Where: Adairsville, Georgia
When: year-round
If you like: the sporting life
Why you should go: Though the sport of helice, which challenges shotgunners with fast, freewheeling targets known as ZZ birds, is still something of a niche pursuit in the United States, its devotees say it’s as close as you can get to the thrill of live bird shooting. “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 Barnsley Resort, a three-thousand-acre retreat in the North Georgia foothills. “You never know, and that’s the fun part.” Barnsley introduced the new helice station and upgraded two fifteen-station sporting clays courses last year, part of a slew of improvements that included a $6 million renovation of the resort’s rustic-luxe cottages. Across the former nineteenth-century estate of Godfrey Barnsley, sporting-minded guests can also join guided hunts for quail, turkey, and pheasant; test their aim on a thousand-yard challenge; and fine-tune their golf and pickleball swings.
G&G tip: You don’t have to be an overnight guest to tour the formal gardens and dramatic ruins of the 1840s-built manor house. Day passes are available for $15 and include admission to a small museum about the Barnsley family.
