There’s no arguing that Mick Howell is a gifted shotgunner, and in this session, it’s our privilege to discuss the fine art of sporting clays with him after his wins at the Sporting Clays World Championships and the Browning/Briley Tournament. We hear from Mick about his learning curve in the sport, what he would change about his game if he weren’t so “old,” and his preparation and mental control during the tournaments he won, what it took for him to win in both cases.
Mick’s Early Shooting Career
Gil: Mick Howell just won the Sporting Clays World Championships and the Browning/Briley Tournament. I’ve noticed, in looking over his shoulder, how smooth his routine is and how confident he is. Mick, thanks for coming in and sharing the things that you do. How long have you been shooting?
Mick: About 27 years. I started when I was 13, and I’m 40 now, so…
Gil: You’re only 40? Damn you don’t look a day over
55 to me. No wonder you’re such a good shot; you’re 14 years younger than me. How did you get started?
Mick: Well my father started me off just hunting, and we have a long closed hunting season in England, so we got a trap and went on our own fields, threw a few clay targets just to keep our eye in for the hunting season. Then I felt like I kind of enjoyed it and had a flair for it so I kind of progressed from there.
Gil: How long did it take you in your shooting, in terms of years, to go through the beginner phase, and through the intermediate phase, to get to the advanced phase of your shooting in sporting clays?
Mick: It was probably about three to four years. I saw a significant improvement, but what I found is that once you hit a certain level, your improvement starts to get slower and slower, and you don’t see as much improvement. But that stands to reason. When you get to 80 percent, there’s a lot less room for improvement. We used to shoot 50- target events back then. There weren’t that many 100-target events, and about 40 was my average for a long time. That took quite a bit of shooting to break through but after about five years I did it. But that was only shooting once a week, too. It wasn’t like now where you go out and shoot 500 to 1,000 rounds.
Gil: So when you began, you weren’t able to go out like we do at American and shoot a flat of ammo two or three times a week. It was just picking up the gun and going out once a week to a 50-bird shoot.
Mick: Yeah, and the 50-bird shoots were just club shoots where all the guys got together and shot their 50 birds and that was the end of it. It wasn’t like an all-day thing.
Gil: So you’re telling me it took you three to four years to establish somewhere around a 70 to 80 percent average?
Mick: Yeah.
Gil: After that, how long did it take you to get where you were a more advanced shooter and capable of winning some shoots?
Mick: Maybe another two years on top of that and then I started winning shoots, but I kind of had a detour from sporting clays because I started shooting trap for about three years and went and shot just regular trap for about three years and then came back to sporting.
Gil: Why did you come back to sporting?
Mick: I don’t know. I got a little bit bored with the regular ATA type shooting. Not bored as much as I felt like I wasn’t going to take it too far, and needed more of a challenge. I also didn’t like in trap, that you miss one target and you’re out. I liked to have some room for mistakes and the ability to make up for your mistakes.
Biggest Challenges in Returning to Sporting Clays
Gil: In your improvement curve, after coming back to sporting clays, what were your toughest obstacles to overcome? Was it certain types of targets? Was it not being able to practice enough? What were the milestones in your performance career that, when you were able to overcome those, was it a big win for you?
Mick: It was actually two things. One was shooting a low gun, because all my shooting to that point had been with the gun already shouldered. The second thing was learning to lead a crossing target.
Gil: Yeah.
Mick: Because I’d done trap shooting, but never with any lead on a target, just shooting at a target. So I went to some of the bigger shoots, and they would throw 50-yard crossing midis, and I just had no clue as to how to shoot those.
Gil: You’ve got to get well in front of those.
Mick: Yeah, and that was a technique that I’d not even played with, but I spent a little time and watched some of the good shooters in England, and kind of figured out what they were doing. So I self-taught myself by watching the good shooters, because there weren’t any coaches back then either. There was nobody giving lessons. I probably made a nuisance of myself following people around, but that’s what I did.
Gil: You know in this country, we always think that in England they’re always giving lessons, but from what you’re saying, it wasn’t until 15 years ago that there were a lot of lessons given over there.
Mick: Right, and then some full time gun clubs started, but when I started there was no weekday shooting. There was nobody giving lessons. So I just followed the good shooters, tried to understand and analyze what they were doing and went from there.
Learning to Mount the Gun
Gil: What was the toughest part about learning to mount the gun?
