Maddi has another theory. It's similar to Gallagher, but he thinks these towns sprung up because that's about as far as a car could travel back in the day before it needed gas. It's another good theory. But still, I wouldn't choose to live in Bakersfield.
So that's why we got out. We rented a car and drove about 75 miles south to my local sporting clays course at the Oak Tree Gun Club. I was actually a little nervous about taking my shooting buddies there. As you've read in my blog, Oak Tree was not my favorite course of the ones I've shot. There's no rabbits!
We arrived at Oak Tree a little after noon, went to the check in window and threw down my credit card. "Burn a hole in this my man," I said, "Three shooters, two guns and 300 rounds please." He swiped my card (I saw a spark, but no open flame) handed us 300 rounds and two pump action shotguns.
This is the first time we've ever used pump action. Back on the east coast when we shot at the fancy Sandanona, and Middletown courses, we asked if anyone ever used pump action guns. The response was, yes, but frowned upon. So we had a stigma in our heads about going and shooting with pump action.
But it didn't stop us, we piled into the gator and drove up the hill to station 1. We thanked the guy for the ride and turned to our resident pump action expert, Mel. Mel actually owns the same gun we were shooting, so he showed us how to load it. We were all a little bit nervous about being able to cock the gun and get off the second shot in a reasonable amount of time, so we change the rules. Instead of launching the second bird on the "report", we'd launch the second bird on the finish of the "reload". Which turned out to be a smart move because a number of times, the gun jammed when trying to expend the first shell.
Here's Maddi shooting at station 3. You can see station 1 in the back ground, and at about knee level you can see the clay flying out. My worries about the boys not being happy with the course were soon dissuaded with the first, "What a gorgeous view". What also made the day fun and challenging was the fact that L.A. was experiencing Santa Ana winds. Santa Ana's winds are hard gusts that blow from the upper deserts down the canyons and valleys. It happens in the winter when the the weather changes (hot desert shifting to cold desert = high winds). The clays were dipping and floating which made for some really funny shots. You got that sucker lined up and just as you pull the trigger, it takes off in a gust and you miss. 
Getting down to the end of the course which is in the valley was no different. We thought the trees would offer some protection, but it didn't work out that way. I had mentioned the battue that would dip and dive the last time I shot at Oak Tree, well this day, that sucker was all over the place. It would come out of the trap and the shooter would be waiting for it, while the other two of us would watch it sail right over his head and land behind us. We were worried we were going to run out of money on the card before we shot our 100 rounds!There were a couple of stations down, so after completing the course, we still had 20 rounds each, so we went back to and repeated a couple of stations, this time shooting 10 rounds (normally we shoot 8). We also got puffed up and tried shooting true pairs. Which wasn't as hard as we thought it would be with a pump action. Didn't change the fact that we missed, a lot.
Another great day. There was only three of us shooting, Wayne pulled a muscle in his hand so he's on medical leave for a month before returning to the tour. That didn't stop us from keeping his score though.Already have a place lined up to shoot on Monday in Portland Oregon. It's going to be hovering around 40 degrees (That's 4 degrees Celsius for the rest of the world). It's actually a game birds preserve, so we'll have a trapper with us this time manually releasing the clays. It's been a while since we've had that.
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