SHOOTING SPORTSMAN

Shotgun Sportsman – 2021 July/August Chris Batha takes on wingshooting this month. You can be an accomplished clay target shooter yet be totally at a loss when confronted with a target with actual feathers and a wingbeat. No doubt the hardest thing to learn is the patience to produce a smooth mount and move. The English shooting instructor Peter Blakely, who years ago emigrated to Texas, admitted his own humiliation when first confronted by our native quail. Once he learned to suppress his startle response to their explosive flush he found his true love in wingshooting. “Smooth is steady and steady is swift!” stated Wyatt Earp as to his success as a gunfighter and the same is true in wingshooting. A smooth, unhurried mount to your target with hard focus on the bird’s head, beak, or bill is the ticket to success. Chris teaches the Churchill Method of move, mount, and shoot in one fluid motion. What kind of swing method do you use? This is truly up to the shooter. Some make the insertion just behind the bird, others use an intercept insertion, others go to the exact spot needed for sustained lead. Every shooter is different and sees the insertion point differently. They instinctively go to where they will match the flight of their quarry and see the correct sight picture. Sight picture for the Churchill method is never explained or discussed. You insert as you see fit for your style of shooting.

Chris throws out sug gestions for scouting. I agree with his sug gestions for doves (the focus of this article). They tend to follow field and fence lines, tree lines, and corners of fields. Recently har vested fields are a natural draw as are gravel areas and watering spots. Pre-season practice should include skeet targets and tower shots. South Florida Shooting Club has tons of towers. You could spend a day practicing just the towers on the Quail, Sandhill, Gator, and Super Sporting Courses. Finally, this is Florida. Tons of doves, lots of good shooting, and for midable weather conditions. The closest I ever came to heat stroke was dove hunting at the Dupuis dove field one year. Take a stool, one of those bucket seats that swivel is great like Chris sug gests. Also, you can put ice in the bucket along with water and power bars. Good luck, this seems like a good year in the offing. Reading the regulations, dove shooting hours aren’t limited to afternoons on the first season as they usually are. We can start shooting one half hour before sunrise and stop at sunset. Shoot during the cooler early hours when doves are active. Nice!