You have done it. Every wingshooter has. You’re sitting in a dove field, and someone yells, “over you!” Without thinking, you look at the bird, mount your gun, pull the trigger, and the bird folds. Then you see one coming from 300 yards away. You might as well throw your bullets at that bird, because you aren’t going to hit that one.
Ever wonder what the difference was between the two shots? You didn’t think about the first one; you focused on the bird, trusted your subconscious to point the gun, and pulled the trigger without thinking. You had time to think too much about the second one, and you aimed at it. And you missed.
Vicki has a term for people who look down the barrel of a shotgun: CASH FLOW. As full-time shotgunning instructors, we teach people to shoot a shotgun without aiming.
We all evolved as rifle shooters, starting with a BB gun, a pellet gun, then a .22 rimfire. Then someone handed you a gun with a BB on the end of it and told you to get that bead three feet in front of the bird and pull the trigger. Until that time, you had aimed every gun that you had put to your shoulder, so you also aimed that gun at the bird and pulled the trigger. If you were lucky enough to be aiming at a bird that was three feet in front of another one when you pulled the trigger, when the back bird fell, a light came on in your head. You have to aim ahead of the bird to hit it. So the next time a bird flew over, you tried to aim ahead of the bird, and you discovered it is hard to aim at nothing. And the confusion began.
You aim a rifle and you point a shotgun. When shooting a rifle, the target is usually still, and sight alignment on the target is critical for success. When shooting a shotgun, the target is moving, and focus on the target is critical, but the gun must be pointed in front of the target to hit it. Therefore, your eyes are never looking down the barrel. They will always be focused off to one side of the barrel – on the target – depending on the direction the bird is flying. Here is where the confusion comes in; how far in front does it need to be?
Your eyes can only focus on one thing at a time. If you try to focus on the bird and the barrel at the same time to calculate lead, you actually look at the spot between them. This doesn’t work because when your eye comes off the target to look at the lead, the gun will stop swinging, but the bird keeps on flying. You’ll miss behind.
There are as many theories about lead and how to get it and how long it needs to be as there are stories about the big one that got away. The problem is, they are all perceptions of what happened in the half-a-split-second when you pulled the trigger and the bird fell.
Shooting a shotgun is simple. Focus on the head of the bird or leading edge of the target, mount the gun where the target is going, and pull the trigger. Keep your eye on the target, and trust your hands to put the gun where it needs to be. Don’t be looking down that barrel.
