WEST POINT – More than a hundred of the top competitors in the shotgunning world will compete for the 2025 U.S. Helice Association National Championship this weekend at Prairie Wildlife.
The game of helice comes far closer to replicating the unpredictable, erratic flight of live gamebirds than any other manmade discipline. It was invented in Europe many decades ago, but it has recently become tremendously popular among competitors in the United States, and especially throughout the South, where the nostalgia and legacy of bobwhite quail hunting remains strong. The launch of a helice target is amazingly similar to the flush of a wild bobwhite quail, likely the closest a manmade resemblance may ever be made.
The event, set for this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, is open to the public. There is no admission charge for spectators. A number of vendors with products in the hunting and shooting world will have tents set up, and there will be concessions and food trucks on hand, creating a carnival atmosphere. Food, drinks and a wide variety of goods and equipment will be available for purchase.
The venue, Black Prairie Helice, is part of Prairie Wildlife, a sporting destination specializing in upland bird hunting, shotgun shooting and corporate retreats. This will be the third time it has hosted the national championship, the most recent being the summer of 2022. Prairie Wildlife and Black Prairie Helice are located at 3990 Old Vinton Road.
“We’ll have a good crowd, and we’re excited for everyone to come see the event,” said Jimmy Bryan, Prairie Wildlife’s proprietor. “This time we have more than 100 shooters signed up, and many typically just walk in also. We expect to have 125 to 130 shooters in all, which is pretty big for helice. It’s an open event, so a good many local guys come out and shoot, and more come out and watch.”
Helice is a shotgun game that blends the accessibility of clay targets with the true, erratic unpredictability of wild birds. A helice range bears some resemblance to a trap range. The shooter stands at a determined point and calls for a target that launches from some distance to his front going away, but that’s where the resemblance ends. The targets themselves consist of a white plastic witness cap mounted inside an orange ring with two propellers. As the shooter takes position, five launchers, facing away from the shooter and standing in an arc 26 meters away, each spin a target up to 5,000 revolutions per minute. On the shooter’s call, one randomly-chosen machine releases its target, which takes flight on a truly unique path. The shooter must break the witness cap free of its wings and have it fall to the ground before crossing a two-foot-high fence another 21 meters to their front. It is a contest of coordination, instinct and perfection.
“The thing about helice is, you have to shoot instinctively,” Xavier Fairley, director of shooting sports at Prairie Wildlife, said. “With traditional skeet, through practice, you can time each shot and settle into a hold point and a break point with each position. Helice is extremely random. The targets truly fly like birds. There are no set leads and no predictability.”
“It’s the hottest shotgun game being played today,” said Becky Briggs. She and her husband Eddie, a former Mississippi lieutenant governor, have been helice devotees for more than 10 years. They’ve both represented the United States in world helice competition. “We want people to come out and see it. It’s hard to appreciate it until you’ve seen it done, but helice has a tremendous appeal. It’s a family event. Boys, girls, husbands and wives all enjoy it, and it’s accessible to every age group under the sun. Shooters as young as 10 and as old as old can be are all drawn to it.
“Prairie Wildlife’s venue is second to none. It’s a grand spot, with a facility of unrivaled quality. Helice is a fast-growing sport. Jimmy Bryan and his crew have worked very hard to make their facility what it is.”
In the years since its initial foray into the sport, Prairie Wildlife has grown its helice operation into the largest such facility in the nation. Prairie Wildlife is home to six officially-sanctioned helice rings and a practice ring. Two of the rings are lit for nighttime shooting, and all are supported by a first class lodging and service operation.
“Helice is the most instinctive form of shotgun shooting you can do and not be shooting at game,” Fairley said. “What I like best about helice is, it’s not monotonous. With traditional skeet, through practice, you can time each shot and settle into a hold point and a break point with each position. Helice is completely random. The targets truly fly like birds. There are no set leads and no predictability. You can go to the same helice course every day and shoot any number of targets and it’s going to be a different game. You’ll never cease to see targets that surprise you or wow you.”
Clay targets, whether in skeet, trap, 5-stand or sporting clay games, are thrown by a mechanical arm. From the moment it’s launched, a clay target is slowing down. Helice targets, on the other hand, are spun and released. Just like live birds flushed from the ground, they’re speeding up from the first instant they’re seen until they’re well out of range. It’s a scenario guaranteed to humble every shooter sooner or later, and probably sooner than later.
“This game has taught me you’ve got to be a gracious winner,” Fairley says with a smile. “You’ve got be be absolutely focused on the game. It’s about as mental as it is athletic. We’re awful proud of it and we want people to come here and see it, to experience it for themselves.”
In 2022, the national championship competed at Prairie Wildlife was won by Kazim Muhammad, then 16, of Dallas. In three rounds of competition, facing 30 targets per round, Muhammad shot 29, 29 and 28 to outpace Mac Douglass, of Lafayette, Calif., by a single target. Muhammad missed four targets in three days and won by a margin of one.
“I really enjoy helice, not only for the competition, but for the people I get to compete alongside,” Muhammad said. “Prairie Wildlife is a really special place, they’re great hosts and I’m looking forward to coming back.”
Kazim claimed the Helice Junior National Championship at age 12. He won the U.S. Helice Association National Championship in 2020, then the Helice World Championship, the Beretta Cup, in 2021 in Cairo, Egypt.
“I’m very proud of him, not only as a shooter, but for the young man he is becoming,” his father, Ahsan Muhammad, said. “He really enjoys shooting helice with fellow shooters who are mostly older than he is. He really loves the sport. My main goal is not to make him a good shooter, but make him a good person.”
“This event represents everything my dad wanted the helice program here to become,” said Stephan Gordon, daughter of Stephen Imes, co-founder of the helice program at Prairie Wildlife. Imes and Jimmy Bryan developed the helice rings and introduced the game to Northeast Mississippi several years ago. Imes passed away unexpectedly at the end of July in 2021.
“He loved the community and the people it brought together,” Gordon said. “He had a vision for this and, to see it come to fruition, to see the project he and Mr. Jimmy started come to be, is really amazing. Being able to unite people from different cultures and different communities is one of the most wonderful parts of the shooting sports, and especially helice. My dad was a world traveler and loved that aspect of this game the most. Everyone is here to compete, but not so much that it impact friendships.”
“This is a world competition and people have worked for years to get to the levels they’ve reached but, at the same time, they’re so nice,” said Bentley Imes Ferguson. He is the grandson of Stephen Imes and was also a competitor in the 2022 national championship, finishing that competition in the upper third of the field.
“In the first round, the gun I was shooting broke down and at least 10 people, who were in the rotation to shoot for scores of their own, stopped what they were doing and rushed to help.”
The examples set by Ferguson, Muhammad, Imes, Bryan and the others will be on full display this weekend, as they are anytime avid shooters get together.
Prairie Wildlife is located at 3990 Old Vinton Road near West Point. For more information, call 662-494-5858 or visit prairiewildlife.com
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