Fearsome FITASC

FITASC is an acronym for Federation Internationale de Tir aux Armes Sportives de Chasse, That’s roughly “International Federation of Shooting with Sporting Arms.” After you have tried it out, you might think that the initials stand for “Frighteningly Intense Tough-Ass Sporting Clays.” It also has been described by devotees as the caviar of shooting. The organization is French-based, but I’ve read that the format is really Spanish in origin.

Basically, FITASC is sporting clays for the thinking man. It has some very real differences when compared to the usual English sporting clays. Unlike sporting in England and America, FITASC has not succumbed to the bowling-with-barbells mentality and still requires a low-gun start. A line is sewn on the vest 25cm (10”) below the top of the shoulder, and no part of the stock may be above that line until such time as the shooter actually can see the bird.

Usually, a FITASC field, called a “parcour,” has three shooting positions and a minimum of four traps but often more. The positions of the shooting circles and traps are up to the imagination and deviousness of the course designer.

Now here is what makes FITASC really different from sporting. You never get exactly the same bird twice. Every shot is different. In sporting, a typical stand would consist of three or four identical pairs of birds. You can “learn” the station as you shoot repetitive doubles.

Not so in FITASC. On a typical station you will shoot four singles with each one coming from a different machine. Then you will shoot two pairs, either report or true. Each pair will contain birds that you may have just shot as singles but, when thrown as pairs, they must be handled differently. Then you move to the second of the three shooting positions on the parcour and again shoot four singles and two pairs. Depending on the number of machines being used, they may be the same birds from the same machines, but standing in a different position makes the presentation entirely new. And you have to remember the birds, because once you have seen a bird on the first position, they won’t let you see it as a “show bird” on another stand. Then you shoot from the third position on the parcour to finish your 25 targets. After that you move to a different parcour for your next 25 targets, and so on.

The absence of constantly repeated sporting clays pairs makes FITASC more interesting and challenging. It also makes the game proceed more slowly, because more time is devoted to thinking and plotting the shots. To speed things up, “new style” FITASC is sometimes practiced. Here, instead of using four parcours for 100 targets, stations can be broken down into smaller bits more like sporting. But the “you only get each bird once” rule still applies. Either way it’s fun.

One neat thing about FITASC that also obtains in Olympic Trap is that you get to shoot twice at a single target. Of course this encourages the target setter to vent his spleen, but what the heck. We are all hunters and know how to double-tap a bird, right? In theory all FITASC presentations are supposed to mimic hunting. Well, that’s the theory.

Here are the current FITASC rules, unless they have done something in the past two years that I don’t know about:

http://www.fitascsporting.com/sei/s/3486/new%20fitasc%20sporting%20rules....

Frighteningly intense, indeed. After trying FITASC, you’ll definitely want to get out of those boots and into that beer.