Mick: At the start it was just horrible. I used to hit myself in the face. I never got my face and the stock in the same place twice. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have quite a low gun mount now. I don’t get the gun up as high as maybe I should do, and that is a throwback to those days when I used to shoot trap and pre-mount the gun. I’ve never really felt like I’ve had a good gun mount, but I’ve been doing it badly for so long now that it feels right to me. But if there’s one thing I could improve that’s what it would be.
Gil: Really?
Mick: Especially with the World FITASC just around the corner.
Gil: Yeah, that’s something that we see, that most people have trouble in this game because they run away from learning to mount the gun, therefore they don’t have a good gun mount. And we see in our coaching that people who don’t have a good gun mount really have a hard time feeling the target in their hands, do you agree with that?
Mick: Absolutely, yeah. You see a lot more with the gun out of your face. You see a lot more of the speed, and you get a lot more feel for the target with the gun coming into the shoulder, even if you’re just coming into the shoulder for the first 10 to 20 feet of its flight. And that’s something I’ve always felt like I’ve had to work on. When you watch people like Stuart Clark who just has a really fast, really good gun mount, I’m kind of envious when I watch such good guys mount the gun. They’re very smooth. That young guy we talked about earlier, Simpson, he’s got a really smooth move.
Gil: Yes, I watched him, the young Simpson boy shoot, the second day of the World Championships on the Winchester course, and I was in awe of how smooth he was. Minimal barrel movement with a very precise mount, but he never looked hurried at all.
Mick: A lot of the young shooters from England have very limited gun movement, with short, very sharp moves. I think they will bring the game to another level.
Gil: Now you and I talked about this earlier today referencing this point. You tend to have the gun into your face and shoulder for a longer period of time then say, Richard Falls or the Simpson boy or some of the other shooters you’re referring to. Is that just a holdover from your trap days shooting with a pre-mounted gun or just something that you’ve developed over the years that you feel good with?
Mick: Well, I try never to pull the trigger until I get everything looking right, which doesn’t mean I’m looking at the gun, it’s just when I get a good feel for the target, when I get a good feel for the lead and I pull the trigger. But I think that’s going back to those old days when I was trying to convert from trap shooting to sporting clays. Trying to learn how to shoot the long crossers I could never quite figure out how I lead the target, so I just ended up having the gun in the face for a long time. I never purposely do it. It’s just, if it doesn’t look right, I’m not going to pull the trigger, and sometimes it takes a little bit longer than others.
Gil: You mentioned when we were talking about this that you kept the gun into your shoulder until you had a feel for the speed and the line, is that right?
Mick: Yeah. I always seem to think I get a better idea of the speed and the line of the target when I’m looking over the barrel or down the barrel of the shotgun. It’s kind of like a golfer, you know, he’s got a better feel of the shot when he’s got a club in his hand.
Coaching Beginners
Gil: Okay and from a coaching standpoint, when you coach shooters, you had shared with me that you coach somewhere between 15 and 20 shooters a week, and most of the people that you coach are intermediates or beginners who are just trying to get better. Do you encourage them to stay in the gun that long or do you encourage them to insert the gun where it needs to be and pull the trigger?
Mick: I encourage them to insert the gun and pull the trigger because, for the novice, the longer the gun is in the shoulder, the more they’re inclined to look at the barrels and get everything going the wrong direction. So I try to encourage them to see the right picture and pull the trigger as quickly as possible.
Gil: Do you start them with a low gun?
Mick: I start them with a mounted gun and then try and get them into a low gun as soon as possible. Maybe within a lesson I try to get them into a low gun. That’s strictly for a beginner, someone who has never picked up a shotgun before or maybe who has only shot a few times. But in between times I really get them working hard at home on learning how to mount the gun.
Gil: Boy if they’d only do what we tell them to do at home, it’d make our job a lot easier wouldn’t it?
Mick: It would. People don’t realize you can do so much work without going to the range if you just take that gun out a couple three or four times a week and just mount it, get a feel for it. I do mine about 30 or 40 times a week just trying to keep a good feel for it.
Gil: Interesting. I can remember years ago when we first started shooting this game, I was so infatuated with the game, every night I played with my shotgun. I’d line up five trophies on the bar and I’d just look at the head of one of them and mount it on him and look at the head of another one and mount it on him. It was just a fascinating thing for me, to be able to look at something and mount the gun and have the gun come up right on it.
