Wingshooting program hits key targets.
JOHNSON CREEK - The path to improvement often winds through a valley called selfawareness.
Those of us assembled for a Wisconsin Wingshooting clinic at Milford Hills Hunt Club received our doses of reality before we even cracked a book.
The first session of the seven-hour class involved attempting shots at left-to-right crossing targets from 20 yards.
Suffice to say none of us hit them all; the top scores were 75%.
And when we backed up to 30 yards, the percentages plummeted under 10%.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” said Mark Kakatsch of Oconomowoc, lead instructor for the clinic. “That all pretty normal. This is about learning, and by the end of the day you’ll all be breaking more targets, I guarantee it.”
With the fall hunting seasons on the horizon, I traveled to Milford Hills on Aug. 26 with six other Wisconsinites to work on my wingshooting.
The other participants were Kevin Berge, 54, and his son Will, 17, of Sun Prairie; Jackie Gordanier, 31, of Sheboygan; Laura Kutka, 35, and Travis Schroeder, 35, a married couple from Eagle; and Robin Strahl, 28, of Sheboygan Falls.
In addition to Kakatsch, the class was taught by Todd Cook of Beaver Dam, Tom Pluess of East Troy, Jennifer Wirth of Oconomowoc and DNR conservation warden Doug Zeihen.
The program is designed to improve shooting, improve distance estimation, increase awareness of effective shooting ranges and assist with selection of shotgun choke and ammunition for hunting situations.
The clinic costs $25 for each participant, which includes all instruction, targets and ammunition.
Zeihen helped develop the program in 2013 and has been a strong advocate for it since.
“All wingshooters want to hit every target,” Zeihen said. “That isn’t going to happen, but the teachings in this course can go a long way to helping every shooter.”
According to DNR literature, by learning the skills in the clinics, participants can improve their hunting experiences, reduce the number of wounded or lost game, enhance positive hunter ethics, and foster a better appreciation of wildlife resources.
The Wisconsin program started in 2013 and was based on one used by the Missouri Department of Conservation. Work done by shotgunning expert Tom Roster, and now published in Tom Roster’s Nontoxic Shot Lethality Table, is central to the clinics.
The initial two-year pilot program was funded by $50,000 in grants from the Pittman-Robertson Act, an excise tax on sales of firearms, ammunition and hunting equipment.
The Badger State offering was originally called Wingshooting for Migratory Birds but was modified to include the broadest range of shotgunning afield.
“Whether it’s a pheasant, duck or grouse, you’re gonna need to know the same basics in order to be successful,” Kakatsch said. “We’re hoping we can interest more people by not making it just for migratory birds.”
After the opening results on the crossing targets, it was easy for the instructors to make a key point: Successful shooting in large part is taking shots within a shooter’s capability.
It stands to reason we’d do better on shorter shots. But Zeihen said studies have shown the average first shot taken by duck hunters was 53 yards.
“That’s a poke,” Zeihen said. “And far more likely to result in a miss or a wounded duck than a duck in the bag for the vast majority of hunters.”
To solidly hit more targets, it’s critical to not only take shots within a hunters’ range but to be able to accurately estimate distance.
The instructors arranged 10 waterfowl decoys at various spots on a field at Milford. We were asked to estimate the distances to each.
One Canada goose decoy was 30 yards away — a very good reference point for most hunters, Kakatsch said.
And many hunters would do well by using lighter loads — which don’t cause as much flinching — and smaller shot sizes.
As part of the class, we patterned our shotguns with various shells on paper targets and counted up the results.
Perhaps the most significant teaching portion of the clinic was based on a shooting style called “swing through.”
In this technique, the shooter sees the target, raises the shotgun and moves the barrel from behind, through and in front of the bird, matching its speed, before pulling the trigger.
Even after the shot, the barrel keeps moving, or swinging, Pluess said.
The process is sometimes called “butt, beak, bang.”
The swing-through style helps a shooter get in front of the target, resulting in more hits.
The instructors also discussed the physics of shotgunning, including the cone or string formed as pellets leave the barrel.
A standard cone of pellets is four feet wide and seven feet long, Pluess said.
The shape showed the importance of leading the target.
“If you’re in front, you have a chance pellets at the back end of the string will hit your target,” Pluess said. “If you’re behind, you don’t have a chance.”
The instructors gave each of us a personal review — I needed to pay more attention to swinging through each target and widen my stance — and we ventured outside to do a lot more shooting.
By the end of the sevenhour class, we shot more than 100 shells each.
For the last shooting exercise of the day, we sat on chairs in a field, simulating a dove hunt or a duck blind. The instructors launched a flurry of incoming targets.
Some were high, looping targets and others angled low across the range. We sat with boxes of shells at our sides and shot as fast as we could reload.
The action was halted periodically to allow our barrels to cool. The rapid shooting was intentional, Kakatsch said, to keep us from thinking too much and allow muscle memory to kick in.
True to his word, all of us were hitting more targets than we did just hours earlier. That bodes well for this fall and all future seasons.
“The main messages are to keep swinging through,” Kakatsch said. “And keep having fun.”
To participate in a clinic or become a Wisconsin Wingshooting instructor, visit dnr.wi.gov or contact Michelle Sauers, DNR wingshooting program specialist, at (414) 588-1814.