Elica

Once more, following the strict instructions of Stan Bell I went gunning in Italy.

On my second Saturday in Torino my friend Signor Mario Vito Benevelli, owner and chef of the Ristorante Frandin de Vito located in San Mauro Torinese invited me for a new exciting experience in shotgunning at the Tiro a Volo (TAV) Carignano.

Being an avid hunter himself, Signor Vito is not that crazy about the more common clay shooting games like Trap and Skeet, which he thinks that do not present the challenges and emotions associated with live bird shooting or hunting, so he took me to an Elica ring.

The proper name for Elica is electrocibles (or electric targets in a very free translation from the French), and in the USA it is known as Helice or ZZ-Birds. This game was invented in Belgium in the early 1980’s due to increasing anti-hunting animal activism against live pigeon shooting (which by the way continues to be practiced in our rather stupid times in Ireland, Monaco and specially Spain.)

As the de-facto replacement for live pigeon shooting Elica takes place in a “pigeon ring”. The shooter stands 25 to 30 meters behind (depending on handicap) five traps (an electrical motor that can range from 0 to 10,000 rpm) spaced about 4.5 meters, and load two shells in any shootgun 12 gauge or smaller. The original rules allowed for 36 grams (1 ¼ ounces) of No. 6 shot,  but nowadays every body uses 28 grams (1 ounce) International Trap loads. At a distance of 21 meters from the traps there is a fence about 60 centimeters (2 feet) high.

The actual target is a two piece plastic contraption that does not ressemble a pigeon, but tries to be as impredicable as one when it is released by a voice command. The central portion, known as witness, is made of white non-frangible and reusable Polyethylene and has virtually the same dimensions of a standard clay pigeon. The outer portion is a two blade helice made of orange and very frangible Polystyrene.

In order to score a “kill” the witness must come completely out of the wings and fall within the fenced boundaries.

At € 1,00 (US$ 1.42) per target, Elica is not a high volume shooting game. At TAV Carignano a group of 15 to 20 shooters and observers would take turns waiting to step to single shooting post, ask “pronto” to the control house and then call for the bird with wichever word they wished. The voice activated mechanism is multilingual.

As in live pigeon the shooter loads the gun with two shells and premounts it before calling for the bird. During competitions the shooter will take no more than three birds from a five trap field (there are also fields with seven and nine traps). It is important to have good periferal vision to keep all five traps in sight before calling for the bird. The one help the shooter gets is that there is a metal place in front of the trap that drops down just before the Elica takes flight allowing for point the gun at that trap.

But then all hell brakes loose as the traps woble to a certain degree and the trapper can change their speed. The birds may go any direction except towards the shooter (some stupid safety rule about not wanting to be beheaded by shaps plastic wings spinning at several thousand rpm).

All shotguns were 12 gauge, and many of the Italian shooters were very curios about the use of smaller gauges in the USA, almost as if it was very eccentric. Over-unders were the majority, and Perazzi and Beretta were the norm. Most common barrel length was 28 inches and there were no ported barrels. On this shoot I saw at least one semi-auto and a very nice Bernardelli side-by-side sidelock game gun.

The traps were set for 4,500 rpm and I was told that during competition they may increase to 5,000 or 5,500 rpm, but not much more. Actually if there is a strong wind they will decrease the speed. I shot Signor Vito’s Perazzi, and did it very well Bill, even if you were not there to witness it. I shot 15 targets with only one miss and hit at leat 10 birds on the first barrel. I profuselly thanked Signor Vito for having trained his shotgun so well and was discreteally invited to show up for a garra (competition) where some people wanted to take on betting with good souls that were not present at my introduction to this new sport.

I really believe that an Elica ring would be a great addition to the Southern Michigan Gun Club, and I am sure that Liberty Moulds could engage on plastic bird manufacturing and make them quite affordably attracting would be “pigeon shooters” from all around (or at least as far as Mattawan, MI and Torino, Italy, provided side-by-side gentlemen’s guns are welcome).

