Locked down and reloaded
David Turner focuses on how to practise as clay grounds begin to open up following lockdown restrictions
Many of you won’t have picked up a gun for a few months and are likely to be a bit rusty. No fear, with a little thought and preparation we can easily get back to our old form and maybe even improve.
Tried and tested techniques
I want to look at some tried and tested techniques that I have talked about in some of my previous articles but could do with revisiting. I will be addressing more of these in coming articles of how to help improve your shooting. Meanwhile, I have found that returning from a short break can often be beneficial. I seem to come back with renewed enthusiasm for my much-loved sport.
Renewed enthusiasm
It is important to start with targets that do not intimidate you and are within your capability level. Consistency is the key and if the first few targets are broken on any given stand then it would be reasonable to expect to break them all and achieve a ‘straight’, as it is known. If, however, the first few are missed and the later targets broken then we can conclude that it took a few targets to ‘find’ them. Once we’ve found them, I would suggest shooting the stand again and look for the straight.
For those that shoot sporting, skeet is a great discipline to practise as it gives you various angles and crossers at a reasonable range and pace. DTL is another good discipline, as it can sharpen your intuitive and natural responses and encourage a ‘see it, shoot it’ technique.
Skeet is all about ‘crossers’; targets adjacent to the shooter at various angles, depending on the shooting position.
“It is important to start with targets that do not intimidate you”
It is worth taking a moment to look at how other sports practise. For example, those that play golf often use a driving range to hone their techniques. Cricketers use the nets to lift their skill levels. Tennis clubs have machines to throw balls to practise certain strokes
• In the case of cricket and tennis, players practise the same shot or stroke over and over again until it becomes second nature and a ‘learned reflex action’, an action that they don’t consciously think about while executing. If shooters were to adopt the same approach then their learned reflex actions would help to deliver the right shot in any circumstance.
This helps us develop and use differing lead values at reasonable distances with consistency and predictability.
So practise at being good with achievable targets; there will be plenty of time to stretch your ability later on more challenging ones. Skeet is a great place to start offering fairly close and easy targets.
Your basket of shots
It is important to develop a ‘basket of shots’ to call upon when needed. We don’t have an equivalent other than, perhaps, a skeet or DTL range. Such practise costs between 20 and 30p every time we pull the trigger and, as a result, we may not practise to the same extent or as much as we would like to.
Face your fears
Most shooters tend to always shoot a ‘round’ rather than focusing on the targets that really need their attention and do not necessarily concentrate on a particular shot that has become their shooting nemesis. Many shooters accept certain targets as their ‘bogey’ targets and can often be heard to say upon approaching the stand, “I never hit these”, or something similar. Don’t approach a shot with that frame of mind unless you enjoy proving to yourself that you were right. Practise your ‘bogey’ targets and face your fears; that is how you will improve.
For game shooters it is important to shoot targets that would closely imitate those they are likely to meet on their shoots, whether it be driven or walked-up. Most shooting grounds have traps showing higher ‘driven’ targets, whereas the skeet range can offer various angles, and DTL can offer great going away targets for the rough shooter.
Remember that shooting with a shotgun is an ‘art form’, using our natural hand and eye coordination abilities and developing an intuitive technique. It is very similar to cricket, tennis and any sport where hand and eye coordination is essential.