Photos by Chad Riley
The shotgun is poised, ready for action. One eye, shielded by a protective lens, looks straight down the barrel. A trap clicks and suddenly, a clay whizzes through the crisp fall air. A second click and a second clay shoots into the air. A shot rings out, then another and both clays shatter. The woman lowers the gun as the others behind her remark on a job well done. While for some, Southern Sunday afternoons are a time to rest and unwind, for these ladies, the call of the clays lures them out into the woods once a month at Bushy Creek Clays in Perdido, Alabama.
Sporting clays is their predominant focus. “It’s kind of like golfing with a gun,” explains Sarah-Ashley Boling. Different from trap and skeet shooting, which both operate on a confined arena, sporting clays is set on a walkable course. Participants move from station to station and targets are set up to mimic the movements of different types of animals. “The whole point is you shoot 100 targets,” says Boling. “Each station is different. You will have the clays coming from all different directions: behind you, towards you, crossing, high, low. They come from all over the place. That’s the fun of sporting clays. It gives you a look at a variety of situations and can be a setup for hunting.”
Boling didn’t grow up around guns; her parents didn’t even keep one in their house. Her interest in shooting came almost by accident back when she was living in North Carolina. “I started working in construction and my mom gave me a piece of advice, which was basically, ‘Everything that the guys do to bond, you need to also learn to do so that you can never be left out,’” says Boling. “And a lot of the guys I worked with were really into shooting.” At first, Boling was nervous to dive into the male-dominated sport, given her lack of familiarity. However, she was left with little choice when a superintendent spontaneously asked her to join him and a few colleagues at a charity shoot. “Those words for my mom were bouncing around in the back of my head,” she says. Despite her nerves, she agreed to join the group, donning earplugs and safety glasses, gun in hand. It took just a single shooting event to pique her interest. “I honestly enjoyed it so much,” she remembers. “That was my initiation into shooting.” Around that same time, she was introduced to a female-focused shooting group called GRITS, which stands for Girls Really Into Shooting. For Boling, the organization perfectly combined opportunities to develop shooting skills with quality time amongst women in the sport. “I just really enjoyed the fellowship, the friendship and the experience,” she says. Once she moved to south Alabama, she was ready to get involved in something similar. “I thought it might be a good way to meet people and I assumed living down here that there was going to be an abundance of women involved in the sport,” she says. “But I found out that there weren’t any groups dedicated for women in sporting clays.”
Not too long after her move, Boling met Justine Bixler at a New Year’s Eve party. In the course of their conversation that night, they realized they had a shared interest in shooting and hunting. “Every Thanksgiving, their family does a big quail hunt at Dennis Lake, so we started to share stories of our experience with bird hunting, and I learned that Sarah-Ashley was an exceptional shot,” says Bixler.
Boling saw an opportunity for a shooting group and took her shot. “I just pitched the idea to Justine. ‘Hey, you’re from here, you know a lot of people here. Maybe you can help me do this and get some people involved,’” says Boling. Bixler was all for the idea. During her teenage and college years, she spent weekends at friends’ hunting camps, sparking a desire to learn to shoot better. From there, she participated in charity skeet shoots, though she says it was usually as a last-minute team member. “My skills were just enough to pass muster,” she laughs. Despite this, Bixler didn’t get fully involved in shooting until she met her husband Ryan in 2017. “One of the first things he wanted to do was take me to his family’s property in Clarke County,” she says. “This is where my love for skeet shooting and sporting clays became more of a hobby.” Ryan grew up in a family of hunters and he taught Justine everything he knew about hunting and helped her hone her skills as a shooter. “On Sundays, we would head to a beautiful bluff overlooking the Alabama River that they affectionately call ‘church.’ There is something particularly peaceful about that spot, even when the sound of an old, rusty throwing machine and several shotguns ring out in the treetops.”
Combining their shared experience of shooting and Bixler’s connections around town, Boling and Bixler set out to form the Mobile Bay chapter of GRITS. Women from across Mobile and Baldwin counties answered the call, and their group grew from two to 20 quickly, with a small, dedicated core group meeting every month. “My favorite part of the group is that we have women from all backgrounds — teachers, doctors, engineers, scientists, non-profit executives, business professionals — and all from various corners of South Alabama coming together over a common interest or desire to learn a new skill,” says Bixler. “Most of us did not know each other before joining so it provides a great way to meet new people in a beautiful outdoor setting with a lot of fun.” Members range from women who are beginners to the more advanced. “The first time I ever shot a gun was with this group,” says Katie Ellenburg. She was invited by Boling, her neighbor in Fairhope, to try her hand at clay shooting about two years ago. Much like Boling, Ellenburg hadn’t grown up around guns. “But I’ve always wanted to try clay shooting because it just seemed fun,” she says. Once Ellenburg got to know the other members and shot a few times, she knew she wanted to keep going. “I was really drawn to the fact that it was an all-women’s shooting group,” she says. “I love that we have people from all different experience levels. Especially for me, who had never really shot a gun or been around guns. They’ve been very supportive and helpful.”
Experienced members often assume a role to help those who are just starting out, remembering the nervousness combined with excitement they felt the first time they looked down the barrel. “I would say I was instantly hooked. It’s just a lot of fun and I wasn’t too bad at it,” recalls member Marcia Killian, laughing. She was introduced to shooting in 2016 by some of the officers of her company who participated in sporting clays as a way to bond with clients. “After my first time, I got online and searched ‘places to shoot sporting clays.’ I found Bushy Creek Clays and started going to lessons.” Evidently, she was a great shot; she went on to join the National Sporting Clays Association and competed in her first competition in February 2017. “I was a little nervous because it was the Gator Cup in South Florida and it was a really large shoot,” says Killian. “But I had signed up for several events throughout the weekend, so once I got the first one under my belt, the nerves wore off a little.” She has been competing since then and earned an impressive title along the way. She is the lady champion for the Alabama Sporting Clay Championship for 2024. “It took me a few tries, but I got it eventually and it’s amazing. Both my husband and I have placed at regional and state events.” The pair has since traveled the southeast for shoots and competitions, but it is more than a shared activity for the couple. It’s how they met. “We had both come for a lesson at about the same time and were introduced at the five stand. We shot a little together that day and decided that we wanted to get together again, so we exchanged numbers and basically have been talking ever since,” she laughs. In fact, he proposed to Killian on the five stand at Bushy Creek.
Justine Bixler and Mary Herring
While shooting is a fun activity to do with friends and family, there’s a unique sort of comradery that comes with shooting with other women. “Honestly, I came just to have fellowship with the women,” says Ellenburg. “I thought it was cool that it was an all-women’s shooting group. That’s why I started going, because I just thought I would enjoy my time with all the ladies.” The monthly meetups on the course are followed by food and wine with time to socialize.
And while learning a new sport without men present might remove the intimidation of stepping into a traditionally male-dominated sport, the ladies say in the end, women oftentimes become better at it than men. “I’ve heard this reinforced with the guys I’ve shot with. They say that women tend to be a better shot,” says Boling. “It’s because women are not worried about impressing anybody out on the course. They just focus.” Shooting also has the somewhat unique appeal of being a sport that can be taken up at any age. All of this, combined with beautiful fall sunshine, makes it hard to pass up an afternoon on the course. “It’s a lifetime sport. You can grow with it,” says Ellenburg. “What other sport could I pick up in my 30s and still be somewhat successful, but also enjoy? It’s been such a great experience for me and has introduced me to parts of myself that I didn’t even know existed.”
