Here's a brief overview of the three most popular sports and a couple of the less common ones.  The links below will take you to sites with more information than you ever wanted to know!

Trap (American)

American, or ATA, trap shooting is fairly straightforward.  To overly simplify, you are basically shooting at a target that is moving away from you.  While the angle of the target, and your shot, varies, all targets have the same upward flight path angle.  ATA  Trap is shot by squads of 5 maximum, as there are 5 shooting stations.  Each competitor shoots one after the other at 5 different targets, then everyone shifts to the next station.  This continues until each competitor has shot at 5 targets from each of the five stations, so 25 targets, and 25 shots, comprise a "round."

There are three disciplines of ATA Trapshooting.  Rather than fill this page with all the details, just click here to find out more.  Interested in the history of trapshooting?  It's a surprisingly old sport, click here to find out more.  Now, if you're still interested, check out the full details on the ATA website.
 

Skeet

Skeet shooting is somewhat different than trap shooting.  Instead or targets mostly moving away from you, targets can cross, come straight at you, move away from you, or come straight over your head.  As in Trap shooting, there is still a field, but the skeet field has 8 stations instead of 5, and the shooters move as a group from one station to the next.  Also, in skeet shooting, there are two machines that throw targets - a "high house" that launches a target from a point high off the ground, and a "low house" that launches targets from somewhere around waist level. For more information, check out the National Skeet Shooting Association web site.

Sporting Clays

Sporting Clays is the closest thing to actual field shooting of all shotgun sports. The sport dates back to England in the early 1900s when trap shooting used live pigeons. With the introduction of clay targets, the sport began to take on the popular form known today. But rather than using standardized distances, target angles and target sizes, sporting clays courses are designed to simulate the hunting of ducks, pheasants and even rabbits. Six different sizes of clay targets give the participant the experience of actual hunting conditions, so you can see why the sport is so popular with hunters.

Sporting clays has numerous variations.  Sporting clays courses (shown above) are a little bit like golf courses with shotguns.  Shooters walk from station to station and shoot different target presentations at each station.  Usually courses are set up in wooded areas to simulate hunting conditions.

5 Stand sporting clays (pictured to the right) has shooters try for a variety of targets including inbound, outbound, crossing, rabbits (rolling on the ground), straight up, and more.  Shooters move from station to station shooting different target combinations much like trap.  For more information on sporting clays in general, check out the National Sporting Clays Association web site.

SCRAP

OK, this one is a little unusual, and quite difficult, but lot's of fun.  It's kind of like a combination of Trap and Skeet, but with some twists.  Shooters follow the skeet stations, but all targets are launched from the trap house in an outbound direction with varying angles.  So right off the bat, you are shooting at a target very far away and getting farther by the second.  All shooters start at Skeet station 1 and take 1 shot each at a target in turn.  If a shooter hits the target, they get to advance to station 2.  If they miss, they are stuck on their station to hit one.  This continues for 25 targets and whomever gets the further around the course wins.  As there are only 7 Skeet stations in SCRAP (station 8 is not used), the good players will hit station 7, then start working their way back.  We're not mentioning any names, but shooters have been known to get stuck on station 1 for all 25 targets!  Yes, it is hard.