A weekend away from The Big Shoot HQ means only one thing for our hard working team of shooting specialists – a weekend of clay shooting. So when some of us got the chance to visit one of our most popular venues, we fired up the satnav, dug out the driving tunes and headed straight for Clay Pigeon Shooting Market Harborough.
For the lowdown on the day’s action we hand over to Dom..
“Getting down to Market Harborough Clay Shooting from our head office in Harrogate meant a bit of an early start on the Sunday of our shoot, but it’s a brilliant venue and I’ve heard so much good feedback from colleagues and customers that I couldn’t wait to finally give it a go myself.
We arrived at the venue just before our 12 o’clock start time, and as soon as you get to Clay Pigeon Shooting Market Harborough the first thing you’ll notice is the views. Despite only being about 15 minutes away from the motorway you’re completely surround by countryside, and if the sun’s shining there’s nowhere better for clay shooting.
After parking up and admiring the 4×4 course, we made our way over to the main building where we were introduced to our instructor for the day, Rob. The guys at Market Harborough were all really welcoming and we were even offered complimentary tea and coffee to start the session, which went down a storm with the office tea addicts. Before making our way to the shooting stands we had a quick tour of the grounds too, and the chance to see some of the other activities on offer at our Market Harborough venue was great.
The grounds are absolutely huge, but the shooting stands are just a short walk from the main building, so you don’t have to worry about walking miles before your shoot. There’s some great views to take in too and the stands overlook an enormous rapeseed field, which makes for some great pictures once you’ve finished your shoot.
Our shoot started with a full safety briefing from Rob, who ran through all the important safety info and showed us some of the guns we’d be using – and what a collection he has! There are guns to suit shooters of all sizes, and even a one-of-kind ash grey semi-automatic shotgun, which is every bit as awesome as it sounds! After admiring the guns it was finally time to test our shooting skills though, and because we’re all so competitive there were definitely a few nerves kicking about. To pile on the pressure even more we added a forfeit for the loser too, and I definitely didn’t fancy being office tea boy for the day.
The targets on offer at Market Harborough Clay Shooting are really varied and over the course of our 25 clay shoot we worked our way round three different shooting stands. Despite a shaky start I eventually managed to find my rhythm and smash some clays, and with Rob’s help I improved with every shot – in fact without Rob’s help I’d probably be on tea making duty right now! Trying to smash the bolting rabbit clay was fun, but the real highlight of the day was getting our hands on the semi-automatic shotgun. Even if you miss the clay with all three shots you feel like an action hero, what a beast!
Our day at Market Harborough Clay Pigeon Shooting was absolutely brilliant and Rob and the team really went out of their way to give us the best experience possible. I’d definitely take on the 25 shoot again, even if it’s just for the chance to have another go with the semi-automatic shotgun!”
If this has inspired you to take on the clays at Market Harborough you can find the full venue details by visiting The Big Shoot website.