(upbeat music) - When it comes to the outdoors, we talk about barriers that prevent people from learning how to hunt and fish.

One big obstacle can be living in a big city.

Knowing where to go, what to do and what to use can be intimidating.

But there's one business just north of the Twin Cities that's hoping to make that process a little bit easier.

(upbeat music) How often do you think you introduce people to the outdoors here?

- I'd say daily, but I mean realistically, you know, eight months, nine months out of the year individuals are coming out, you know, shooting their first bird or seeing a pointing dog for the first time or seeing dog work for the first time, shooting sporting clays for the first time.

- Chad Hughes owns and operates Wings North, an outdoor recreation facility near Pine City about an hour north of the Twin Cities.

I noticed in the back here, we're not gonna use it today 'cause it's a little cold today, but it looks like a nice deck out there and maybe people can play bags.

I saw a football laying down out there.

- Yeah, absolutely.

No.

So we actually do a lot of stuff.

September and October are very active at the club.

Despite the warm weather and everything else, we do some oddball stuff.

We've got beanbag leagues that go out, we do Friday night hay rides, five, six and seven o'clock on Friday nights, September and October.

Right after Labor Day we tour around the facility, bring families out, everything else all together.

Wintertime, once the weather gets, when we get enough ice anyway, we do ice skating on Wednesday nights.

we do ic.. - [Bret] Oh really?

.. - [Chad] Will do bonfires, hot cocoa, everything- - Little bit of everything, - For the kids.

Yeah.

- Little bit of everyt.. Makes it fun.

- I mean, obviously it's like a hunting club but you are more of almost like a community center in a sense.

- Right.

An outdoor recreation facility is what you want to be, right?

I mean, the hunting is my passion, first and foremost, but there's a lot of kids that are involved with the trap and the sporting clays and everything else, that don't necessarily enjoy the bird hunting side of things but still want to get outside, still wanna get outdoors.

You know, we do some snowmobile runs for the local food shelf.

We do some side by side events in the summer for various organizations, pregnancy resource center and a lot of community based stuff.

Well, our emphasis, obviously my passion is the hunting club side of things, which is, you know, what we started out as in 1998, 26 years ago and has evolved into, you know, a family.

We've got 20 different hunting fields, three trap fields, two sporting clays courses, 200 yard rifle range and a pistol range.

and a pistol range.

- You know, it's probably nice being - You know, it.. close to the Twin Cities.

I'm sure there's a big customer base there, but you're also an hour away so you're just far enough away- - Far enough to unwind.

- That you're not in the cities but you're close enough to draw people from there.

- Yeah, we're about, well, 45 minutes from ..

So from guys coming up, it's enough time to unwind and wrap things up on the way up here.

And then with the showers and stuff like that, guys can head back to work if they want to, or our proximity right in between the Twin Cities and Duluth and St Cloud, we're about an hour from each so individuals can meet.

It makes it a great meeting spot for anyone that's got branches in the various areas.

- [Bret] Alright, well let's go take a tour.

- [Chad] Awesome.

We're running capacity.

We can have 120 to 140 shooters out shooting.. as well as our hunting field's going simultaneously so we can have 97 people out in the hunting fields.

We can have 140 shooters in the clays course.

And then we had the high school trap team shooting, which they had 100 shooters that day for that.

So that was pretty much capacity.

It was about 400 people all out.

It was awesome.

- You can go out and run Clays, you can run skeet, you can do a little bit of everything out here and it opens a door for everybody to do everything.

- [Bret] Wings North provides outdoor opportunities for many with a wide variety of backgrounds.

- My dad used to own a bar in South St. Paul and so the one guy, his dad had a bar right next to my dad's bar, and I thought really?

(Bret laughing) It's like he was a disabled shooter ..

They have a disabled group that we take out once in a while, so it's interesting.

Yep.

And people from all over come up here, and... - So we're very, very fortunate.

We work with a lot of various different groups.

We do a lot of fundraising events.

We do the Becoming an Outdoor Woman, Legendary Long Tails, a couple different Feathers Forever chapters that do women's hunts out here.

Capable partners do sporting clay fundraisers, Shoot for Hope.

A lot of fundraising events for those various or..

It's a segue for all of us that enjoy the outdoors and a great way to support their organizations and raise money for wonderful causes.

- [Bret] When discussion turns to introducing the next generation of the outdoors, there may be no better program than the Clay Target League.

- You know, the high school trap league has been absolutely phenomenal.

Pine City High School shoots out here.

They've got 108 kids that come out and shoot.

- Wow.

- On the high school trap team.

And from Sundays from noon to 5:00 PM, you k.. they've got a phenomenal support from their instructors and local parents and teachers and stuff that come out and help with the kids shooting.

Rush City High School has started out the first year that they had their program with 12 kids, last year they had 26.

They're looking to have 35 this year.

So it's just been wonderful.

(upbeat music) - [Bret] So how does a guy get started in a business like this?

- Oh, I was born and raised in the industry.

- Oh, I was born and raised in the industry.

In '93, went to college, University of In '93, went to college, University of was there for four years and just outta college took a job in upstate New York running a hunting club.

I was at the Austerlitz hunting club in upstate New York.

The oldest shooting preserve or hunting club in the state of New York.

Was there for two years.

And then my dad had called me and said, "Hey, we're looking at buying some land in Pine City."

I was gonna do it no matter what, it just makes it a lot easier working for family rather than, you know, doing it for someone else.

Something you're gonna, you know, do.

But the hunting's always been my passion and the people.

(upbeat music) - Well my dog's 11, so nine years I've been a member.

Chad's fields are nice.

Especially, I'm older, I'm 72 years old now, so these fields are fairly flat.

I ain't climbing big hills up and down.

- Originally we had 10 hunting fields.

You know, 26 years into the game now, we've got, you know, 22 different hunting fields ranging in size and variety.

ranging in size and variety.

- [Bret] After you shoot birds, what's the next step in that process?

- We've got various options for individuals.

They can take their birds with them.

We have an exchange program.

They can exchange cleanly shot birds for cleanly shot frozen birds.

And then we have a list of products that we offer also from pheasant summer sausage, smoked pheasants, pheasant sticks, pheasant brats, pheasant pot pies, pheasant pizzas.

- When you get done shooting pheasants out there, you can bring some in and they'll cook some up for you.

So they fried up, oh, I didn't mean to grab that many of them.

- [Chad] We have guys that'll filet their birds out, bring them in and we'll do, you know, pheasant strips for 'em, fries.

So kind of a kill and grill it, if you will.

- Chad's really good about making sure everybody has a good time.

You're gonna go out, you're gonna see birds.

- Chad treats us right up here, treats the people right.

I believe, you know?

He runs a nice business.

(upbeat music) - [Bret] What's your favorite part about this?

- The people.

The people's probably the best part of it.

Just very fortunate to be able to share this with my family and our generation and generations to come.

and our generation and genera..