Fall Is Around the Corner

Over the last couple weeks I had enough evidence about it, but did not pay the necessary attention.

First my friend Vito Benevelli told me that his grape harvest in Italy would be a full month early; then last Saturday I tasted ride wild Michigan blackberries, and they were delicious.

Finally, yesterday morning the coming of fall struck me. Early morning I saw the first flight of Canada geese of the season, going right over my house while I had breakfast. Shortly after, I went to Meijer's in Oshtemo and the final witness to an early fall was there. The outdoors department has brand new hunting clothes, archery equipment and ammunition. Maybe I should be paying as much attention to the changes of season as Meijer's is.

I am happy to say good bye to the dog days of summer and welcome to a new hunting season!

Clay Ducks & Blackberries

Last Saturday (13^th August) I attend a Sporting Clays shoot at the Lakes Area Conservation Club at Osterhout Road in Portage, MI. The event was a fund raiser for Ducks Unlimited (www.ducks.org), one of the world’s great examples of sportmen stewardship in wildlife and habitat conservation.

The morning started with a storm rolling north of of our home, a lot of thunder and some winds. My wife questioned if I was “really” going out in that weather, and my response was that it was perfect duck hunting weather. But the morning storm blew away and we had a nice, if somewhat warm, morning.

The event was very well organized and most teams were formed in advance, so showing up as a lest minute entrant I was very happy to find a spot at #2 Squad and shoot with my friends Eric Weeldreyer and Dick Kik.

Eric is one of the owners of On Target in Kalamazoo, MI (www.ontargetgunstore.com) and besides encyclopedical knowledge of firearms he is a great shooter and sportsman. Dick is one of On Target’s foremost sidekicks, another passionate shotgunner, side-by-side enthusiast and reloading thinkerer.

I have shot the Sporting Clays course at “Lakes Area” many times, so there were not many surprises with the “Clay Ducks” (since this was a Duck’s Unlimited event, I am not willing to call then “pigeons” this time), but towards the back on the woods on stations 11 and 12, there was a very pleasant and tasty surprise.

Just as we walked to station 11 and were waiting our turn to shoot, Eric asked me if I liked blackberries. I use so much a blackberry for work that it took me several seconds to realize that Eric was not talking about electronic devices or any boring work related matter, but that berry season is at the pick in Michigan, and we were surrounded by blackberry bushes. Eric began picking the ripe berries, bright black and sweet, and treating me by the handful.

In the book “As Valkyrias” Paulo Coelho discuss how most people live in a personal microcosmos, not more than than a couple meters in diameter, and that in order for a someone to live fully we must look at the horizon, shatter the boundaries of our self construct microcosmos and, in my case, see the blackberries just a couple paces away. Eric’s offering was a wakening call.

It is impressive how a simple kind gesture, like Eric’s blackberry offering, can make a day memorable. Clay ducks are not a delicacy, but the blackberries really complemented them in a great way. Even my shooting improved in those stations.

The First Saturday in Italy

Due to my work I am now required to spend a lot of time in Europe, and have a base office in Torino, in the Piemonte region of Northern Italy, and June 25^th & 26^th was my first weekend there.

Having been away from shotgunning for almost 10 days, I was starting to have withdrawn syndrome and really started to get desperate to find a place to shoot. On the Saturday morning I visited a local gun shop and was somewhat discouraged to find out that without an Italian gun permit I would not be allowed to shoot in any place.

I decided to investigate further and started surfing the internet and calling what looked like gun clubs around Torino. Most phone numbers would not answer, but suddenly I had a call back. It was Mr. Giuseppe (Pino) Facchini, president of the Federazione Italiana Tiro a Volo – Comitato Regionale de Piemonte (www.fitavpiemonte.it), and he was most welcoming. He invitated me to meet him at the Tiro a Volo (TAV) Racconigi, about 40 minutes from my hotel towards the South, at around 3:30 PM.

