The sun peaked over the mountain on a cold November morning. We had arrived in Albuquerque earlier than anticipated, and the engine vibrating to a stop woke me. It was near 30 degrees, and they had a light dusting of snow on the ground only a few days before. The air was crisp,dry and full of anticipation. Today, we are going to a sporting clays course....
Only a day prior, I had found online a sporting clays course less than 20 miles from our hotel in Rio Rancho, a developing community outside of Albuquerque proper. I called the contact number on the website. The voice on the other end told me the next public shoot wasn't until the 9th of December. I thanked him for his time and hung up. A few minutes later, my cell phone rings and a gentleman by the name of Dave tells me he was calling from the gun club and wanted to know if he could help. I explained to him our situation, that we were coming in from out of town and we had no shotguns and no shells. The only thing we had was a love for the sport and a need to shoot. "We don't rent guns yet, we're a very new club," he starts, "But let me call you back in a few hours I'll see what I can do."
The hours ticked by. I continued my load in, and kept looking at my phone. About 2 in the afternoon, my phone rings, "I can get you two shotguns, one over under, and one semi-automatic. I could get you shells, but what I'd have to charge you would be outrageous."
"Sounds great, we'll take care of the shells and see you tomorrow at noon," I replied.
Excitedly I told my fellow shooters and sent Wayne on a mission. We needed 400 shells so we could shoot the course. Luckily in Denver, I had a friend coming to the show and she happily drove Wayne to a Bass Pro Shop.
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At 11:00 AM, the outside temperature had reached 42 degrees, as we piled into the rented SUV and headed out to the Del Norte Gun Club. I went online to the website and wrote down the directions. It seemed simple enough at the start. Follow highway 550 to the Northern Corridor and turn left. From there, it got interesting.
After a few more turns, the directions all started from a cattle guard, "4.5 miles after the cattle guard, turn right at the telephone pole with the yellow tape on it."
The cattle guard marked the end of civilization. The paved road stopped and the bumpy dirt road began.
Almost 10 miles of bouncing around and we had arrived at the gate. Dave met us there and led us to the start of the course. We pulled up to a sea container that was serving as the "club house" for the course. We were not at Sandanona. We weren't even at the Middletown Sportsmens Lodge. But it didn't really matter because the surrounding view was spectacular.
Dave led me into the "club house" and gave me an electronic key. "The whole course is automated, so all you do is put this key in and it will count the number of birds you release. I'll walk with you to the first station and show you how it's done. This is Frank and Larry, they'll be shooting the course today as well."There stood two crusty, world hardened men. Frank, was in his early 50's. He stood there in a fleece ski cap and dirty fleece shooting jacket. His partner, Larry was older, maybe early 60's. He had on a camouflage hunting vest and fedora. They both wore large rustic smiles that revealed well worn teeth.
"The 1st bird on station one wasn't launching yesterday," Frank started in on Dave, "The f**king thing is probably broken again."
"We'll go have a look at it right now. This is Dan and his friends, it's their first time shooting the course. Do you mind shooting with them?"
"No problem, if you can get that damn bird to work."
We got out to the first station and Frank stepped up to the firing line. "Well, if you hook up the battery, it works better," Dave said sarcastically as he attached the leads. Frank only huffed and loaded his shotgun. Larry opted out of shooting. Instead he became the trapper (he launched the targets) and score keeper, and general keeper of knowledge.
Needless to say, we had a great day of shooting.
As you can see from these pictures, there was no fancy wooden gazebo acting as the station. Only a wire mesh fence forming a V around you to help control the spent shells launched from the semi automatic weapons. But it didn't seem to matter. There was great camaraderie in the air. Frank and Larry would give us tips on how to approach each station. We would laugh and talk about how were shooting. We even got Frank to start yelling, "Sandbagger!" whenever one of us hit more than 2 targets in a row.
Sadly, this is the only picture I took with Frank and Larry. That's Mel sitting in the foreground while Wayne shoots at station 6.We now have friends in Albuquerque, and a place to come, next time we have a day off here.
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Today we were shooting all standard sized targets, called 108's. At one of the stands, the targets flew directly at us, so if you missed, it landed on the ground in front of the station. After we had all shot, I walked out and grabbed one. Sort of gives you an idea of the size of the target. The only other clay we shot were the rabbits. Well, we shot AT the rabbits, I don't think we hit a single one. The rabbit clays are a little different because they have to roll on their sides. But the size is still the same.
All the clays nowadays are either biodegradable or are made of fertilizer.
I don't have a very big hand, but still these targets are a lot smaller than I thought!
Another highlight from the day was station two. Only a few days before, they had a tournament on the course, so all the stations listed the presentations. We decided to shoot according to the list as it made for a good guide line. Station two was unbelievably hard. We shot 4 pair, two "on report" (second clay is launched after the sound of the gun firing at the first clay), and two "true pair" (Both clays launched at the same time). Both clays flew directly from left to right. The second flew so fast that half the time, we couldn't see it! I don't think a single one of us hit any. Here's a picture of Wayne making a valiant attempt at hitting the second clay. If you can blow the picture up, you can see the little black streak in the sky, just to the left of the mountains.
Frank would say, "If if flies, it dies," which carried two meanings. The first and most obvious one, Frank likes to hunt game bird. The second, which helped us out tremendously on a few of the stations, is that the trajectory of some of the clays is dipping. We kept shooting above them. "If it flies, it dies." Shoot lower.I had my best outing thus far, I shot 61 out of 100. But I think I cheated. The third station had one clay flying left to right and the second clay going right to left. There was some debate as to which to shoot first on a true pair. I told Larry that it might be better for me to shoot the left to right one first because I am left handed. On the very next station, Larry handed me his personal over under shotgun. Larry too, was left handed. And it made a world of difference to have a left handed shotgun! On one of the stations, I actually shot 10 out 10! They could not stop calling me a "sandbagger"!
Frank had the best score of the round at 62, I was second (but first of my friends!) at 61, Wayne shot 44, Maddy shot 37, and Mel shot 30.
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And finally, here's a good video of a launched clay. The traps (launchers) were fairly accessible as most of them launched from next to the firing line. You can see the clay take off and the clear miss by someone. The upside down garbage can acts as weather proofing for the biodegradable clays. You should also note the snow. It was pretty cold, but we were all very warm with out smiles.
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