42,000 cartridges, shooting four, five, six times a week, lessons from the best, one year later and I can honestly say I have really had a blast..... Now where to start hum, it’s not often I want to stand on a step ladder in the corner of Hyde Park and convince the gathering crowd of the looming apocalypse and to tell the truth the impetus side of me is saying “go on just do it” but the sensible side of me is saying “keep the money for the bus fair and spend it on cartridges”.
I think to greater extent the real reason for putting my fingers on the key board and typing these few words are three fold. (1) To express my sincere gratitude to all who have befriended me in the last twelve months within the clay shooting community for their help and encouragement. (2) To inform the world how good Guinness is. (3) To share my highs and lows over this first year of clay pigeon shooting and to offer an opinion as to why my shooting has I would like to believe improved.
Most of us at one time or another have always wanted to embark on a journey of discovery, whether this might be ones first flight in an aircraft, climb a mountain or try the new curry house in town, however most of us rarely find the funds or have the opportunity with the pace of life these days, constantly putting what we would like to experience on the back burner, whatever the reason for not taking the first step of our journey we all share the same guilt trip wishing we should have done it.
Clay pigeon shooting was one of those journeys for me, why on earth I was drawn to shooting lead out of a shotgun at clay pigeons is really beyond me but this was something I always wanted to do. Finally I had the time, a bit of spare cash and a shooting ground just up the road from work, perfect!!
So here we are the day has arrived, a quick squirt up the road in the car from work and I’m on the door step, after the hand shaking and introductions I’m stood in a stand ready to do some damage. Looking back on that hour tuition, I have to say the instruction I was given with regards to gun safety and how to shoot and hit those ab initio clays was right on the money, I found the instructor to be articulate, clear, concise and complete.
Over the next four or five months shooting within the club environment and a multitude of lessons I found myself sliding from highs to lows with my ability to hit clays, within the student/instructor environment my thought processes were as a stream making steady progress through a valley... In contrast with all the best intentions and encouragement from my shooting buddies there seemed to be no consistence with my shooting only to be exacerbated with “you’re behind, in front, over the top, underneath, start the gun here, pick up point there”. My stream became a flood and my thought processes became fragmented and his Lordship Confusion reigned, the reality was my shooting buddies were of the same or somewhere near my ability and I didn’t know whether I was on horseback or foot.
Well there I am driving home from a morning shooting thinking I really got to get my head around this, after all I started shooting to enjoy myself and all I seem to be achieving was to be miserable, over the next few days I hatched a plan to segment the movement of the gun to solely concentrate on a single element whether I hit a clay or not. Endeavour to succeed became my psychological idiom; every time I went shooting I would be constructing an inverted pyramid block by block starting from the basics again.
I don’t know but I’m sure this happens to most people who have put a lot of cartridges through the gun, something dawned on me which I feel was a real turning point in my ability to hit clays with more consistence, I fundamentally believe we as newbie’s are shown how to shoot and hit clays and not as strange as it sounds how to shoot a shotgun.
With my endeavour to comprehend this completely abstracted thought I found myself deliberating as to why there should be a difference between how to shoot and hit clays and how to shoot a shotgun, my evaluation of many factors brought some sort of satisfactory conclusion and my understanding of how to shoot a shotgun is derived from something I would label as The mechanics of gun management.
I believe from my own progress over this past year the mechanics of gun management is routed within our subconscious, the more one hones ones skill the more the subconscious plays a greater part in our ability to hit clays, repetition expands our subconscious capacity and the gun becomes a part of us rather than an alien lump of wood and metal in our hands that makes a bang. Our subconscious instigates how and where we stand, our subconscious gives us our pickup point, instigates the movement of our gun to attack the clay, our subconscious even has the gun in focus why’ll our conscious mind doesn’t. In truth I believe the greater part our subconscious mind plays every time we call for a clay the more calculating capability we have available to our conscious mind to put the gun in the right place to blast the clay.
With the above paragraph in mind there has to be a difference between how to shoot and hit clays and how to shoot a shotgun. To me it’s as different as black and white, we have to learn the basics which is how to shoot and hit clays first and how to shoot a shotgun is something which is unconceivable to us until many thousands of cartridges and some disappointments later.
In conclusion one can argue how to shoot and hit clays and how to shoot a shotgun are one of the same where the mechanics of gun management are concerned and I’m sure to some extent this is the case, the old adage you can’t run before you can walk comes to mind, to which I mean you can’t shoot a shotgun before you shoot and hit clays.
