I put a piss-taking post on Facebook the other week, reminding all my cheapskate friends that it was my birthday soon, telling them I was giving them advance warning, so they could get me a decent present, because I didn’t want any crap….
The last thing I expected was for Ed Solomons to donate an hours coaching at Doveridge to the Chard birthday fund, but that’s exactly what he did.
Today was the day and I went down there with Timps to have a knockabout practice and meet Ed.
We got the traditional insults and b.anter out the way and Ed sat down with a vast fried breakfast and asked me where I thought I was up to with my shooting.
I told him I was in A Class, just requiring loads of practice, needing to work on my concentration. I tend to be OK on tricky stuff, but will habitually throw away too many bread and butter targets through inconsistency. I thought that this wasn’t going to be a particularly easy session for Ed, as that can’t really be taught, especially in an hour session. However, with a bit of coaxing, I came up with several specific areas which we could look at, where I either felt I lacked confidence, or where I had particular problems. These were dropping targets, left to right midi crossers, and taking driven birds early (lower in the sky). Due to time restraints, we ditched the midi crossers, Ed said I was probably just overleading them and I tend to agree.
I will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid shooting anything on the drop. On simo pairs, I will shoot them the “wrong way round” or shoot the first bird uncomfortably early, just to avoid having to shoot the second bird on the drop. I’m notorious for it. :huh:
I tend to shoot driven birds when they’re overhead, letting them come all the way in before I shoot them. This is normally OK, but there was a stand in a registered shoot at Doveridge earlier this Summer, with two driven birds. The sun was high in the sky, exactly where I wanted to kill these birds. I had no confidence to do anything other than shoot them in the sun, whereas others were taking them early, before they disappeared in the sun. This cost me 7 or 8 birds on a 5 pair stand, leaving me with a card of 85 on what should have been a big score. :yell:
Ed got to grips with these two specific problems and in a short space of time was getting me hitting a good number of targets where I wanted to be hitting them. The session has given me the right technique to practice these difficult (for me) ways of taking these birds and therefore the confidence to be flexible when conditions at a shoot demand a different approach. He is certainly impressive at putting across the technical requirements to tackle all sorts of different presentations and we took a lot of tips away from this short session. He also shows a remarkable degree of patience, I would have punched me in the eye after 10 minutes.
My only complaint was the way he insulted my “quirky” gun. Bastard.
Thanks for your generosity and a fun and useful session Ed, I’m saving the pennies for a proper full day of it now
Highly recommended, especially if you don’t have a “quirky” gun…… <_< .
