Like golf with a shotgun
Photos by LOREN BENOIT/Press Michael Quinn shoots clays with a group of friends Wednesday morning at Double Barrel Ranch.
Bill Brooks unloads two shotgun shell casings while shooting clays with friends Wednesday morning at Double Barrel Ranch.
Coeur d'Alene Press reporter Judd Wilson shoots clays while on assignment with the Coeur d'Alene Skeet and Trap Club Wednesday morning at Double Barrel Ranch. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
Lee McFarland with the Coeur d'Alene Skeet and Trap Club shoots clays Wednesday morning at Double Barrel Ranch. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
David Noreen with the Coeur d'Alene Skeet and Trap Club shoots clays with a group of friends Wednesday morning at Double Barrel Ranch. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
Bill Brooks shoots clays with a group of friends Wednesday afternoon at Double Barrel Ranch. Brooks is a level 3 instructor with the National Skeet Shooting Association. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
By JUDD WILSON
Staff Writer
ROCKFORD, Wash. — Bill Brooks is one of the top 20 skeet instructors in the world, and he recommends a sport for learning everything you need to know about shooting with a shotgun.
The popular Press consumer advocate says shooting sporting clays provides a radically different, fun challenge. Targets come from every direction at unpredictable speeds and trajectories. Some skip on the ground, others fly vertically or curve through the air. Some clays come toward you. Others fly away.
Like Brooks, Coeur d’Alene resident Michael Quinn said the sport is challenging.
“Hitting 50 percent is good for this sport,” Quinn said Wednesday.
At Double Barrel Ranch, Ron Olmstead said he changes each of the 17 sporting clay stations weekly. That means even frequent shooters can’t rest on their laurels. There’s always a new challenge. That’s part of the fun and why sporting clays are very popular with the younger crowd, Brooks said.
One bonus of the sport is that, unlike golf, you don’t have to chase down your bad shots in the woods or the sandtrap. Good-natured heckling from fellow competitors is also part of the sporting clays experience, except when people are shooting , Brooks said.
“It takes a lot of practice to get good at this,” Quinn said while shooting.
After missing two clays in a row, Brooks poked fun at himself: “Some people never get good at it,” he quipped.
He could afford to joke. Brooks was the high scorer for the day.
Olmstead started the sporting clays business here in 2002 and hosts corporate groups of up to 120 people at a time, plus 10-12 tournaments per season. Visitors to the area often come in because they’re on a business trip and are up for a new experience.
“It’s golf with a shotgun,” he said.
Quinn emphasized that shooting sporting clays is a very safe activity with consistent safety rules.
The sport uses low-recoil, low-noise rounds so it doesn’t wear you out even if you’re new to the sport, Brooks said. Sporting clays is also a welcoming sport for patrons who have a difficult time moving around, he added. The course provides easy access from station to station via golf carts.
Double Barrel Ranch uses biodegradable clays. A round of sporting clays is 100 clays for $50 or 50 clays for $35. Shooters bring their own gun and ammo, or can buy ammo and rent guns from the shop.
For more information, contact Ron Olmstead at 509-995-3524 or: ron@uplandbirdranch.com
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Editor’s note: Mike Quinn, a former recon Marine, scored 49. Press reporter Judd Wilson scored 47, one better than champion skeet shooter David Noreen and three shots under award-winning trap shooter Lee McFarland, a retired Alaskan Bush Pilot and heavy equipment operator. Press photographer Loren Benoit shot a 38 and Bill Brooks finished with 67. Brooks’s all-time best is 84. The higher the score in this golf game, the better.