In full disclosure, Cottonland Gun Club has been a client of ours for a few years now. I’ve attended several helice shoots as a photographer and I’ve managed the Cottonland Gun Club website for about a year now. However, last weekend was my first chance to actually shoot a round of helice with a shotgun.
A little about my shooting background
I’ve loved shooting and especially shotgun sports or anything you can hunt with a shotgun since I was a kid. Growing up, duck and dove hunting were my favorite things to do. Sporting clays became a favorite past time during college. I’ve entered a few competitions but never really been into competitive shoots. Just shooting for fun with some close friends and family can be a lot of fun.
In about 2001 or 2002 shooting clays became a weekly event. A couple of good friends in college gathered up almost every weekend to shoot skeet or trap. I even made a brief attempt to start a college trap club at the University of Central Arkansas, but it never really got off the ground good.
These days I find myself filming someone with a shotgun from behind a camera more often than with a shotgun in front of the camera. However, Shooting is still something I really enjoy. So when I found out Glynn Kipper was having a practice shoot, I had to go shoot a round of Helice for myself.
Practice Shoots at Cottonland Gun Club
Practice shoots are much more informal than the large US Helice Association sanctioned shoots the Kipers host each quarter at their range. These shoots are more or less pulled together a week or so ahead of time depending on weather and other schedules and pretty laid back. Perfect for my preferred shooting style.
My First Round
With a good bit of trap shooting in my back ground, I have to say Helice is similar but much more difficult than traditional trap. The main thing is there are 5 different traps that can throw a target instead of one. On top of that, each trap is in constant oscillation so even if the far right trap is released, it may fly all the way to the left or it may go right. You just don’t know and you have to see the bird and resist the urge to move to it until you’ve identified which direction it is going. I feel like I did an ok job of handling these targets but with this on your mind, I found it easy to miss the targets that presented more like a normal trap target. It is very much a mental game.
A factor that compound the target difficulty for the day we shot was the wind. It was very windy and on top of that, the wind was at our back all day. This meant that the targets were moving even faster and more random than normal. As soon as the light plastic propeller shaped targets caught the wind, those suckers were gone.
With helice shooting, the white center target has to be knocked out of the target and fall within a fenced ring in front of the traps. The day we shot, the wind was blowing so hard that we actually suspended this rule because almost none of the white caps were falling inside the ring. Even with a near perfect shot, the wind would carry the white center cap beyond the fence.
I had a great time shooting helice. I may be a little rusty but at the end of the round, I had hit 15 of 30 targets. Mr Kiper said this was pretty decent for my first time shooting. He said a typical first time score is usually in the 8-10 range. There were definitely some targets that I think I should have hit but didn’t so I’ll take it. I believe the high score for that round that day was 25 or 28 targets. Of the matches that I’ve been to, there have been few perfect scores.
Will I shoot again?
I’d love to shoot again. It was challenging and fun. The targets really do fly a lot more like live birds than pretty much anything i’ve ever shot but live birds while hunting. I think that’s really what makes this sport so appealing and why its growing here in the US.
The big question on my mind though is “will I keep shooting Helice?” As I mentioned earlier, i’m not really a competitive shooter. For me personally, the competition aspect kinda takes the fun out of it. That is not to say that you shouldn’t take up the sport. If you like competition and a competition that is a challenge. You’ll love the sport of Helice. For me personally, I’ll defiantly shoot again. The next time I’m free on a practice day, you may see me again with my shotgun and a camera.
