Welcome to the Heyday of Clay

Emmet Clay Sports celebrates 85 years, new name, and new amenities

By Greg Tasker | Nov. 2, 2024

Nearly a century ago, a group of game bird hunters in the Petoskey area gathered to form the Emmet County Sportsmen’s Club, creating a private space where they could shoot trap and socialize.

By the 1940s, the Emmet County Sportsmen’s Club had become synonymous with the best trap and skeet shooting in northern Michigan. Much has changed over the decades, including a move to a new location, the addition of a sporting clays course, and most recently, a rebranding.

The rebranding was officially made in April. The club is now known as Emmet Clay Sports, a nod to the organization’s 85-year history in Emmet County and its primary passion: clay sports, shotgun sports that simulate game bird hunting with clay targets.

“We are very proud of our 85-year history and feel our new name and logo honor our club’s founding, while more accurately reflecting our clay sports offering” says David Kesar, club president. “Our sporting clays course is one of the most picturesque courses I’ve shot at, and we are excited this season to offer at least three traps per station, some with four, for the first time.”

Staying in Practice

For the unfamiliar, clay sports are recreational activities that simulate wild game bird hunting with clay targets. In skeet shooting, for example, targets are thrown from two different height towers positioned across from each other. As shooters follow a half circle course from one tower to the next, targets are thrown at a variety of angles designed to simulate the shots upland bird hunters encounter in the field.

Similarly, sporting clays, sometimes referred to as golf with a shotgun, is the closest thing to actual field shooting of all shotgun sports. Rather than having clay targets thrown from standardized distances and angles, as with skeet or trap, sporting clays courses are designed to simulate the hunting of ducks, pheasants, other upland birds, and even rabbits.

“For people who are wild game bird hunters, clay sports offer a way to stay in practice when the hunting season is not open,” says J.T. Charles, who grew up pheasant hunting with his father and later became involved in clay sports. “While many clay shooters are also upland bird hunters, others were raised only shooting skeet and trap, with their fathers and grandfathers, and prefer shooting clays over birds.”

Emmet Clay Sports offers Skeet, Trap, 5-Stand, Crazy Quail, and a 14-Station Sporting Clays course.

Various membership levels are available, which include discounts on clay targets, ammunition, and rentals. In addition, members who have taken the club’s Shooting During Unopened Hours safety course (required every three years), are able to shoot at the club after hours and on closed days. The clubhouse, which offers comfortable seating, fireplace, kitchen, restroom, and a gun cleaning station, is also open to guests.

“The rebranding to Emmet Clays Sports was to better communicate to our surrounding community and visitors all we have to offer, that we are open to the public, and that we welcome shooters and non-shooters alike,” Charles says.

“We have a great venue for family outings, as well as local clubs and businesses to bring their members and employees out to shoot and have a cookout or cater food after as a thank you,” he adds. “We also regularly host outings for the local Boy Scout Troops, fundraisers like the Ruffed Grouse Society, and are the home training venue for the Pellston high school’s Clay Target Team, which the club and generous members support with free targets and ammunition.”

Growth and Change

Founded in 1939, the club was initially located on US-31, at a site now occupied by Tractor Supply. Initially, the club offered only trap shooting. At the time, a separate skeet club existed nearby, but eventually the clubs merged.

Over the years, there were some low times. In the 1950s, for example, skeet shooting nearly came to a halt after one of the club’s most active members passed. Not much occurred over the next few decades, with the exception of the addition of automatic traps.

By the 1990s, the club was outgrowing its Petoskey location and wanted to expand. Commercial development along US-31, however, made the site unsuitable for expansion. The club moved to its present location in 1996, through a property trade with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. The club is located next door to the Harbor Springs Outdoor Club—members share reciprocity of each other’s facilities.

In 2006, the club entered into a conservation easement agreement with the Little Traverse Conservancy Conservation Trust to protect the property into perpetuity for future generations and ensure public access to a place where people could practice shooting sports, learn hunter and firearm safety, and congregate to promote hunting, conservation, and other related pursuits. Funds received through the agreement were used to make property improvements.

In July 2014, a state-of-the-art 12-station sporting clays course was opened. With 70 dedicated acres, the course winds its way through the picturesque hilly and wooded terrain. Nearly a decade later, two additional stations were added to the course, bringing the total to 14 stations today. Guests can rent guns and golf carts (recommended for the hilly terrain) and purchase ammunition (for use on the property).

Today, the club has about 245 members, mostly from Emmet County. More improvements are in the works, including a heated 5-Stand building now under construction. The building, which is being constructed by Amish craftspeople, will be delivered by the end of the month and fully operational mid- to late-November.

The Sporting Clays Course closes on October 31 and reopens in May, though the club remains open through the winter. Public hours for November are usually 10am-4pm on Saturdays and Sundays, though they vary with the season and are updated on the Club’s events calendar.

Emmet Clay Sports is located at 6835 W. Robinson Rd., Harbor Springs. (231) 526-1135; emmetclaysports.com