Since we understand conscious lead and subconscious lead, we have come to some conclusions that we will share with you.
Even if you start shooting conscious lead, if you are ever going to be any good at this, you will learn through experience what Doug Mellen learned from us. He summarized our system this way: “The gun must be ahead of the target to hit it, the muzzle must be on line and with the target as the shot is taken, and the eyes must have an unobstructed view of the target.”
The really good shooters have practiced their timing and moves to a point that they are always in sync with whatever target they are shooting at the moment, and throughout the stand, and every time they call “pull.” They have established a percentage of muzzle-bird relationship that they are comfortable with based on their visual capabilities and perception. And they use it every time they train or shoot.
When faced with a difficult shot or situation, they do not double-check the lead. They focus harder on the target and get smoother and more in sync with the target and let their timing circuit take over. In short, they feel connected to the target and when they feel this, they know they are going to break the target before they pull the trigger.
Why do they not double check and make sure of the lead? They have in the past (and like so many of us) learned that when they have done this, they miss more often than they hit.
In a recent issue of Shotgun Life’s “Winning Tips From Shotgun Greats,” a quote from Anthony Matarese caught my eye:
“One of the main reasons people don’t see the bird that well is they’re not working hard to (see the bird). Focusing on the bird is not something that sort of just happens. Every time you walk up to the station, every time you call pull, you need to find something that you are going to look at whether it be the front edge, a shiny spot, the bottom of the bird… Find something to look at and when you call pull, you literally say to yourself when you get ready ‘Look at the bird, look at the edge or look at the bottom and then call pull. Every single shot.”
Perhaps the reason we get off-track about this lead thing is that we all came from rifle shooting. You know – BB gun, pellet gun, .22 rimfire… and then somebody gives you a gun with a BB on the end of it and says, “Get that BB three feet in front of that bird and squeeze the trigger.”
If you’re like most, you were lost because you were trying to aim in front of the bird instead of focusing on the bird and pointing the gun in front of the bird. You can shoot a rifle, pistol, and compound bow with the 40 bit-per-second processor and be competent enough to hunt with it – but that’s because the target is still. When you introduce movement into the equation, then aiming and squeezing the trigger go out the window.
The hardest part to learn in rifle, pistol and archery is trigger control. In a big way, it’s trigger control that controls consistency and success in these endeavors. In fact, we have asked many experts in these fields what is the most difficult thing to master and what is the easiest when it comes to trigger control and sight picture. The answers come immediately and without exception: trigger control is the most difficult thing to master. You can understand “sight picture,” but you can’t reproduce it until you have mastered trigger control.
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