Sporting Shooter UK – August 2019

Q

Having not taken my gun out of its

cabinet since the end of the game

season, I was highly embarrassed

when invited to a simulated game day last

week. I hardly connected with anything

launched over my peg, and took a lot of

ribbing from my so-called pals either side

of me – “best join the beating line next

season and leave the gun at home”. I

need help – in large quantities!

A

WILL EDWARDS replies: Ouch,

that was a little cutting of them. So

let’s turn this around to silence

them! A bad day blasting away and not

connecting can really rock your

confidence. What I would have done,

assuming one of the organisers was an

experienced shot, would have been to

ask them to stand with you for a few

shots to see if they could see what you

were doing wrong. But that’s now history,

so let’s look at a solution.

The first thing I’d do is to mount my

gun as normal, looking into a mirror in the

house (obviously ensuring the gun is

empty) to get an indication that your eye

is still looking straight down the centre of

the rib – in theory, this will show if you’re

shooting straight.

Then, I’d start off at the clay ground

with a relatively close, slow, straight

driven target. Hopefully, in a no-pressure

environment, you’ll hit this target, and if

you do, repeat this nine times. If you have

a user-friendly ground owner who can

adjust the target, ask them to make it a

little higher and faster and repeat the

above. I find that once you’re connecting

with a basic clay consistently, you can

start to slowly increase the height and

speed in small increments. Not only will

this boost your confidence, but regular

practice will remind your brain and body

how to engage these targets.

Confidence crisis

Q

I was at a shoot a few days ago and they had a flying

rabbit target. It looked easy enough, but most people

really struggled with it, even though it wasn’t very far

away. Is there a technique to use for them?

A

DON BRUNT replies: These can cause a lot of head

scratching if you aren’t used to shooting them. A rabbit

clay is a lot heavier and more dense than a normal clay

in order to make it strong enough to roll along the ground

without breaking. Consequently, when thrown in the air, they

slow down very quickly, especially if thrown from a softly

sprung trap.

One technique that can be effective is to keep your gun

fairly close to where you want to break the clay; it’s important

to make sure your muzzle move is quite small and, above all,

very slow and

controlled. If you slash

through the target

from behind with a

fast-moving gun, it’s

incredibly easy to miss

this target in front. If

you are missing, you

may well need to give

it less lead with a slow

gun. Also, remember

that a rabbit clay at an

angle can be

physically hard to

break, so you might

want to add choke

and throw a No.6.5 or

7 at it rather than an 8

or 9 shot.

Flying rabbits!

PICTURE:

JAMES EDWARDS

PICTURE:

DON BRUNT

PICTURE:

DOM HOLTAM

Stand and deliver

Q

The pigeons have been hammering a local barley field and

the farmer has asked me to shoot it. My dog is currently

having a litter and I won’t be able to use her. I hate not being

able to retrieve birds from standing crops, but don’t want to let the

landowner down while he is suffering crop damage.

A

ANDY CROW replies: Depending on the crop and the

location, there are a couple of options – though neither is

ideal. If there is a large flattened area, you could base yourself

there and only shoot to drop birds as they come into your pattern.

Alternatively, you could focus on the strongest flightlines in and

out of the crops and shoot to drop the birds either before they enter

the standing crop or as they exit – maybe onto surrounding pasture

land, for example.

Either option is less than perfect, obviously – but even if you

aren’t able to get a monster bag, your presence will provide a real

deterrent. If you do a lot of shooting, it might be worth considering

an extra dog to give you options if ever one is out of action? If not,

it’s always useful to have a shooting pal with a trained dog who

could assist. Just make sure you aren’t causing unnecessary

damage to the crop yourself!

EXPERTS