Once I got there I felt immediately at home, shooters being nice great people wherever you meet then. I met Mr. Facchini and his son Rocco who introduced me to a number of people, including Mr. Franco Allasia, the club president. Then they started discussing about the Italian rules and what would be required to allow me to shoot. I mentioned that I had a Michigan Concealed Pistol License, and all questions were gone (Note to travelers: Never leave home without your CPL.)

Mr. Facchini went to his car, got his personal gun, a highly engraved Beretta DT-10, handled it to me along two boxes of 28 grams (one ounce) 12 gauge shells and ushered me to the firing line. I felt obliged to do so, among other reason, because Stan Bell ordered me to shoot International Trap as soon as I got to Europe.

TAV Racconigi is located at the campagna (any agricultural region), by the Frazione (village) Tagliata, and has three International Trap (Fossa Olimpica) fields, one of each has skeet stations. All the firing positions are covered, so the shooter can be comfortable under the hot summer sun, or other inclement weather. There is a high level of automation, shooters use an electronic card (similar to our own proximity cards) to pay for the rounds, and all fieds have electronic scoring systems that report the results real time to the club house.

International Trap is a very dynamic game. A full squad consists of six shooters that are allowed to shoot twice at each bird (perfect for Tony South), so we take fifty shells to the firing line. The squad rotates after each shot, and continuous shooting as the person from station 5 walks back to station 1. A good score is 22 or 23 breaks, and I saw a couple 24’s.

After the first series with the DT-10 Mr. Facchini thought that the comb was too high for me, a “typical hunter”, in his own words. So he exchanged my gun for a gorgeous Beretta SO3. Oh, the hardship of having to use an over-under! And I shot two more complete rounds. There was a certain hard left rising bird that would challenge even an accomplished shotgunner as our own president and glorious spiritual guide, Mr. William Berghuis.

As a general note on shotguns, all were over-unders, most of then 12 gauge (I only saw one 20 gauge) with fairly wide ribs. Most guns had adjustable combs and none had ported barrels. Beretta apparently has the lionshare of the market, but there were quite a number of Perazzi.

The cost of shooting is € 5,00 (US$ 7.00) per box of shells (you require two boxes per round, and most shooters take two shots per bird) and € 6,00 (US$ 8.40) per round of 25 targets.

Before Bill started rumors about how bad I must have shot, I will tell you myself. I broke 26 birds on the first shot (I know that because I only used 124 shells for 75 birds), and probably broke around 35 on the second shot. Shooting trap and shooting with a pre-mounted gun is unusual for me, so I have as good an excuse as any.

On Sunday I went back to watch an official match, and I believe that there were around 100 shooters present, with a good distribution in age groups as well as several women. I arrived at lunch time which was being served at the club house. Besides the great piemontese food, many of the shooters were enjoying the local wine or beer, which in moderation is considered no barrier to continue to shoot.

Mr. Facchini inveted me to visit TAV Settimo Torinese next Saturday, and by then, I may be a new member of FITAV-Piemonte.

I will try to keep you posted as I discover more about “gunning” in Europe.

Last Bird, First Bird

                                                  In memory of Antônio Roberto Junqueira Meirelles

There is no sweeter fragrance than the inebriant essence of a fired shotgun shell, and that same aroma transports me in time and space to my earliest memories, following my father’s steps while hunting perdiz over our English pointer Diana in our farm in Brazil, and retrieving the spent 28 gauge paper hulls.

Unhappily, from those early years, I probably can count in the fingers of one hand the times that I hunted birds with my father. There was one bright mid-year afternoon in Goiás state, central Brazil, when a very smart perdiz made fools of a nice looking English pointer, my father who was carrying a 12 gauge trap gun, myself bearing an old 28 gauge side by side hammer gun, and the rest of the family that was following the hunt.

