HUMBOLDT — Jaryt Hess of Humboldt recently won the 123rd Grand American Handicap trap shooting competition in Sparta, Ill.
The Grand American is one of the biggest events of the trapshooting year and brings in about 3,000 shooters from across the country. The handicap portion of the competition in which Hess participated is considered the most prestigious event.
“It was pretty fun, there were a lot of people there. It was a lot harder than shooting at the Kansas State Shoot,” said Jaryt Hess. “I hope to take it to college and I hope to get back to the 27-yard line on handicap which is one of the events that they do. The better you do, the farther you move back.”
The World Shooting Recreational Complex in Sparta has all sorts of ranges and includes 24 skeet fields and 120 trap fields which lie along a 3-mile stretch.
This is the second year Hess has participated in the Grand American.
“Last week, he won some trophies and capitalized on the last event, the main one, and ended up being one of the two that broke every target. He won in the shootoff afterwards as well,” said his father, Jeremy.
Hess, age 13, began shooting with the Humboldt Middle School team two years ago. His father and brother got him into trapshooting. His brother, Javyn, also competed in the sport during high school.
Hess normally competes at the Kansas Trapshooting Association’s venue in Sedgwick which is one of the main shooting venues in the state for amateurs. Hess took first place in the Kansas State Handicap Championship in 2021 there.
“The first time he really tried it was in 2020 when he was 11. He pretty much picked it up right away. That’s when he joined the Humboldt team and he took at it right away once he got a gun that worked good for him,” said Jeremy Hess.
The trapshooting team practices at the Lone Tree Gun Club where he has worked on perfecting his handicap shot up to 24 yards out. Sixteen yards is the standard shooting distance in trapshooting but Hess has been able to move farther back and take in lots of words of wisdom from older shooters at the gun club.
The sport of trap shooting has grown exponentially over the years. In 2015, there were an estimated 15,745 high school participants around the country. That number has grown to 36,690.
What once was a sport that included only two states at its onset has spread to 34 states nationwide.
The Amateur Trapshooting Association (ATA) is the worldwide trapshooting organization and is based out of Sparta, Illinois, where the nationals are held every year. In Kansas, there is the Kansas Trapshooting Association (KTA) which costs only $20 annually.
Hess and his Humboldt High School trapshooting team will begin their season on Sunday, Sept. 25.
