Happy New Year!
We hope everyone’s hopes and wishes for 2024 come true, especially those related to outdoor sports.
The ranch is asleep under a thin cover of snow. We drove to Five Stand in a Ranger this past week. That’s the first for January. Never have we seen so little snow. We flushed over 100 pheasants and are hoping this year they survive winter. That would be another first.
2024 prices are on the website. With the costs of clays, catering, insurance, crop fertilizer and chemicals, and other expense items up 30 to 50% this past year, a few, not all, prices are going up modestly.
We normally honor 2023 prices for 2024 if bookings are made before the end of 2023. We are extending that to the end of January this year. Book early and avoid the price increases.
2024 Bookings
2024 bookings are coming in much earlier and stronger than in past years. That’s good for clients who get the dates they want and good for us for planning bird supplies and staff.
There is plenty of room on the calendar for Cast and Blast and clays from June 1 to the end of August.
Upland bird hunting is filling up rapidly. September is close to sold out already. Several great dates are still open in early September, early October, late October, and most dates in November. Details are below.
Winter Shooting
The Lodge and Five Stand remain open year-round.
Join us for a corporate or family retreat which can include shooting clays at Five Stand, snowmobiling on hundreds of miles of surrounding trails, cross country skiing on our trail starting and ending at the Lodge or on our gently sloping slopes. Sitting in front of our open fire at the end of the day is an experience not to be missed.
Cast and Blast
We are taking bookings now for a day or two of clays shooting combined with a day or two of fishing the iconic rivers of Eastern Idaho, all while staying in our luxury lodge. Come shoot and fish with us from June 1 to the end of August. Plenty of dates are available.
Clays, Clays, and more Clays
Our trap, skeet, grouse but, five stand, crazy quail, simulated driven shooting with clays high overhead, and what many have called one of the best 14 station sporting clays courses in the world will all be open from June 1, weather permitting.
Come for a day or a few days with a group of friends or family. Minimum four.
The first and second Saturdays of June, July, and August are available to locals at a reduced price. Minimum 4.
We provide loaner shotguns for those not shooting their own guns, all clays, all ammunition, and lunch.
Fall Upland Bird Hunting – European Style Driven Shooting
Upland bird hunting season at Lazy Triple Creek Ranch opens August 31 with our signature event, European Style Driven Shooting with Western Sensibilities.
Two drives at each of three locations with a break for Elevenses after the second drive, lunch, afternoon walkups with a guide and well-trained dog, ending with cocktails and conversation on the deck.
Days and pegs are filling up. Here’s what’s now scheduled and available:
• August 31: 2 pegs available
• September 6: 4 pegs available
• October 5: 8 pegs available
• October 12: 8 pegs available
If those dates don’t work for you and you have a group of four to eight, and you want to experience European style driven shooting in America, let us know and we will try to make something work.
Upland Bird Walkup Hunts
In addition to our driven shoots, we will have seven walkup areas on our high plateaus for upland bird hunting with guides and dogs with either two or three guns in each field depending on the field available.
We have a good number of days available for walkup hunts with a guide and well-trained dog remaining.
Come shoot one of our seven walkup areas planted in corn or sorghum. Minimum two.
Call (917) 821-7210 or email to book your hunt.
Long Range Precision Rifle and Handgun Classes
No dates selected yet, but we will be offering long-range shooting (to a mile and more) and pistol classes again in 2024. Come with a group of four to eight and you get to pick the dates. World-class instructors will be available.
Different Shotguns for Different Purposes
Something new this year. We will be including a topic of general interest to shooting sportsmen and relevant to Lazy Triple Creek Ranch in each issue of Ranch News.
So, let’s talk about different shotguns for different purposes. Shotguns are more or less the same, right? Nope. Shotguns come built for a surprising number of different styles of shooting and with an amazing number of different features, all for different purposes and shooter preferences as discussed in the excellent article featured below.
Where this is relevant for Lazy Triple Creek is the styles of safeties available on our loaner guns. You would think there would not be a lot to discuss about safeties. Not so.
Our dozen or more loaner shotguns are mostly Bereta 686 Silver Pigeons. We stock 12’s, 20’s, a few 28’s in different barrel and stock lengths to be able to fit guns to the shooters who want to use one of our guns.
Safeties on our guns are a mixture of auto-safeties and manual-safeties. With auto-safety, the gun is on safe every time the gun is closed. With manual safety, the gun is ready to fire when the gun is closed. They have different purposes. In competition, calling for the bird, focusing hard on the target, swinging ahead of the clay, and pulling the trigger is very often not a good experience with auto safety. In the field, a gun not on safe when closed is a safety issue.
Having a mix of the two is the worst of both worlds. Since broadly speaking those who shoot borrowed guns with us tend to be less experienced, we will be converting all our manual safety guns to auto safety. There is a tradeoff here. Auto safety can be frustrating when shooting clays. Manual safety is a safety issue in the field. Given that choice, we will prioritize safety every time.
Enjoy learning about the many differences between field and sporting guns in the article below:
shootingsportsman.com/field-guns-v-target-guns
That’s all folks.
Stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay shooting.
The Team at Lazy Triple Creek Ranch
