How to practice - shotgun

While going out and shooting a round of trap, skeet or sporting clays is fun – and there is nothing wrong with strictly shooting for fun – if you want to get better at clays games you need to practice.

Practice is a deliberate plan of shooting.

Practice starts with a plan:

1. Go out and shoot a round for evaluation.
2. Record the score - record which presentations were the most problematic for you, i.e., looping crossers as 30 yards.
3. Record what impressions you were aware of during shooting, i.e., “I felt that I occluded the bird on (describe the presentation).” Add anything you think is significant about the days shooting:

• Weather – sunny, overcast, windy, etc.

• General feeling – “…had a big lunch before shooting, boy was that a mistake…”

4. State your long term and short-term goals”

• Long Term: “For 2022/3; Shoot in the top 1/3 of the matches.”

• Short-term: Master (describe the presentation) – “I’ll shoot them until I can shoot 25 straight without a miss.”

5. From your Long Term & Short-Term goals, as well as from evaluations – form a practice plan. “For today’s practice I am going to shoot 100 (describe the presentation) birds.”
6. Go out and shoot your practice plan. Don’t deviate from your plan.
7. Evaluate the day’s practice session to formulate the next practice session.

Remember tournaments are an evaluation of how well you’ve practice.

Process before outcome!

Know why you missed,

not where…!!

Master the process and the outcome will take care of itself

How to Practice

PRE-SHOT ROUTINE

Determine:

1. Break Point – where you are going to kill the bird Where you see the bird clearly and best – look for detail on the target
2. Hold Point – where you are going to hold your gun before calling “pull”

• Hold point is a position that affords the best placement to accomplish the task of killing the bird.

3. Visual Pick-up Point – where your eyes go just prior to calling “pull”

• Where your eyes are going to go to see the bird that starts the execution of the gun mount and thus successfully killing the bird.

• Eye focus is faster inward, so look past flight path at an object beyond the trap and flight path for visual pick-up point.

• Look between the gun hold position and the trap, not at the trap.

• Start with soft focus - bird in periphery - then gradually shift to a hard focus on a detail of the bird and pull the trigger.

Stance:

1. Feet – shoulder width apart – toward break point
2. Shoulders – square over feet
3. Knees – slightly bent
4. Body weight – just slightly more on leading foot (Nose over Toes & Belt Buckle Back gets you there) - Bend at the waist not the ankles!
5. Head – up - eye level with the rib
6. Eyes - Both open
7. Quiet eyes
8. Call for the bird.
9. Shoot your plan

POST-SHOT ROUTINE

1. Dead Pair

• Celebrate the moment

• See each bird explode during a post-shot visualization

• o Go back to pre-shot routine for next target(s)

2. Target lost – (leave emotion out)

• Stop at the end of the pair and look at the break points

• Analyze what happened

3. Ask Four Questions

• Did I see detail on the target?

• Did I control the bird?

• Was the gun mount and gun movement well executed? (when other than pre-mounted)

• Did I shoot my plan?

4. Execute the pre-shot routine for the next target(s)