Born in 1960s Belgium as an alternative to pigeon shooting, the sport of helice challenges shotgunners with fast, unpredictable targets known as ZZ birds. (The name “ZZ” combines “zinc”—of which the original targets were made—and zorrito, a nod to a Spanish breed of pigeon.) Designed to mimic live bird flight, these gyroscopic targets can fly in any direction, requiring sharp reflexes and precision. “You have five machines spinning up to 5,500 RPM with an oscillating head, so it might throw high, low, left, or right,” says Drew Burrell, director of operations at Beretta Shooting Grounds at Georgia’s Barnsley Resort. “You never know—and that’s the fun part.”
Brought to the U.S. in the 1980s, helice remains something of a niche pursuit. But ask its devotees, and they’ll tell you it’s as close as you can get to the thrill of live bird shooting. Here are seven picturesque sporting estates across the South where you can find it.
Barnsley Resort
Adairsville, Georgia
Tucked in the North Georgia foothills, this three-thousand-acre retreat offers a Jim Fazio–designed golf course, horseback riding and UTV trails, a spa, and the ruins of an 1840s Italianate villa framed by gardens and a museum. In a partnership with Beretta and High Adventure Company, the estate also offers fifteen stations of sporting clays, quail and turkey hunts, pheasant releases, and new in 2024, helice. “Helice helps bird hunters practice being on constant alert in the field, since you’re unaware beforehand of which machine will be throwing,” Burrell notes. Barnsley’s helice course is nestled among gentle hills and forest and often veiled in a serene morning mist.
Providence Hill
Jackson, Mississippi
Once a private hunting club, this 1,200-acre estate will host the 2025 National Sporting Clays Association U.S. Open across its rolling hills and deep woods. Stay atop a horse stable or in one of sixteen luxury cabins complete with steam showers and Matouk linens. The retreat also offers quail hunting, bass fishing, a seven-machine duck flush, two helice rings, and plenty of scenery. “You’re looking at a 160-acre lake behind one helice ring with big, mature oak trees,” says Jimmy Grant, director of sporting operations and the conservancy at the resort.
Honey Brake Lodge
Jonesville, Louisiana
This 3,500-square-foot lodge on Larto Lake sits among towering red oaks and cypress trees and twenty thousand acres of historic Louisiana Delta land (nine thousand of which constitute a Wetlands Reserve Project). Centered along the Central and Mississippi flyways, it’s a premier waterfowl destination with sixty-five duck blinds, plus a fifteen-station sporting clays course and day-and-night shooting on a sanctioned helice pitch illuminated by 360,000 lumens of LED lighting.
Joshua Creek Ranch
Boerne, Texas
This Orvis- and Beretta-endorsed wingshooting lodge in the Texas Hill Country backs up to spring-fed, crystal-clear Joshua Creek and the Guadalupe River. Guests can partake in European-style driven pheasant shoots and upland bird, waterfowl, and deer hunts alongside fly fishing and sporting clays. Rolling hills and open meadows also set the stage for helice. “Helice is a natural extension of our wingshooting operation,” says managing director Kevin Welborn. “With only one or two shooters at a time, it adds an element of spectatorship and gamesmanship that sets it apart.”
Broxton Bridge Plantation
Ehrhardt, South Carolina
In the family since 1735, this six-thousand-acre estate along the Salkehatchie River is equipped with a fifteen-station sporting clays course and a USHA-sanctioned helice course stocked with automatic machines and top-of-the-line Cominel targets, in addition to offering deer and wild boar hunting. Guests can also ride equestrian trails thirty-five feet above the bluff, dock in the RV park with horse corrals, or fly in via the 2,600-foot airstrip.
Prairie Wildlife
West Point, Mississippi
Outfitted with a USHA-sanctioned helice field, this Orvis-endorsed wingshooting lodge in the scenic Black Prairie hosts hunts for dove, pheasant, deer, rabbit, and quail. Notably, its nine hundred acres of restored grasslands also play a part in conservation efforts to reestablish bobwhite quail populations.
Selwood Farm
Alpine, Alabama
Established in 1834, this farm hosts Alabama’s only helice ring in its main shooting field. Its name, Selwood, means “the king’s hunting forest,” and the area showcases lush woodlands, open pastures, and winding streams amid gently rolling hills. Helice competitions follow sanctioned rules but with a local twist known as the “Alabama Slide.” After five consecutive hits, shooters step back to increase the challenge.
