Last issue we talked about how to get ready for hunting season or a wing shooting trip by practicing your mount with the OSP Flashlight Drill. We were concentrating on what we call the quartering move. That would be the move you would use on flushing game such as quail, grouse, pheasants, chucker and the like.
This issue we are going to tackle the crossing move. This is the move that gives the greatest majority of wing shooters headaches. The vast majority of shotgun hunters want to mount the shotgun like a rifle and while aiming down the barrel chase the bird with the muzzles, hoping to get the gun in front far enough to hit the bird. This just doesn’t work.
Intuitively, it makes sense. But our research shows that it cannot be done consistently. You can focus on only one thing at a time, and it will be either the bird or the gun. When the eagle chases two rabbits, both go free. You can’t catch two frogs with only one hand.
We have been talking in this column about the fact that you don’t aim a shotgun – you point it ahead of the bird you are supposed to be focused on. Our system of shotgun shooting is based on the shooter’s ability to consistently move and mount the gun. Homer Saye would call that “The most mainest thing about shotgunning.”
The ability to consistently harvest game birds with a shotgun is based solely on one thing: the hunter must have the ability to consistently and smoothly mount the shotgun ahead of the bird without attempting to aim or measure the lead. If the hunter attempts to aim or measure the lead, he or she must take their eye off the bird to see where the gun is. When this happens, the gun will stop and the shot will be missed behind.
The shot in the field that takes the most coordination is the crossing shot. It is also the one that the gun should mount the farthest in front of the bird and be successful. You would use this move on birds like doves, ducks, geese and driven pheasants. In short, any bird that is not flushing away from you is crossing at one angle or another, and in order to be consistent you must learn this move.
The crossing shot is where most people fall in the trap of taking their eyes off the target to check the lead. Once you learn how to consistently move and mount your shotgun ahead of the bird, lead becomes the most forgiving part of the equation.
We realize that might be hard to believe for some of you, but you just might want to give this a try.
On the clays course, the crossing shot is the one that typically gives shooters the most headaches, especially hunters. Why hunters? The typical bird hunter is used to shooting a target that is either accelerating or maintaining its speed. The other big advantage a hunter has when hunting birds is that there is something moving on their target: the wings. Typically the wings are moving faster than the shooter can move the shotgun, which makes it easier for the hunter to maintain focus on the bird while waving the gun around the sky trying to get the gun in front of the target.
Most hunters have a two-part move and mount. They mount the gun to their shoulder, put their head down on the stock and chase the bird, trying to get the gun in front of the bird and take the shot. When this poor guy goes to the clays range, unfortunately he isn’t very successful and doesn’t understand why.
The clay target is a decelerating target and has no wings to attract the shooter’s eyes. This makes maintaining focus on the target darn near impossible because of the excess movement of the gun when he is trying to mount and chase the bird. There is no rhythm or reason to this guy’s misses. And because he doesn’t understand the root cause for his misses, he is not happy and not having a good time.
This is why we spend most of our time working with shooters from all over the world on improving their basic move and mount. The quality of your move and mount will determine the consistency and success you have with a shotgun.
We can all agree that when shooting a shotgun, the shooter must have their focus on the target. It is our findings that you can’t maintain focus on the target if you are thinking about mounting your gun correctly. If you don’t mount the gun correctly, you are not going to hit the target, whether it has feathers or paint on it. The only way you are going to enjoy shooting a shotgun is to master the moving and mounting of the gun. The only way you will do that is to shoot thousands of rounds of ammo or do the OSP Flashlight Drill.
We teach people to move and mount the gun into the lead in one smooth flowing move ahead of the bird. Practicing your move and mount BEFORE you go into the hunting fields or clays range will improve your consistency and your results.
There are two crossing moves: right-to-left and left-to-right. While you might think they are the same just from different directions, that is definitely not the case.
For the sake of discussion, let’s assume that you are right-handed. When moving and mounting the gun from right to left, your hands will be moving in the same direction. This is the easiest move for a right-handed shooter to make because the hands are going in the same direction, and when this occurs, they tend to move in sync.
The left-to-right move is the more difficult of the two, because the hands must move in opposite directions. The front (left) hand must push the muzzles to the right to stay ahead of the bird, and at the same time the right hand must pull the gun stock to the left into the face and shoulder. We call this the reciprocal move because the hands reciprocate (move in opposite directions) as they make the move and mount.
When the hands DON’T reciprocate but move the same direction on the left-to-right bird, the shooter typically ends up mounting the gun butt out on the arm, creating a nasty bruise.
You will never shoot better than the quality of your basic move and mount. Practicing both the quartering and the crossing move with the OSP Flashlight Drill is the quickest way to create a consistent, smooth, subconscious gun mount. It is also a surefire way to eliminate those nasty “shoulder” bruises that end up on your upper arm!
