Sunnydell Shooting Grounds

For those intimidated by shooting, Sunnydell is the best place ever. Whether you’ve never shot before or are an expert, Matt and his crew couldn’t be nicer or more accommodating. Skeet shooting is one of the more fun ways to spend a couple hours. Highly recommended! We had a… blast! I know, I know…

My wife and I are fairly new to clay shooting. While vacationing in the Sequim area, since we had the shotguns with us, we decided to stop by to see what Sunnydell was all about.
Wow.
We ended up shooting 3 rounds at the pond, with personal guidance from Matt himself. We decided to come back the next day for some one on one instruction. Matt coached us for a little over 2 hours. In that short time with him, both of us were hitting with regularity and new found confidence. Matt, an Olympic Gold Medalist is an excellent instructor. Able to teach to your abilities, rather than you having to keep up with him.
If you have any thought of planning a trip to the Sequim area, a visit to Sunnydell and time with Matt is well worth it.

Excellent range to use up some shells. Friend and I went today. The sun was out so a great day to go out and have some fun. The people were super friendly and provided advice when asked. One on one customer service. A small mom and pop operation. The owner is an olympian champion. He was the one throwing the birds! Talk about great advice. Soft spoken and unassuming man. I did not know he was an Olympian champ till I saw he plaque in the club house. Great little place. If you wanted get involved in a small club they are as friendly as they get. Don, t be bashful. You can shoot out over a pond there and that is the best station. Watch out for the number nine house. The bird comes right to you like it is trying to land on the pond. Great fun.

I’m in love.
I’ve been seeing the sign for Sunnydell every week, as I drive west on 101 on my way in to Port Angeles, and finally had an afternoon where I could give it a shot (hah!). Having called earlier, I knew that their website’s «10am to dusk» hours really meant «until about 5» — so be forewarned if you just plan on showing up. I had also confirmed — shotguns for rent, at the stupid reasonable rate of $ 2 a day. So I made the drive on a gorgeous sunny Thursday.
The range itself is nestled back in the woods, a little way off 101, but it’s very easy to find. Just head north down Dryke Road and follow the signs. Once you get in to the range proper, looks can be a bit deceiving. It looks a little ramshackle, but it’s not — it’s just enormous. More on this later. I poked around a bit, and finally found someone (it’s off season, so the range was very quiet) to set me straight, and got hooked up with Matt Dryke himself, a shooter of some renown. Matt set me up with shells/​targets, at a reasonable $ ¹³⁄₂₅ birds/​shells, and loaned me a shooting vest and pretty nice shooting Beretta autoloader. Then off we went to «the pond.»
Matt pointed out what they had to offer — a «fur and feather» (rabbit and bird combo) station, a «bunker» station, where you basically stand on top of the trap house, a clays course that runs off back in to the woods, and the pond, a 5-​stand station on crack. Your shooting position is a covered platform slightly out over the water, with crossing launchers to the right and left, a random trap underneath you shooting out, and a long shot coming inbound, all around a nice little pond. There are towers visible up in the trees too — not sure if they fire down on to the pond or if they fire on to the clays course, but what you should come away with here is that Sunnydell offers way more variety than your run of the mill trap/​skeet range. Their formal trap range was down — a recent tree cutting meant BBs were making their way on to neighbors’ property, so they’re moving the trap before they continue showering the neighbors with shot.
All the traps I was shooting were very reliable — very few broken birds, everything was actuated from a single position, and Matt was kind enough to both throw for me and give me some pointers on improving my score. All in all, borrowed gun included, I feel like I represented myself pretty well, shooting around 70−80%. Of note — while the pond is nice scenery, it’s much more than that. You get to see your shot ripple in to the water, which is really nice for determining whether you’re under/​over, or ahead/​behind. I’m used to either hitting, or missing and not really knowing how far off I was, but this is a good visual aid.
Everyone (well, all 4 people there) were extremely friendly, including a father/​son combo where the maybe 10 year old son was shooting the lights out with both 20 and 12 gauge. Dad even exchanged information with me and told me to give him a call if I needed a shooting partner.
I can’t forget: for maximum manliness, where some people would use mulch, Sunnydell is using a rainbow assortment of spent shotshell hulls. Which is awesome, and, until my home owner’s association raises a fuss, will be making an appearance in my front yard shortly.
A must visit if you’re any level of shooter — later in the summer, there are Olympic qualified shooters that train with Matt, and the range sounds like it gets pretty busy. If only wish I had this kind of variety accessible in the Chicago area.