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Not the same-old networking

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When golf season ends is when some local business people finally get their shot at showing customers and co-workers their idea of a good time.

Starting in the fall, Doc’s Hunt Club in Adel plays host to many hunting and target-shooting outings sponsored by local companies and business groups. Some hunting enthusiasts believe business and networking can just as easily be conducted during a hunt as it can on the golf course.

“Shooting is just like golf; some people are better than others,” said Corrie Ashour, events coordinator for the Home Builders Association of Greater Des Moines. “It can be competitive, but also a lot of fun.”

Ashour spent an afternoon at Doc’s earlier this month when the Remodeler’s Council of the Home Builders Association took a group of about 35 there for a social outing on the trapshooting range. Participants took turns rotating among five shooting stations to see who had the best luck hitting the clay discs. This was the third year in a row the council has sponsored the outing. Ashour said it was a nice alternative to golf events, and she thought it even gave people a better opportunity to network than you typically have on the golf course.

“When you’re in a golf outing, it’s you and a few other people,” she said. “You might see the team in front of yours and behind yours for a little bit. For this, unless it’s your turn shooting, you mingle with people and talk. It is a good networking experience.”

Ashour said she also liked the event because it wasn’t as rushed as a golf outing, where you “chase your ball and have to keep pace” the whole time.

Sure, there’s the noise of the gunshots, but Ashour said you get used to that and know that the shots are being fired away from you.

Though the trapshooting range can be a fun outing for larger groups, others who use Doc’s to entertain clients and employees prefer taking a small group into the fields to hunt pheasants, quails and chukar partridges for a few hours.

With every hunt, the group chooses how many and what kind of birds it wants, and Doc’s releases the pen-raised birds about a half-hour before the hunt begins. This setup helps ensure that hunters will be likely to see birds when they hit the fields. But “you still have to hit them; they don’t just jump into your bag,” said Russ Brown, Doc’s manager.

The price you pay to release each bird is worth it because it can make hunting more fun when you’re taking out people who don’t have much experience with the sport, according to Julie Hanifen, CEO of Hanifen Co. Inc. She also likes that Doc’s mows walking paths in its tall prairie grasses for the convenience of the hunters and their dogs.

“We usually start shooting pheasants within 10 minutes of getting in the field, and a lot of times, we’re still shooting three hours later,” Hanifen said. “In the wilderness, you don’t get a chance to shoot as much because you have to walk around a lot longer to find birds.”

That’s assuming you can find a place other than a hunting preserve that will allow you to hunt on its land. Pat Ruelle, vice president of McAninch Corp., said he and about a dozen other managers at the company go to Doc’s to hunt because it solves the problem of trying to get permission from landowners.

“Trying to even find a place to go can be very time consuming,” Ruelle said. “Here, you have a place that’s nearby, and you still get a really good snapshot of what hunting is like.”

Ruelle had a memorable experience not long ago when he and a customer both took their sons with them to hunt. “That was some of the most fun I’ve had with a customer,” he said. “Everybody loves to watch their children have fun, and we had a great time together seeing our boys so excited about being out there.”

Doc’s gives hunters like Hanifen and Eric Carlson, owner of EC Construction Inc. in Des Moines, an opportunity to work with their hunting dogs. Hanifen has five dogs she has trained, and Carlson has four. They said clients seem to really enjoy watching the dogs sniff out the birds and find their hiding spots, and sometimes non-hunters come along on the outings just see the dogs at work.

“When I take people out with me, they’re just amazed at what the dogs can do,” Carlson said. “You spend a lot of time training your dogs, and it’s satisfying to go out there and share the excitement with other people of seeing the dogs do what they’ve been trained to do.”

Even for people like Hanifen who like to shoot say hunting is about a lot more than firing a gun.

“The killing of the animal is such a minute part of that experience,” Hanifen said. “It’s watching the sun come up or watching the sun shine through the leaves this time of the year. Hearing the turkeys, squirrels or other wildlife. And then all of a sudden your adrenaline is going a 100 miles a minute when the dogs run full steam ahead following the trail of the birds. You come out of the woods and you’re energized.”

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