I wouldn't want someone thinking of coming to this shoot next year to come away with the impression that they need a 3" Duck gun to shoot the course. The opposite is really true. Most of the shots on the course were actually quite close, some in the 10-15 yard range. Only a couple stations on the duck pond had long crossers that were pretty challenging. For every duck shot, there were many more grouse/woodcock shots. I shot the course with 2 1/2" 3/4 ounce RSTs in a light English 12 gauge sidelock and certainly didn't feel undergunned.
What I found makes this course special, and in many ways challenging, is the way it uses the natural mountain landscape. I've a shot a number of beautiful wooded courses (Homestead, Sandanona, others) but I can't think of another where you so seldom can see the trap house (I don't remember anywhere you could see the actual machine) or where the trees seem so eager to block the "sweet spot" where you want break the target.
Most of the targets would have been pretty easy shots if they had been out in the open. Because you couldn't follow the line all the way from the trap release, had to shoot around the trees, the target speed was deceptive because of the strobe effect of the light coming through the canvas, even the relatively "easy" shots could be challenging. It put a premium on quick, instinctive shooting, the kind of shooting you get in hunting situations.
I shot a charity shoot on a nice open course a couple weeks earlier, broke 30 more targets, but can't say I had more fun. On this course, there were cheers from your companions when you hit one of those long duck shots, and an occassional lack of consolation from friends when a tree stepped out to block your shot at 15 yards.
It's easy for target setters to make a course more difficult by speeding up the traps or making the shots longer, what impressed me here was how natural the setting was, and how much thought went into using the landscape.
I've observed that at the end of the day you often find a skeet shooter frowning about the easy one he missed, and the sporting clay shooter bragging about the hard one he hit.
There were definately some shots you could brag about on this course, even if you only hit them once. That's why I'd like another shot at them next year.
