Ranch News

Snow came late to the Rockies this year. The ranch is finally covered by the several feet of snow expected in this part of the world.

Our thoughts are now turning to Spring and the pursuit of fishing, shooting, and hunting experiences in the year ahead.

This Ranch Newsletter aims to let you know what still is available at Lazy Triple Creek Ranch for the 2024 season and to help you plan your visits with us.

As promised, we will be adding a topic of interest to our readers relevant to Lazy Triple Creek Ranch in each Newsletter. This issue, we will be discussing Driven Shooting in the UK and Europe from an American perspective.

Read to the end and we have a bonus for you. Hint: They are yellow and black from champion stock.

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 days are filling up rapidly. September is close to sold out already. Several great dates are still open in early September, early October, late October, and dates in November. Details are below.

The Lodge and Five Stand are 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 trails 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.

We are taking bookings now for a day or two of clays shooting combined with a day or two of fly fishing the iconic rivers of Eastern Idaho, all while staying in our luxury lodge.

We have open dates in June, July, and August for shooting, but our fishing outfitters are selling out rapidly. If you would like to join us for a day or two clays shooting combined with a day or two of fishing the iconic rivers of Eastern Idaho, book early.

BOOK NOW!

Our trap, skeet, grouse butt, 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 allowing.

Pro Tip: We will be completing a major Lodge expansion in June. We will have limited availability this year in early June. Days in July and August are available.

Come for a day or a few days with a group of friends or family. Minimum four.

The first and second Saturdays of 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.

We are planning a weekend focusing on the guns and shooting exploits of Ernest Hemingway hosted by Hemingway’s former guides and experts on Hemingway’s guns and life from Sun Valley. Let us know if you are interested in what should be a fascinating weekend. Dates to be decided. 

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 available:
• August 31: Two pegs
• September 6: Four pegs
• October 5: Eight pegs
• October 12: Eight pegs

If those dates don’t work for you and you have a group of six to eight, and you want to experience European Style Driven Shooting with Western Sensibilities in America, let us know and we will try to find dates that work for you.

RESERVE NOW!

In addition to our driven shoots at a dozen or more locations, we will have seven walkup areas on our high plateaus for walkup upland bird hunting with guides and well-trained dogs with either two to three guns per field depending on the field.

We have ample days still available for walkup hunts with a guide and well-trained dog.

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.

George Harris, our rifle and pistol instructor, will be with us again during the month of August. Let us know if you are interested in getting to know your long-range rifle and/or defensive pistol with one of the world’s most experienced and best instructors.

George recently authored a book on marksmanship, Marksmanship Simplified, which we recommend highly.

We were again over-subscribed by 300% for elk hunts this fall. Eight hunters will be joining us this October for the hunting experience of a lifetime.

Let us know by the end of November if you want to get on the list for the rifle season, October 15 to 22 every year, for 2025.

We will be offering “Getting to know your rifle for Rocky Mountain elk hunts” days this summer. Let us know if you are interested and we will find dates that work.

We will be adding archery hunts in 2024. That season is the entire month of September. We are a licensed outfitter and may be able to obtain elk tags for the 2024 season. Let us know immediately if you are interested. Minimum 2, maximum 4 for each of four one-week hunts. One of the four weeks is already sold out. Three remaining… Otherwise, get on our list by the end of November for the 2025 season.

As those who shoot with us know, we have great guides and dogs.

There are none greater than Ellie, Ranch Manager Steve’s dog. She is a multiple trial champion in both the US and UK. That’s Ellie with her many ribbons in the photos above.

Ellie has had puppies. If you are looking for a future gun dog or know someone who is, you won’t find better than these adorable pups. One yellow female. The other six are black. The four females are sold. The three males are still available.

Americans have mixed feelings about Driven Shooting in the UK and Europe. Judging from social media posts, those feeling range from love it to hate it with a good mixture of “never heard of it.”

Judging from the views of those who shoot with us and shoot in the UK, the predominate view is love it all from the shooting to the traditions of driven shooting which date back to Edwardian times. There is a good mixture of not loving the hassle and high costs of travel to the UK to shoot, the lost (stolen) guns, and the increasingly open hostility of locals, particularly the younger generation. One of our regulars was physically attacked in a London train station for daring to return from a shoot wearing traditional shooting attire.

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”
Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr

“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Bon Jovi

Those feelings, positive and negative, were what motivated the creation of Lazy Triple Creek Ranch as a shooting/hunting paradise some 20 years ago. Several families from Jackson Hole, Wyoming who shot regularly in the UK and Europe realized the topography of the ranch was ideal for European Style Shooting. The early development of the ranch was motivated by the realization they could experience all that they loved about European Driven Shooting but in America without the hassles and high costs of travel to the UK.

A luxury, nine-bedroom lodge was built and a then famous English shooting instructor and game estate manager, Edward Watson, Executive Director of the West London Shooting School, Estate Manager, and writer for the Sporting Gazette, was recruited to build a proper English Shooting Estate and game management system here in America. Our Ranch Manager, Steve Sorensen, trained in the UK as part of this development. This was the second attempt at Driven Shooting in America. The first failed. That makes us the original home of Driven Shooting in America in existence.

In addition to upland bird shooting, Edward left us with world-class game management systems as well as world-class clays courses; trap, skeet, five stand, grouse butt, crazy quail, and what many have described as the world’s most beautiful and challenging 14 station sporting clays course.

Thank you, Edward.

That’s all folks.

Stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay shooting.

The Team at Lazy Triple Creek Ranch