Rock Mountain Sporting Clays (top) near Springville is one of two venues for a sport that is growing in popularity. At Hausmann’s Hidden Hollow (above) the Greenley’s BBQ Team, participants in last year’s fundraiser for the School of Petroleum & Natural Gas in Susquehanna County, prepare for their day on the course.
By Rick Hiduk
Whether you enjoy shooting for fun or want to hone your skills for the next hunting season, sporting clays courses have achieved popularity as both a daytrip destination and a form of country club not unlike golfing venues. Like golf courses though, no two sporting clays courses are alike.
In Susquehanna County, Hausmann’s Hidden Hollow Sporting Clays and Rock Mountain Sporting Clays (top) have been open for about 20 years each. Both host large fundraisers and can accommodate big groups for corporate events and family functions. They are no more than 15 miles away from each other, as the crow flies, and less than a 35 minute drive.
Hidden Hollow Sporting Clays is owned by Ernest Hausmann and closer to Friendsville. Hausmann is an avid bird hunter and has always preferred “hunter clays,” which simulate shooting birds in field conditions. The joy of the business, he says, is “meeting the people.”
His private, 110-acre spread 18 miles west of Montrose (the Susquehanna County seat) features a course consisting of 16-30 sporting clay stations, Crazy Quail, a Tower Field, Five Stand and Skeet Field, plus a vertical/horizontal wobble trap for warm-up or for fun.
Have time to spend a full day and looking for variety? Hausmann’s also offers fishing and fly casting lessons onsite with experienced instructors. Their clubhouse is well-equipped for small corporate meetings and retreats, and helicopter service is available out of Binghamton, NY, pending availability.
Rock Mountain Sporting Clays near Springville is owned by Mike and Susan Koneski and managed by Tad Koneski. Their two courses are fully automatic and equipped with Lincoln Infinity Sporter Traps. They have a long course featuring 100 birds over 17 stations and a short course providing 50 targets that approximate live birds at nine stations.
Rock Mountain hosts state- and nationally-sanctioned tournaments, and their lodge can accommodate corporate events, bachelor parties, family reunions, weddings and fundraisers. There is an outdoor rent-able cook shack, picnic pavilion and large-event pavilion that can seat more than 250 people. Non-members are welcome.
The Koneskis feel that the family-friendly atmosphere and professional ranges make new members out of people who participate in one of the charity, corporate, bachelor party or fun shoots. They, in turn, want to book shooting events for other groups.
Mike says that being able to make a difference in the community through the charity and fundraising events is his most enjoyable aspect of the business. “It is our part of paying it forward and helping others,” he remarks.
There are numerous bed-and-breakfasts in Montrose and elsewhere in Susquehanna County and several hotels in Bradford, Wyoming and Lackawanna counties that can accommodate small and large groups.
Hausmann’s Hidden Hollow Sporting Clays
Flynn Road, Friendsville, PA 18818
570-934-2336
Rock Mountain Sporting Clays
674 Leon Mitchell Road, Springville, PA 18844
570-965-7625