Then a couple decades later, there were some preserve pheasant hunts in Michigan. Not many, perhaps three or four times over a five year period. In the first of those hunts in the fall of 2002, my father was still very sharp with a shotgun, and shot eight of the eleven birds bagged, including a true double.

The only memorable fact about the second hunt, that had a bad dog, a worst guide, and when my father did not shot a single pheasant, was that it was the only time in which three generations of my family hunted together, my father, my son Daniel, at the time seven, and me.

Even with other birds at hand, the desire to hunt perdiz, the queen of upland birds, kept burning strong inside me, and with hunting closed and outlawed in Brazil, I booked a five day bird hunting trip in Uruguay, during June 2008.

I did not really invite my father to come along, I just asked my mother to get him the tickets to Montevideo and pack his clothes.

The first morning we shot doves, just to dial in the leads with unfamiliar rented shotguns. We both were using side-by-side hammerless, the accepted game gun in “our world”. My father was using a 12 gauge of obscure origins, and I had a 16 gauge AyA, side lock non ejector. After lunch, always a feast in Uruguay, he took the afternoon off to rest from the pounding of the 12 gauge, while I had my first perdiz hunt solo.

The second morning’s memories are bitter sweet. We hunted a stubble field and then a river bottom of “Estância Mirador”, over the best dog that I ever saw working birds in my life, a small Epagneul Breton named Popó.

Popó is one of those few precious dogs that combine a love of hunting with unique hunting abilities, including superb nose and bird sense. I believe that Popó could produce a perdiz in your living room.

The unspoken code of ethics for two hunters shooting over a single pointer in that part of the world is to shoot on alternate points. This is not only safer, but allows the bird a more sporting change following a double gun salute.

I knew for some time that my father was not the healthiest person in the world, but his dismal shooting performance should have warned me. I am not sure if it was excitement or fear, perhaps a really uncomfortable gun, but he could not hit a bird that day.

On the other hand, I could not miss. We were hunting together, but that was not how it was supposed to be.

On his fifth or sixth point, and with as many birds to my credit, my father hurried towards Popó and stepping in an armadillo hole he fell very hard, hitting the ground over his shotgun. For a split second I feared the worse.

Ariel, the secretário and dog handler, and I helped my father up as one of his legs began to swell, but he wanted to keep on hunting.

Just as we crossed the fence that separate the stubble field from the river bottom, Popó went on point and in a second a perdiz flushed right between my father and me. I can no longer remember whose point it was supposed to be, but we both hit the perdiz in full.

After the retrieve my father said that he was tired and we just hunted back to the car. Neither of us could realize that at the time, but that perdiz was to be my father’s last bird.

On February 28^th 2009 I received a message that my father had just entered the intensive care unit at our hometown hospital, in Brazil. As I entered that room the next day, and saw my unconscious father in bed, tubes keeping him alive, I saw that his hunting injury was not totally healed eight months later.

After recovering conscience, my father once told my mother that he thought that he would not be able to make it to Uruguay that year.

We buried my father on a Saturday morning, May 16^th, and my son was one of the pallbearers. As we led him to rest the sun shone for the first time since his last coma.

By mid-afternoon I could not stand to be indoors any longer, so I called a friend, and drove to the farm where I was raised, with Aluísio, Daniel and my nephew Gustavo. Daniel decided to go horse ridding while Aluísio and I went dove shooting. The big white-wing doves were coming to roost, but neither of us was doing great.

Towards the end of the flight, Daniel joined us and I asked him to shoot one bird. I was using my father’s Beretta 28 gauge side-by-side and told my son that his grandfather would be both happy and proud if he used that gun to bag his first bird.

I had three shells left, but Daniel picked only one, loaded the right barrel, and locked his eyes on a big blue white-wing that had just come past a certain avocado tree. He flexed his knees, mounted the gun, and that dove stopped in mid-air as it hit the shot wall.

The worst day of my life was over. A week later I landed in Uruguay headed for a certain stubble field.