Not from where I'm standing. I don't see a decline in overall numbers but, like others, I stopped visiting both my local shoots in 2011 because of poor value. People drifted away because the owners had got lazy and expected people to pay £28 to shoot 100 sporting clays - for which sum there was a whole 5 stands and no scorers.
A couple of Sundays ago I went to a registered sporting shoot and paid £35 for 100 birds set over 13 stands, each with a scorer/ref.
It's not a cheap hobby and people vote with either their feet or their wallets. Some grounds do well and always get good turnouts but, for one reason or another, others are less popular - but the real addicts always show up to shoot every chance they get.
I agree.
Excluding petrol to get to and from the ground a 100 sporting session costs about £0.55 per shot ( £35 for entry and £20 for shells ), you can kit up for well under £1000 and membership of a 'club' that usually does little more than give you a club ranking and cheaper practice clays costs around £50. Buying a £10k gun does not guarantee being able to shoot better ( moneys probably better spent on coaching ) and you can shoot against the worlds best, competitively with your £1000 used Beretta.
For your £55 you get about 2 hours of entertainment.
Even shooting a 100 sporting once a week is only going to cost you £2750 a year. ( 2 weekends you don't go because it's Christmas or you're on holiday )
That's a pretty healthy level of participation.
What are the alternatives ?
Motor racing. even participating once a month in a cheap track day car is probably going to cost you £7k to £10k per annum and the sky's the limit really. Your level of success really is directly proportional to the depth of your wallet. Spending £100k in a season is commonplace. If you wrap a car round an armco it's gone. If i ding my gun I get to claim on insurance!
Skydiving. Lets face it is one for the young as a participant. To get in to it and get your wings is going to cost around £3.5k minimum. Work on about £100 for a 60 second 15000 freefall.
Keelboat yachting. You get a lot of participation for your buck but a days offshore sailing is going to cost very little but the worst bit is it costs £3000 to £5000 to moor a small yacht in UK waters these days, plus antifouling, engine maintenance etc etc. Buying a small yacht will set you back upwards of about £10k at very basic entry level and if you don't know how to sail you'd better break out the wallet. Another major challenge is not a lot of people are happy to sail alone, especially in keelboats so you have the problem of getting crew together.
Power flying. Not quite in motor racing territory but it's getting there. Cost of entry is high, lessons etc and a days flying .... talk about £80 per hour upwards.
Gliding - Actually very reasonable, probably in the same league as clay shooting but very, very time intensive.
Golf - probably similar to shooting.
Watching football on a season ticket - again similar as long as you don't get suckered into buying 'kit' at ridiculous prices.
There are a hundred other hobbies you can look at but I'll hazard a guess that at £27.50 an hour shooting is far, far from the top of the list in terms of cost.
My thoughts on this are that people will find the money to participate and we should encourage participation in sports or some kind of serious hobby far, far more than we do. Sports at school should be far more prevalent and encouraged on an ongoing basis. A pass time where you can meet up with a bunch of like minded people, share some fluffy rabbits and discuss the week, equipment, competitions, gossip and a hundred other things away from the day-to-day of earning a living or looking after the family is absolutely necessary to a healthy existence.
