Quail Unlimited Corona,CA I had been excited for weeks about coming to this event. We just had our Southern California Championships the weekend prior at another local Club, Triple B’s. Everybody seemed to be ready for any non-locals that showed up for this event. Being that I am a competitive guy, I took it one step further and took a little airplane ride on Monday out to M&M Hunting Preserve and Sporting Clays and got a “tune up” with my coach Anthony Matarese Jr. I will bring up some good stuff from the leader board. First let me talk about Zach Kienbaum. This guy is on fire. A 97 and a 96 put him 7 targets ahead of Tom John Jr. who shot a 90 and came back with a 96. Remember when I talked about the wheels falling off with Brad Sutton? Well he must have bought a new wagon because he came out strong with a 92 after a dismal 84 on Saturday, but it still wasn’t good enough to get ahead of David Welch or Justin Fox. We will provide a link to the complete scores as soon as they become available
Article by Chad Roberts
Back on track and entering my first QU event I showed up ready to shoot some quail…WAIT! I mean clays. Raahauge’s is a famous range nestled in Southern California in the city of Corona. How cool is this you ask? When you are at this range you are within 30 minutes to the beach, about 1.5 hrs to the snow up in Big Bear, 30 minutes from LA and you have 3 other shooting ranges within an hour of their location. This place was the stomping grounds for Dan Carlisle back in the day. There is for sure some history here. QU has been coming out to Raahauge’s for 8 years. Bass Pro is a huge sponsor of this event along with others like Winchester, Chevy, Browning, Budweiser and many others.
With some work priorities that came up, I was forced to shoot the 2:00 rotation. Why does it sound like I am grimacing? If you ever shoot at Raahauge’s in the afternoon, betting on what the wind will be like is it is like throwing dice at a Craps table. During the last three events held there over the last few months the winds have been absolutely terrible. Another kicker for us “locals” is that it hasn’t been over 65 degrees for months. I showed up and it was 90 degrees! I am sure the shooters coming from the snow may have had a shock. Well I wasn’t disappointed in the wind, but the good thing was that it wasn’t as bad as it usually is. The other thing is that the stations that are affected the worst at this range were not being used for the Preliminary.
The presentations seemed to be a little soft. I was hoping to see some little more distance and speed. Don’t get me wrong, there were some stations that had that recipe. There was a lot of trap style shots. I did like the Chandelle Rabbit on station 5. We shot 10 stations with 10 pairs at each. Station 10 was more like what I was hoping for in the way of presentation but not in the way of score. I dropped 7 of the 10 I shot at…OOPS!!! We ended on station 3 which had a report pair of targets off a tower from the left to right over one of the two ponds on the course. The sun reflecting off of the water and the local mountains in the background made for a scenic station. We had to pull and score the Preliminary for ourselves, and we did not see water on the stations the first day. If there was, the sun evaporated it. The scores were high. The one that stood out the most in all the small gauge class was a 48/50 coming from a D class shooter by the name of Ryan Batty. For the big classes, local hot shot Brad Sutton pulled off HOA with a 95.
The first day of the main event day had trappers on the course scoring which was nice. There was also noticeable water available at every station. I was on the 2:00 rotation and we didn’t get started until about 2:20. Today gave us some cooler presentations. We had ground rabbits and Chandelle Rabbits that shot out on edge like a trap target in front of you.
I do have to rant about a couple of things, because I promised Mike that I would give accurate information. I was rather bummed walking into a couple of stations and seeing inconsistencies in the trappers and their scoring. It cost a lot of money to shoot at an event like this and scoring is one of the small but very important details, and I want it to be done right. Scoring is always the part that sets the larger events apart from fun shoots. My other issue; although I like the employees that work full time at the range, I was disappointed to see that on many occasions between stations 1-5 that the traps were in direct line of many of the break points of the other stations. On a couple of occasions we had to stop and re-shoot a pair because if we would have fired, someone would have been peppered. I am an extremely cautious person with firearms and although loading traps is part of the game, they should have made the trappers aware so that the shooting could cease-fire until the traps were loaded. Other than those two things, we only experienced 3 broken birds out of 500 thrown for our squad.
After we shot, it was time to unwind with the QU dinner and auction. For $5.00 you got a wrist band and an open bar. They were auctioning off hunts in Argentina and Africa, a ski trip to Keystone, Colorado, two tickets to the Fontana, California NASCAR race in the late summer, Browning shotguns, QU portraits and my two favorites; a race helmet signed by Dale Earnhardt Jr. and a signed Fender guitar from Eric Clapton. Although I got a kick out of the items, I have to tip my hat to Mike Raahauge for being a true businessman. He had GREAT female auctioneer and two lovely assistants. Add the alcohol and humor it was easy for the QU folks to get the audience to open their wallets. There were a TON of regular auction items and EVERYONE got a little colored pin, and at the end depending on the color you got a QU hat, T-shirt or Polo shirt.
I checked the scores for the 1st day of the 200 clay main event and Zach Kienbaum, an All American who just recently moved to Southern California, found his groove and shot a 97. The closest score to him was a 94 shot by David Welch. Justin Fox shot a 92 and another local hot shot Tom John Jr. Shot a 90. Way down on the Leader Board was another hot shot local, Brad Sutton who won the Prelim with a 95, must have been affected by the wind, heat, or maybe the wheels just came right off the wagon he ended the first day with what I am sure was a dissapointing score of 84.
Sunday came early for me since I stuck around for the auction. It was still going when I left at 9:30. Sunday was so much better. There was only a small warm breeze and no wind however it was HOT. The water in ice buckets was abundant today at the stands. We only had one funky station. At station 10 the wiring was short circuiting, causing the trap to continuously throw targets. The employees must have had a small talking to because safety was taken in consideration when traps needed to be loaded. It was nice to see that this was taken care of.
On Sunday, the targets were close but definitely hittable. There were a couple of stations that could get you though, so it wasn’t all show and no go. After talking to many people who have shot these types of events, they said that they are all set like this. It allows for everyone to shoot decent scores but will keep it just tough enough for no master to run a straight 100.
The last rotation was back at the club house by 5-5:15 P.M. The shoot, the auction and all the games went smooth, but unfortunately one thing that didn’t was the scoring and complete payout process. I understand that this is a big task for the amount of shooters there but the time frame it took was a complete bummer. Many people drive to these events and don’t have time to stick around. There were still people there in line at 9:00. Granted they were giving out all kinds of prizes, including guns which can take some time, but it still was unorganized. I felt bad for the QU folks, as they had so much stuff to give out. My thoughts on this would be, if they know it is going to take this long in the future, then give the people who stay something to stay busy with. At least keep the food bar open. I was bummed for the guys that got off the course at 5:00 to come back to the club just to find out that the food bar closed by 4:00. Being punctual on Sunday will keep your awards process going smooth and keep more people around so there is no shipping of prizes later.
All in all would I recommend this shoot? The answer is even with the minor issues which I am sure many clubs face would still be YES!!! The amount of prizes handed out was worth coming alone. Add absolutely beautiful weather in Southern California in the spring, and all I can say is it is a great time to take a vacation. California DOES have lots to offer for the shooter with many different ranges at your fingertips and a great time to be had even if you don’t shoot. Did I mention the weather???
