“I didn’t come this far to miss,” is the slogan for the Hevi-Shot loads. I don’t think that just by spending $2 per trigger pull you will automatically shoot more accurately. Consistently hitting a flying target with a shotgun takes practice.
However, this slogan did make me think of one of the days on our New Year’s Arizona trip this year. I drove over 2,000 miles roundtrip to southern Arizona to hunt Mearn’s and scaled quail and had a bad shooting day. The First day the we struggled even finding birds, then the second day we got into some, but they were few and far between, so every shot counted. Maybe it was simply the pressure of coming so far, the chance to bag a new species and not wanting to miss, but it definitely affected my shooting. Luckily, my hunting buddy was on top of his game, he went six straight.
Here are four key principles of shooting that may help to work on: First, know your dominant eye and learn to shoot a shotgun from that side. (If you are left eye dominant, learn to shoot left handed.) If you have trouble every so often that your non-dominant eye takes over dominance due to eye fatigue, or some other issue, you can try placing a small (1/4” x 1/4”) piece of clear 3M Scotch type tape on your eyeglasses or shooting glasses in the exact spot where you see the shotgun bead when the gun in mounted. You will still be afforded good overall vision from both eyes, but this slight distortion or haze should help direct focus to the correct eye. If you are in the field and don’t have any tape, you can try gathering a little oil from your nose, forehead or hair/scalp on the tip of your finger and touch it a small spot on your glasses where you would put the tape previously described. Every once in a while I find this happening, that after a missed shot I realized that my left eye was the one that was focused on the target rather than the right.
Second and perhaps much more commonly the head is being lifted off the stock in anticipation of seeing the bird fall. It is critical to the aim of the shotgun that the cheek is firmly rested on the stock and the dominant eye is looking right down the barrel. Keep your head down and cheek against the stock.
The next factor critical to shooting success is to maintain stable balance. This is difficult to do hunting chukars. The steep, rocky, uneven terrain is what makes these bandits so challenging to hunt and even harder to hit. The shooter is usually working to get the shot off while still stumbling around on the steep hillside. You are far better off to take the extra fraction of a second to get a stable base then make the shot. The stable base is critical for a smooth swing.
Finally, there’s proper lead; you have to be out in front of a moving bird and not stop your swing at the trigger pull if you hope to connect. There are two different methods: sustained lead and swing through leads. Both will work, however, I have found that the swing through method is more natural and helps my subconcious judge the speed of the bird and distance to the bird and calculate the necessary lead better. The critical thing here is practice and let the subconscious build libraries of previous shots and it will do the necessary calculations and guide the shots to success. Just don’t stop your swing and let it happen.
