Are clay pigeon shooting lessons good for game shooting?

Pre-season clay shooting practice can't help but get you swinging easily on the 'real thing' when the time comes.

By Clay pigeon shooting

Thursday, 29 October 2009

Are clay pigeon shooting lessons good practice for the game shooting season, when driven quarry accelerates towards the gun, whereas clays thrown from a high tower run out of steam as they approach?

Clay pigeon 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 one to another.

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 shooting clays 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.