I hadn’t heard all the theories or read all the books. I was just a natural shooter. I mean, the first dove I ever shot at I killed stone dead with a 22-rifle, flying, and I thought everybody could do it. It was a phenomenal thing for me to discover that if I just looked at something and mounted the gun, the gun was already pointed at what I was looking at. And that fascination encouraged me to play with the gun a lot more, and I’m convinced that more people would be better shooters today if they would just take the simple time to play with their gun, every night, or at least two or three times a week.
The Toughest Target
Gil: Let me ask you this question. What target is the toughest target for you to hit consistently?
Mick: Probably a going away target, overhead from behind, is one I really don’t like.
Gil: Really?
Mick: Yeah, it all started when I was back in England. I was at a shoot and it was quite a big shoot and I kind of ruined my score on that type of target and just really got sideways with the whole thing. I don’t shoot them too badly now, but still in the back of my mind I have kind of a thing about them. Everything else, I mean, I don’t notice whether I shoot some things better than others, but I guess we all have strong points and weak points.
Gil: Yeah, we all have targets that we’re more comfortable with and typically the toughest targets are the last ones when you’re on a good card, regardless of what trajectory it is.
Mick: And going away minis.
Gil: Yeah, they ought to outlaw that target. When you shoot, do you change chokes between targets?
Mick: Yeah, I will change chokes, I tend to shoot about a light modified as my standard choke. I don’t use every choke that’s made. I have two skeets, two light mods, two improved mods, and one full. I use the light mods pretty much for everything. If it’s a long shot I use the I-mod, and if it’s a short shot I use skeet. I don’t get into the whole range of chokes.
Gil: So you would say that you change your chokes based on distance mainly?
Mick: Yeah. And like you said, a going away mini, I will use a tight choke if it’s close, just ‘cause I don’t want to think that it’s going to get through the pattern.
Gil: And psychologically, it’s in your mind, ain’t it?
Mick: Yeah. And I don’t think it should be, but it’s just there and it’s hard to get out.
Gil: That’s just because you’re such a young man. When you get older you’ll realize it can’t get through the pattern if you put it in the right spot.
Mick: No.
Gil: What about ammo, what kind of ammo do you use?
Mick: I use mirage ammo at 1,270 feet per second, 32 gram. And that’s my competition load. I practice with a one-ounce load, because I’m getting a little recoil sensitive.
Gil: Do you back the speed off a little bit to make it less recoil?
Mick: The one-ounce 1250 is pretty much the same.
Gil: Pretty much the same?
Mick: Yeah. I try and practice with the same speed ammunition as I compete with so the lead and everything isn’t going to be noticeably different, but what I do is back off on the shot, back off to a one-ounce load, and that’s pretty soft.
Mick’s Practice Regimen
Gil: Speaking of practice, what’s your practice regimen? Let’s say you’re going to a tournament in two weeks, how would you practice and prepare to go to that tournament?
Mick: I go and shoot trap. I’ll shoot probably a hundred trap and a hundred, 27-yard trap two or three times a week.
Gil: Twenty-seven yard? And you do that because it takes the least amount of gun movement, and you’ve gotta retard gun movement?
Mick: That, and also, I feel like 60 percent of sporting clays is going away shots.
Gil: At least 60 percent, if not more. And let me interrupt you. Does that differ here versus in England?
Mick: No it’s pretty much the same. Maybe 10 percent difference, but I’ve always felt like there’s a good percentage of shots that are going away shots.
Gil: So you would spend some time on a trap range and shoot 27-yard trap?
Mick: Twenty-seven and 16 and wobble. I shoot a little of all of them. Because I don’t want to get into a trap shooting routine, I just want to get a feel for shooting going away shots, so I’ll shoot a round of 27 and a round of 16 and a round of wobble. And I know most sporting clays shooters get bored with it, but I just feel like it’s good practice.
Gil: Oh man, I tell you, years ago when we first started competing, I’ve said this many times, I learned a hell of a lot more shooting trap from the 16 yard line with a low gun than I did shooting skeet or anything else.
Mick: Yeah, you do.
Gil: Because you have to focus on the bird before you move. If you don’t, you’re gonna miss it. And you really have to have a perfect move and a perfect mount. And after you shoot trap, then what would you do?
Mick: Then it depends. If there’s any part of my sporting clays game that I feel is weak, and you know, you saw me after Westside just before the World Sporting Championships I felt like my tower shooting was really off pace, so I went and practiced tower shooting. We don’t have any big towers down here in Florida so I stopped off at Westside, spent the day there and shot some towers. But really it just depends on what part of my game is weak.
