And I did.
I'm not sure if Lana'i Pine Sporting Clays is part of the Four Seasons property. The only way to make a reservation on the course is through the Four Seasons, but when you are up at the club house, it doesn't seem to feel like it's part of the hotel. No matter, the point being, because of it's "tie" to the Four Seasons, I knew I could expect great people and exceptional service.And it didn't disappoint. After we landed on Lana'i and checked into our room, a very nice man named Mike, came to the hotel to shuttle us to the club house. I guess I should have payed better attention to the details when I signed up, because when we got there, they had everything you needed to shoot. Included in the cost for shooting the course was: The shotgun (your choice, over/under or automatic), 100 shells, eye and ear protection, shooting vest, and golf cart rental. Being over prepared, I had lugged my own vest and eye and ear protection from L.A.. But I guess that's fine since it's what I'm comfortable in.
After signing the waiver, Mike drove me and my trapper (also known as "wife") down to the first station. To keep with the fancy Four Seasons theme, these golf carts were retro fitted just for the purpose of shooting.
As you can see, it had gun mounts for four shotguns, and the diamond plated box on the front, which had extra ear and eye protection, score cards, a first aid kit (in case Dick Chenney came to shoot the course) and a box of kleenex. There was also a rail along the top of the box so you could put your shells.Not only were the carts fancy, so was the course.
The entire thing weaved through a pine forest and was completely paved. Every station had a small covered gazebo, gun rack, bench and a name, usually of a locally found game bird. What I thought was a nice touch was a small metal pail hanging on the gazebo for your spent shells. Everything is completely automated with wireless triggers for the traps.At other courses I've shot, you are given a card or key that keeps track of how many targets you throw, so at the end of the course, they charge you the proper amount. At Lana'i Pine they just hand you the wireless remote and say, "Have fun!" So we were able to throw as many targets at each station as we wanted.
All this is great, but how did the course shoot?
As I've said before, my worst day shooting is still better than... This however, was not my worst day shooting, this course is a lot of fun! The standard course (it changes for tournaments) is designed for first time shooters. Which many people are since most of the clientèle are coming from the hotels. This is to say, many of the stations offer "soft" targets. Basically, easy things to hit. Targets that fly at you or have high arcs so they actually appear to stop in the air. There was also a number of challenging stations.
As you can see from this picture, this station had a very narrow field of vision. It has one soft target that came over from the far trees and the second target flew left to right.
There was also my favorite targets, ones that come from behind and fly over head. I think these are the targets that help bruise my shoulder real good. I liked this station so much, I shot it twice in one day. Well, I shot it twice because when we got to the next station, there was no remote for the traps, so we got back in the cart and drove in reverse back down the path!There were 14 stations, two of which didn't work. The first station had traps at the top of a hill, that for some reason didn't work (they were the only hard wired traps). And as mentioned before, one station didn't have a remote. So I thought that I had extra shells because we didn't shoot two stations. Well, if you do the math... 8 shells per station, 14 stations, 8 x 14 = 112. I only had 100 shells. Which means, I didn't have extra shells, I was actually short. But we didn't figure that part out until we got to the second to the last station, which was another series of overhead targets. I reach in my pocket and only found 8 shells! Oh well, 4 shots here, and 4 at the last one.
And I was glad to have held on to the last 4 shells. The last station had a really great view.
It jutted out from the top of a hill and the targets were launched from below so you were shooting down the hill.We drove back to the club house returned the gun, and was shuttled back to hotel. But I had to do it again!!!
I convinced my trapper/wife (also known as "photographer") that we need to go back. So that same afternoon, I had the concierge sign me up for another session the next day. This time on the wobble trap...
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The next morning, Dave picked us up and shuttled us to the club house. Leo greeted me there, handed me the same over/under shotgun I had used the day before and handed me 1o0 shells. "Only 50 today," I said, and Leo just smiled and said, "You shua? Tell you what, take 100 and whatever you don't shoot, bring back." Nicole knew at that moment, I was bringing back empty boxes.
Leo drove us out to the wobble trap. Seeing as I've never shot wobble trap, Leo explained how it works. Basically, it's one trap that constantly rotates left, right, up and down. When you "pull" it launches a random target. That made a for a really great time, because you never knew which way the target was going! I shot a couple of rounds and Leo gave me pointers, "Keep the gun moving, don't aim, relax." Then he said, "If you want more shells, or want to go out on the sporting clays course, just come by the club house and let us know."
I turned to the trapper/wife/photographer, wide eyed like a little kid and she promptly said, "NO."
The wobble trap had 5 stations, and you shoot 5 shots at each station. I did two rounds and shot 28 out of 50 targets.
I wanted to try something different, wobble trap is fun and I could sit there all day and unload shells. But as long as we were here, we may as well try as much as we can. I drove back to the club house and told them I was going to try the compact sporting course.
Compact sporting is just another word for "5-Stand". I read somewhere that "5-Stand" is a trademarked name, so you have to pay royalties to call it a "5-Stand". So the way around that is to call it "Compact Sporting". A compact sporting course is basically 5 stations over one field. The one field has numerous traps launched from different angles. So it's like sporting clays, but you don't have to get in a cart or walk very far.
The compact sporting course at Lana'i Pine had 8 traps. In the picture above you can see the big yellow number 6 indicating the location of trap 6. You can also make out the little sheds left or right for other traps, as well as the dirt path in the foreground for my favorite... Rabbits!!I had 50 shells, so I shot 10 at each station.
The stations were basically a raised platform with three positions and one outside left and right. I had the trapper/wife/photographer select targets at random. Which made for all kinds of fun! I had no idea where the clay was coming from so I had to jump to get on target and fire.If I learned one thing, it's that I like shotgunning. Sporting clays is fun, but so is everything else I did. I would do any and all of it again!! Who's with me?
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Tomorrow, a blog for the ladies... Did someone say "Time for high tea!"?
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