Improving technique
Had a fl utter? Spend
your winnings wisely
If you won £1,000 on a wager, what would be the best way to use
the cash to boost your shooting skills? Ed Wills looks at the options
that, while a syndicate shoot is far
more than a pleasant way to spend
a Saturday, there are also countless
occasions when more skilled and
experienced members give advice
to “greener” members.
It also the case that heading out
into the fi eld every weekend or so
is a fi ne cure for peg nervousness
that often hinders good shooting.
Furthermore, being on a peg
frequently allows you to learn how
to pick a partridge out of a coveyor read the speed of a pheasant
coming towards you. It is this crucial
knowledge that will advance your
shooting skills.
Pigeon shooting, which can almost
be picked up free if you know the right
people, is a superb way to get your
eye in. When I fi rst went pigeon
shooting at the tender age of nineI
am not, ordinarily, a betting
man but I am not a complete
stranger to a fl utter on the
horses. Last year’s Cheltenham
Festival didn’t go quite as I’d hoped
— I lost rather more than I care to
remember. But let’s pretend things
went diff erently. Let’s pretend my
horse came in and I won a grand.
I could spend it on a holiday,
I suppose, but with skin as
pasty as mine and an antipathy
to exotic cuisine, I believe the
money would be better spent on
improving my shooting.
But what’s the best way to improve
your shooting if you’ve got £1,000 to
play with? Armed with a telephone
and Shooting Times phone book,
I set out to come up with some sort
of answer.
There are few things more
enjoyable than being part of
a syndicate and, as many readers
will know, a grand could get you a
half-gun or even a full gun at many
places. I spoke to Mark Hare, a fellow
member of a syndicate I belong
A. HOOK / D. GOULDto in Hampshire. We both agreed
74 • SHOOTING TIMES & COUNTRY MAGAZINE
among some roosting trees next to
the house, my immediate thought
was “this is impossible”.Nailing pigeons
With the diff erent angles and speeds
the pigeon come in to you it is
certainly a challenging experience
but, if you can nail pigeons, partridges
should be easy. The sport also
requires excellent fi eldcraft, which
can be useful when you start shooting
grouse or fl ighting ducks.That being said, you could be fi ring
at pigeons for hours on end, simply
reinforcing errors such as mounting
incorrectly or stopping your swing.
Tom Payne, our resident pigeon
guru at Shooting Times, says spending
a couple of hours with a top instructor
and practising good simulated
targets before fi nishing with a day“A good piece of advice is to look at the
instructors themselves rather than simply
going with a fancy clay ground”
Practice makes
perfect – honing
your skills will
boost your
success rate