Master Shotgunner

Fábio Dartora, the author, Luiz Roberto Viganó

Last week I was working at my company's headquarters in Caxias do Sul (RS), Brasil, and as I have done since my first visit to Caxias in July 2012, I spent some quality time at Clube Caxiense de Caça e Tiro (www.clubecaxiensecacaetiro.com.br) or CCCT.

CCCT is located on a beautiful mountain top and its fantastic infrastructure and cultural environment reminds me of some of the clubs that I used to visit in northern Italy during the brief one year period that I lived in Torino. As Caxias do Sul was colonized by Italian immigrants the similarity is not surprising, and it is also includes great food, ever available wine and the love for bird hunting.

From my first visit to CCCT I felt completely at home, enjoying many delicious meals, that spanned from fantastic and authentic churrasco gaucho to the delicious tortei, a local dish that combines the Italian ravioli pasta with the Brazilian pumpkin for a filling.

But the members make the real difference at CCCT. There is always a shotgun available if you want to shoot, and several occasions I was handled Borsoi's Franchi, Viganó's Beretta, or Gasperin's, the club president, Perazzi.

CCCT offers Bunker or Olympic Trap, American Trap, International Skeet, Sporting Clays, as well as pistol, rifle and archery ranges, and holds several tournaments during the year. In the last month CCCT held the finals for both Rio Grande do Sul state and Brazilian trap championships, and in one of the finals over three hundred athletes attended and around 60,000 clays were launched. In order to feed this small army the club grilled over seven hundred pounds of beef, pork and primo canto chicken.

Last Saturday afternoon CCCT held a very special tournament, the Master Shotgunner ("Mestre Atirador") which consists of a total of 45 clay pigeons equally divided among Bunker Trap, American Trap and International Skeet. As I was scheduled to start my trip back home just after lunch on Saturday I would not be able to participate, but during the Wednesday Fábio Dartora - Trap Director and CCCT president Mr. Gasperin invited me to shoot the tournament in the morning.

That being agreed, on Saturday morning Fábio and my wild boar hunting friend Luiz Roberto "Gordo" Viganó picked me up at the hotel and drove me to CCCT where using Viganó's Beretta 682 I proceeded to shoot a total score of 36. At the end of the day, when I was already far away, the winner was Jonata Penz scoring 38.

Being an accomplished shotgunner I can come up with any number of excuses to justify my poor performance like shooting with a borrowed gun, not having shot International Skeet in over four or five years, never having shot trap at CCCT, being particularly stressed by shooting all by myself (all other competitors shot in the afternoon), having traveled all the way from Traverse City, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera…

But rather than come up with new and creative excuses I just would like to thank all my friends at Clube Caxiense de Caça e Tiro and congratulate them on maintaining and managing a world class shotgunning club in Brasil.