Winter 2008

January 25, 2014 Leo's Invitational Clays Shoot: (11 Photos)

11. It's now the end of January, my fellow snowmobilers and I are still suffering through this horrible warm spell.

10. On the plus side, with snow melted the Sporting Clays Range at the Rod and Gun Club was easily accessible again so the Sporting Clays Crew decided to host a shoot. They have a number of portable battery operated throwers and many pole mounted mechanical throwers, so we were able to host a great shoot.

9. Saturday morning, I met Mark Squires & Danny Barrington at Tim's in Paradise and headed out the highway to the St. John's Rod and Gun Club.

8. The guys are relatively new to shooting, and had never been to our club before, I invited them as my guest to visit the club and see what shotgun sports are all about. The weather was nearly perfect (ideal by winter standards!) with no wind, sunny skies, and temperatures just south of freezing. Over 20 shooters braved the cold and took advantage of the beautiful day to blow the dust off our shotguns.

7. Mark, Danny and I teamed up with Bassan, Troy & Valerie, our squad headed out onto the field to break some targets. The first station was a "Teal" clay thrown very high in a left to Right arc utilizing the Sporting Clay Group's new electric thrower. It's a very neat target presentation and impressed our two new shooters! The next station was a pair of clays, one left to right, the other nearly straight, taken as a double or 2nd clay on report whichever the shooter preferred.

6. The next station presented another pair, with one clay smaller then the other so they flew on very different flight paths.

5. The last station was another pair of clays, one green, one orange you had to break the green one first or a 2nd hit on the orange did not count.

4. After the first round we paused shooting for a terrific lunch of homemade moose stew, rolls & hot dogs, a first class meal as usual!

3. After lunch we shot another round of 25 targets, the only real difference being at the first station where the previous high left to right target was replaced by an even higher target launched straight up.

2. After our last round of shooting, Mark, Danny, Andrea, Troy, Valerie and I headed over to the old rabbit throwing station and fired off a box of shells chasing rabbit style targets. These targets are launched horizontally at lighting speed (think a real rabbit on red bull!) bouncing along the ground.

1. All in all it was an excellent day. We had a lot of fun, fired off a few shells, and got two more guys hooked on our sport!

Cheers, MIKE