Are clay shooting lessons any good for game shooting?
CLAY SHOOTING
John Bidwell
As you say, the speed of game birds and clays differs and this means it can take a little time to adjust when you switch from clay shooting to game.
However, someone who regularly shoots clays will make that switch a good deal faster than the man who puts his gun away at the end a season and doesn’t use it again for another 9 or 10 months.
It can take such people several outings before they ‘get their eye in’ again and actually start knocking down a reasonable percentage of the birds they pop off at.
For many that might only happen just as another season is coming to an end!
I simply can’t understand people who don’t, or won’t, ‘tune up’ on clays – especially when they’re going to be paying a fair amount of money for their shooting.
Compared to the cost of even a modest driven pheasant day, a couple of hundred clays from a high tower is chicken feed.
And even if they’ve been invited as a guest they owe it to their host to do the birds justice, and kill them cleanly.
The whole point of clay shooting in readiness for a new season is to re-accustom ourselves to the weight and balance of the gun, iron out any issues with gun mount and to get swinging freely – both before and after the shot has been taken.
A session or two at clays does this, and more – it also reminds us of the absolute need to have the gun moving ahead of the bird when a shot is taken.
It teaches us the importance of forward allowance, to see a gap between the bird and the gun muzzles, and the need to move our feet between shots.
Yes, it might take a few shots to adjust to the speed of the quarry on our first day in the field but it’s probably going to take the other chap ages – and a load of frustration – to get back in the groove again.
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