Remember this is only my opinion and I would prefer not to get a roasting over this post, mind you if it opens up another line of discussion then bring it on!! Happy days.
I think to greater extent the real reason for putting my fingers on the key board and typing these few words are three fold. (1) To express my sincere gratitude to all who have befriended me in the last twelve months within the clay shooting community for their help and encouragement. (2) To inform the world how good Guinness is. (3) To share my highs and lows over this first year of clay pigeon shooting and to offer an opinion as to why my shooting has I would like to believe improved.
Most of us at one time or another have always wanted to embark on a journey of discovery, whether this might be ones first flight in an aircraft, climb a mountain or try the new curry house in town, however most of us rarely find the funds or have the opportunity with the pace of life these days, constantly putting what we would like to experience on the back burner, whatever the reason for not taking the first step of our journey we all share the same guilt trip wishing we should have done it.
Clay pigeon shooting was one of those journeys for me, why on earth I was drawn to shooting lead out of a shotgun at clay pigeons is really beyond me but this was something I always wanted to do. Finally I had the time, a bit of spare cash and a shooting ground just up the road from work, perfect!!
So here we are the day has arrived, a quick squirt up the road in the car from work and I’m on the door step, after the hand shaking and introductions I’m stood in a stand ready to do some damage. Looking back on that hour tuition, I have to say the instruction I was given with regards to gun safety and how to shoot and hit those ab initio clays was right on the money, I found the instructor to be articulate, clear, concise and complete.
Over the next four or five months shooting within the club environment and a multitude of lessons I found myself sliding from highs to lows with my ability to hit clays, within the student/instructor environment my thought processes were as a stream making steady progress through a valley... In contrast with all the best intentions and encouragement from my shooting buddies there seemed to be no consistence with my shooting only to be exacerbated with “you’re behind, in front, over the top, underneath, start the gun here, pick up point there”. My stream became a flood and my thought processes became fragmented and his Lordship Confusion reigned, the reality was my shooting buddies were of the same or somewhere near my ability and I didn’t know whether I was on horseback or foot.
Well there I am driving home from a morning shooting thinking I really got to get my head around this, after all I started shooting to enjoy myself and all I seem to be achieving was to be miserable, over the next few days I hatched a plan to segment the movement of the gun to solely concentrate on a single element whether I hit a clay or not. Endeavour to succeed became my psychological idiom; every time I went shooting I would be constructing an inverted pyramid block by block starting from the basics again.
I don’t know but I’m sure this happens to most people who have put a lot of cartridges through the gun, something dawned on me which I feel was a real turning point in my ability to hit clays with more consistence, I fundamentally believe we as newbie’s are shown how to shoot and hit clays and not as strange as it sounds how to shoot a shotgun.
With my endeavour to comprehend this completely abstracted thought I found myself deliberating as to why there should be a difference between how to shoot and hit clays and how to shoot a shotgun, my evaluation of many factors brought some sort of satisfactory conclusion and my understanding of how to shoot a shotgun is derived from something I would label as The mechanics of gun management.
I believe from my own progress over this past year the mechanics of gun management is routed within our subconscious, the more one hones ones skill the more the subconscious plays a greater part in our ability to hit clays, repetition expands our subconscious capacity and the gun becomes a part of us rather than an alien lump of wood and metal in our hands that makes a bang. Our subconscious instigates how and where we stand, our subconscious gives us our pickup point, instigates the movement of our gun to attack the clay, our subconscious even has the gun in focus why’ll our conscious mind doesn’t. In truth I believe the greater part our subconscious mind plays every time we call for a clay the more calculating capability we have available to our conscious mind to put the gun in the right place to blast the clay.
With the above paragraph in mind there has to be a difference between how to shoot and hit clays and how to shoot a shotgun. To me it’s as different as black and white, we have to learn the basics which is how to shoot and hit clays first and how to shoot a shotgun is something which is unconceivable to us until many thousands of cartridges and some disappointments later.
In conclusion one can argue how to shoot and hit clays and how to shoot a shotgun are one of the same where the mechanics of gun management are concerned and I’m sure to some extent this is the case, the old adage you can’t run before you can walk comes to mind, to which I mean you can’t shoot a shotgun before you shoot and hit clays.
Remember this is only my opinion and I would prefer not to get a roasting over this post, mind you if it opens up another line of discussion then bring it on!! Happy days.
Its Saturday night so I have drunk over a bottle wine so first impression is 42000 shells,wow thats an addiction :.: not really sure where you are going with this but expect a (possibly) more cogent reply late tomorrow afternoon when I have more time and brain cells to break it down 
