Why does skeet have 25 targets if there are only 24 scheduled shots?

The 25th shot is the option: your first miss is repeated immediately from the same station and house. If you shoot the first 24 straight, you take the option as a second low-house target at station 8.

Which skeet stations have doubles?

Stations 1, 2, 6 and 7. At each, the doubles come after the two singles, with both houses throwing at once - you take the outgoing bird first, then the incomer.

How to Score a Round of Skeet

Skeet is shot on a semicircle of eight stations between two trap houses: the high house on the left throws a target from about ten feet up, the low house on the right from about waist height. Every target flies the same two paths all day - the game is that you move, so every station shows you a different angle on the same crossing birds.

The round, station by station

Stations 1 and 2 - high-house single, low-house single, then a double (both houses at once).
Stations 3, 4 and 5 - high single, low single.
Stations 6 and 7 - high single, low single, then a double.
Station 8 - the middle of the field: one high, one low, taken fast. More in station 8 tips.

That's 16 singles and four doubles - 24 shots. The 25th is the option.

How the option works

Your first missed target is repeated immediately, from the same station at the same house - that repeat is your option. Break everything through station 8's low house and you shoot the option as a second low-8 - which is why "going into 8 clean" carries a little extra electricity: run it and the 25th bird in your hand is straight territory.

Scoring it right

Every bird is dead or lost, same as trap, but the bookkeeping is fussier: singles and doubles at the same station, the option floating to wherever the first miss happened, and in doubles the order of the two birds matters on the sheet. This is exactly the kind of round paper mangles and software doesn't: Smoke 'Em walks the true NSSA-style sequence station by station, marks singles and doubles separately, drops the option card at the real spot it happened, and breaks your stats out by high house, low house, singles and doubles. See the full flow.