2010 World English Sporting Clay Champion and World FITASC Silver medalist Ben Husthwaite will be giving sporting clay shooting lessons at Coyote Valley Sporting Clays in Morgan Hill, California on October 14,15 and 16, 2010.  He will also be giving lessons at Rio Brazos Hunting Preserve in Houston Texas on the 26th.  Learn from the best!  To set up a lesson visit his website at BenHusthwaite.com or email him at bengun100(at)hotmail.com.

Triple B Clays in South El Monte, CA (just minutes from downtown L.A.) invites you to the 2010 Southern California Sporting Clay Championship on July 31- August 1st.  Events will consist of a Saturday 100 target Prelim event, a Saturday and Sunday 50 target 5-Stand event and a 150 target Sunday Main event.  Targets will be set by Bruce Barsotti, Zach Kienbaum and Jun Vergara.  Online pre-registration is available through iClays.  Shooters who register through iClays will be able to go through a "VIP" line at the club for a quick check in. 

If you haven’t been to TBC lately, I suggest you go and see the improvements they have made.  Targets and service have been above par lately and with Club Pro Zach Kienbaum and new General Manager Jeff Maiorino at the helm they are poised for great things.

iClays Scores

iClays Squads

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The California FITASC Open is being held on September 25-27, 2009 at Camanche Hills Hunting Preserve in Northern California. The event is 300 targets over 12, count ‘em, 12 old system layouts! Dave Fiedler is setting the targets and Cam Hills has some nice rolling terrain for him to work with so you should be able to find something you like! Spots are still available so sign up today at…

Wow is it hot in Los Angeles! It feels like I’m back in Texas with highs nearing the century mark. Because I’m a recent transplant to California it proved unfeasible for me to actually shoot in this years state championships. Lack of a suitable gun, lack of enough registered targets and general scheduling problems with my job all conspired against me. Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all and you certainly can’t shoot ‘em all! I did however take a short drive down to Triple B Sporting Clays this morning the first day of competition to scope out the Parcours.

Triple B is located in El Monte City basically a ‘suburb’ of the behemoth Metropolis that is L.A. The big news and bit of controversy surrounding this years Cal State Champs is the so called "Green" FITASC event. An event thrown with Bio targets and the mandatory use of steel shot. This caused a certain amount of stir on the various Internet bulletin boards. Shooters fearing that this is a change in the game forced upon us by "green" interests. However, shoot management has made it clear that the requirement for the use of steel shot and bio’s was only brought about by the fact that the comp is taking place on virgin ground that happens to be a wetland. I watched several squads rotate through the Parcours and have to say that I saw no problem with the ammo or targets. I saw hard positive breaks with the now familiar white smoke ball.

A preliminary run down of the Parcours follows: Parcour 1 is set near the backstop of an open, flat archery range and features a berm on the shooters right which a target was thrown from as well as a target from a scissor lift that also held a machine that threw a target into Parcour 2. The targets were in the air but looked tricky especially due to some power lines in the background that were messing with my eyes big time. It also features a right to left rabbit. Parcour 2 is set in a semi wooded area with a small clearing. It features an old scraggly tree as its focal point with a teal, low left to right screamer and right to left looper all thrown around it. This one looks fun. Parcour 3 is set in a narrow clearing facing a long berm with several traps concealed behind it. This was the only Parcour where no squad was present so I haven’t yet seen the targets. Parcour 4 is set in another slightly wooded area with low bushy trees. Lots of distant targets and teal like shots. I didn’t bother to look at the English sporting course because I wasn’t in a cart, it was hot and as I get older I don’t care for it so much. FITASC is where it’s at!

The bad news for today’s outing was that my car overheated twice on the way back home. I had to retrieve water from a construction site and a church to keep moving along. Did I mention that it is hot! Anyway, if I can manage to get the car fixed I’ll make another foray into the fields of the 2008 California State Championships and make another report soon. Scores at: Wyshotgun.com