent musky population at the time. It's one of the few rivers in that part of the world that stays cold enough long enough (because the water flows out of the bottom of Summersville lake) to keep a healthy population of non-hybrid muskies. During the spring and summer these big reptile-looking toothy fish would lay on sandbars out in the middle of the river, with their dorsal fins and back sticking up out of the water.

A lot of times when we'd fish for musky we'd bring along a pistol anyway, because you sure as hell wouldn't want a live one in the boat with you. I guess eventually it just kind of seemed like a good idea to drift by the occasional sandbar and just shoot the fish lying there, and skip all that tedious business of lines and lures and nets and such. :)
 
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