Area Sporting Clays Courses A Big Hit

Sun., July 9, 2000

Rich Landers Outdoors Editor

The summer action is heating up at sporting clays shooting areas around Spokane.

Sporting clays combines the friendly competition of skeet and trap shooting with targets thrown from a course of stations to simulate the natural terrain and situations of bird and waterfowl hunting.

Area courses are open to groups big or small, usually by appointment.

Perhaps the biggest public event on the area’s summer schedule is the Washington State Sporting Clays Championships, Aug. 10-13 at Landt Farms Sporting Clays west of Spokane.

Landt Farms, which opened in 1990, was the first of the sprawling sporting clays ranges in the Spokane region. Shooting traditional sporting clays ranges is much like a round of golf, with anglers walking leisurely from station to station.

Last year, Landt Farms, added a compact five-stand course, where the shooting is at a much faster pace.

The state championships, which haven’t been held in the Spokane area for years, bring a higher competitive edge than most local clays shoots. More than 100 competitors from around the state are expected to participate, said Ellwood Landt, shoot organizer.

Landt Farms will provide 15 stations for the shoot plus two five-stand courses. “We’ll move the machines or the stations for each event,” Landt said. “In other words they’ll be shooting a different course each day.”

The event also has a “hunters division,” for less competitive shooters who do not belong to the National Sporting Clays Association.

Other divisions are set up for women, juniors, veterans and super veterans, plus events for shooters who want to increase the challenge by shooting smaller 20- and 28-gauge shotguns.

Some of the area’s sporting clays courses combine year-round hunting areas where dog owners can take advantage of acres of land and pen-raised pheasants and chukars for bird-dog training.

Pheasant Valley Shooting Preserve and Sporting Clays near LaCrosse, Wash., has 4,000 acres of hunting ground, plus accommodations. Both Pheasant Valley and Landt Farms, which includes 300 acres, offer pen-raised birds that can be released for hunting even when state seasons are closed.

This sidebar appeared with the story: WHERE TO SHOOT Sporting Clays courses

Area sporting clays ranges include:

Landt Farms west of Spokane, 466-4036.

Scabrock Sporting Clays near Edwall, 239-4473.

Rimrock Sporting Clays near Uniontown, (509) 229-3287.

Winterhawk Ranch Sporting Clays, 276-5150.

Pheasant Valley Shooting Preserve and Sporting Clays near LaCrosse, (509) 549-3912.

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