Gil: And when you go out to do that, do you shoot pairs or do you shoot single targets moving the breakpoint?
Mick: I will shoot all kinds. Like at Westside, I shot all kinds of tower shots. I shot towers from behind. I shot crossing, right-to-left, left-to- right, singles. One thing I do try to do is break a target where I want to break it. In other words, just set myself a point and get so as I’m shooting it at that point. And then I’ll change. I’ll shoot it slower, I’ll shoot it faster and just get a good feel for everything.
Gil: So shooting a single target moving the breakpoint enables you to set yourself up when you’re having to shoot true pairs, or even report pairs for that matter, to make the pair easier?
Mick: Yeah
Gil: And you feel that is something that you would consistently practice?
Mick: Yeah, yeah, I do. And I would do that on other targets as well. I would do that on crossing targets, just regular crossing targets, just so as I can change the breakpoint. ‘Cause if it’s a true pair, I might have to shoot it fast. If it’s a report pair, I might want to shoot it slowly and set myself up for the second shot, so I’ll do that on all targets.
Gil: Well hell, as long as you stay on it, I’d think you’d want to shoot it
as slow as you could.
Mick: (laughs) Well sometimes you don’t get that opportunity, and you need to be able to do everything.
Low Gun Versus Mounted Gun
Gil: Just for the guys and the gals that are out there, I want you to explain in the best way you can, I mean you developed your own personal style over the years of having the gun either in your shoulder or just out of your shoulder or way out of your shoulder. Kind of go over the kind of targets you would use a pre-mounted gun on and why; the kind of targets you would have the gun just out of your shoulder and why; and the kind of targets where you’d have the gun way out of your shoulder and why.
Mick: All right, any long incoming shot that you’ve got all the time in the world, I tend to shoot from a very low gun mount, ‘cause I don’t want to throw the gun into my face and be looking down the barrel too long. So all the long incoming shots I shoot from the low gun position. The quartering shots and crossing shots, I shoot with the gun just off the shoulder for two reasons. I want to be able to see the bird a lot better, it gives me a big field of vision, and also holding that just off the shoulder gives me a little bit of movement into the gun mount to get the gun moving smoothly early on in the bird’s flight. And then all the trap type shots I shoot with the gun in the shoulder, and that’s just a throwback to the trap shooting days.
Gil: So trap shots, you say the gun’s in your shoulder and you’re looking down the barrel, but are you looking right down the bead, or are you looking off to the side of the barrel to pick the target up and you’re aware that the barrel goes where it needs to be?
Mick: Yeah, I’ll always be looking at the target. My vision is always out where the target first becomes visible. If you can see the machine I’ll look at the machine, if the machine’s behind a bush, wherever the target first becomes visible is where my vision is. The gun is going to follow my eye.
The Key to Pull the Trigger
Gil: Okay, and what’s your key to pull the trigger? Your breakpoint? Or, like you say, feeling the line and feeling the lead, a combination of all of it? What’s the key for you to pull the trigger?
Mick: I think it’s a combination of all of it. When everything feels right and looks right, then I’m going to pull the trigger. Unless, you know, some of the course designers nowadays, they throw true pairs that make you want to rush one of your shots, and unless that’s the situation, I just take the time and whenever it feels right and looks right, then I pull the trigger.
Gil: But it’s more feel than anything else?
Mick: Oh yeah.
Gil: And a while ago, when you were talking about Richard and the Simpson boy and those guys, you were saying they were probably going to carry the game to another level. What does that mean? Their style of minimum movement, and inserting the gun in the lead and pulling the trigger, is that what you’re talking about?
Mick: Yeah, I think that’s a very, very efficient way of shooting, and if I was starting over, that would be the way that I would try and go. And I would certainly try and get to watch Richard and those guys who shoot like that and try and model my own shooting around it if I could. I’m too old to change now I guess.
Gil: Well, from my chair you’re still a young man. Anybody got any questions so far?
A Mental Routine
Jeff Kruger: I wanted to ask you a couple questions Mick, if I may, first on your routine. You walk up and watch the squad or the shooter in front of you and you watch the pairs and you pick where you’re going to break them and your chokes and all that kind of stuff. When it’s your turn to shoot and you step in the box, what is your routine that you go through mentally before you call for a target?
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