Club History

With great interest being displayed in the fast growing sport of international skeet shooting, local enthusiasts organized a one range skeet field in the Aubrey Sanders’ pasture of Amite, LA in the year 1952.  By 1954, interest had grown to such a level that a local skeet shooting club was incorporated under the name of Florida Parishes Skeet and Gun Association, Amite, Louisiana.  A new club facility was constructed on the Banks of the Tangipahoa River near Amite.

After organization, the club immediately became affiliated with the National Skeet Shooting Association and began hosting registered competitive shoots in addition to regular club shoots.

            The club adopted as its emblem the wild turkey which was staging a come back throughout the south and especially in Louisiana.  Benjamin Franklin ardently worked to make the wild turkey rather than the Bald Eagle our National Bird.

            The club was designed as a gun club, a sportsman’s club, and a club dedicated to the conservation of wild life and the recreational use of the great outdoors.  In 1955, the club adopted the following conservation goals.

1. Setting precedent by closing deer season in North end of parish for seven years.

2. Establish a migrating water fowl public hunting area in the Florida Parishes.

3. Establish a ten thousand acre game preserve in this area.

4. Eradicate water hyacinths in upland river basins to prevent future contamination by them.

5. Establish a one hundred acre migrating water fowl refuge to give the fowl a protected resting area.

6. Releasing of deer and turkeys in this area.

            Shoots conducted by the club were styled as the Mardi Gras Open Shoot, the Ozone Open, the Dogwood Open, the Annual Florida Parishes Open, and the long standing Strawberry and Cream Open.  Other shoots hosted were LA State Shoots, a US Zone Shoot, the Baton Rouge Tiger Open, the Baton Rouge Marathon, the New Orleans Spring Fiesta???  In addition to skeet shooting, Turkey Shoots and Dove Shoots were also sponsored by the club. Currently, ther club is partnered with 4-H and LSCTP

            The club boasts one of the finest outlays for skeet shooting in the United States nestled on the Banks of the Tangipahoa River and was known as one of the most active in the development of skeet shooting.  The local club facility has been the envy of other clubs for many years with a country fair hospitality at each shoot that consisted of picnics and luncheons served both on the grounds and in the club house.   It has certainly been a favorite place for shoots around the State and in the Southeast US Region.

            The local club was designed to educate all people, both young and old, in the art of handling a gun; in the art of wing shooting; and in the art of safety, and boasts of never having sustained an accident by the use of or handling of guns on their ranges or from their members. 

In keeping with the Tradition of Safety and Conservation, the Florida Parishes Skeet Club has hosted a Hunter Safety Education Program annually since 1986 and has sponsored a Wildlife and Fisheries Banquet to recognize the outstanding wildlife agent of the year from our region.

In 2005, the Skeet Club affiliated itself with Cowboy Action Shooting by entering an agreement with the Bayou Bounty Hunters, a local Cowboy Shooting Club, to allow the fast growing sport of Cowboy Action Shooting on its facility.  For more information on the Bayou Bounty Hunters go to Our Calendar and you will see their scheduled events.