WOW,
this sport seems to be growing at a fantastic rate. I hardly ever mention
Sporting Clays to a stranger who hasn’t heard of it or even shot it at least
once. I can tell you that three years ago the exact opposite was the norm, I
hardly every met a stranger who HAD heard of Sporting Clays much less shot it.
I have to say I am extremely excited and encouraged by this development!
Now
let’s work on getting the word out about FITASC. There are many people,
including sporting clays shooters who have never heard of FITASC or have heard
of it but have no idea what the game is about. Therefore I have decided to do a
three part series on FITASC beginning with the basic old style format, followed
by the new style format, and finally the many rules of the game. Hopefully
knowledge and understanding of this wonderful version of clay shooting will
encourage you to go out and try it too! If you already shoot FITASC then
hopefully this article will help you better explain it to any friends you may
want to entice into the game.
First
I’ll give you a little background. FITASC stands for Federation Internationale
de Tir aux Armes Sportives de Chasse, which is the organization that governs
Parcours de Chasse Sporting, the game known in the America as FITASC. The
National Sporting Clays Association governs the games in the United States.
FITASC was first conceived in the early twentieth century in Spain and
developed in France with the basic concept of the discipline being to simulate
live game shooting using clay targets and shotguns.
There
are two different formats you might encounter when shooting FITASC. There is
the “old style” layout and the “new style” layout. This month I will explain “old style”.
Normally
Sporting Clays are shot in rounds of 50 or 100, while FITASC is shot in
a 25 target groupings called a “layout” or a “parcours”. On average these 25
target layouts take about 45 minutes to shoot in competition if all goes
smoothly. A typical parcours uses four or five traps offering many different
types of targets including standard, midi, mini/bourdon, battue, rabbit,
rockets, and zz birds. The setup could be compared to something you might see
on a five-stand for example. However, unlike five-stand there are just three
stands, or “pegs”, from which to shoot at the targets and the location of those
pegs provides the shooter with incredible variety! For example, from stand one
the “A” target might be a nice simple going-away bird, but the same target
viewed from stand two is suddenly a forty-yard crosser.
The
trap machines are usually labeled A, B, C, D, E and every stand has a menu
posted that lists the order of the targets to be shot including singles and
doubles. For instance, a stand one menu
might read “Singles - B, D, A, C, Doubles - D on report C, AB true pair.” Each
parcours is shot by a squad usually consisting of six members. The first
shooter will step into stand one, view the singles in the order they will be
shot and then attempt the singles with full use of the gun (i.e. both shots
count) and then step out of the ring.
The rest of the shooters will follow in order and shoot the singles
also. Then shooter number two steps in to the ring and attempts the doubles.
There are no view targets on doubles unless a new target is being introduced or
a new presentation such as a following or true pair. If it is just report pairs
of the same singles that you already shot, which is very common in FITASC, then
you just get in the ring and shoot. Unlike English Sporting, doubles in FITASC
are your only opportunity to shoot at a bird you have already shot once but
when paired with another, the dynamics of the shot may change adding pressure
to a shot you may normally be confident with. Once the squad has completed
stand one, they all move to stand two and shooter number three leads off with
the singles, shooter number four leads off on doubles. By the end of stand
three, everyone has had the opportunity to go first. Again, you are shooting targets from the same traps as stand one,
just from a different location that often drastically changes the presentation
of the target. That is the essence of FITASC, constant challenging variety that
leaves you wishing you could have another go at that elusive bird that didn’t
look THAT tough! You can see how it is similar to hunting where you rarely get
the exact same presentation twice.
Hopefully
by now you are thinking, where can I try this? Many gun clubs offer a FITASC
layout to practice on and it is most likely old style. Also, many sporting
clays tournaments offer a small 50 bird FITASC side competition that will also
use the old style FITASC course. The advantages to the old style layout is that
it doesn’t require a huge area like a spread out sporting clays course and it
offers great variety while only using four or five traps. The negative aspect
of this format is that only six people can shoot at one time (taking 45 minutes
to an hour) so it is difficult to get a large number of competitors through an
event using old style. Therefore next month I will explain the new style of
FITASC that has been designed in order to accommodate the growth of this
wonderfully challenging game that John and I love! Meanwhile go out and give it
a shot, I predict you’ll be hooked!
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