I am a 69-year-old beginning sporting clays shooter in good health, but about to go crazy over this eye problem. When I started this sport I kept one eye closed and started to average about 65. Then was told I needed to keep both eyes open. I started this and couldn’t hit anything. As I am not going to be a competitive shooter, what do you think about my “puzzling situation”? I would be satisfied to shoot in the low 70s, have lunch with my friends, come home, take a nap and move on. How important is keeping two eyes open?
– Joe Staples, Rosemont, PA
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First, there is no “only one way” to shoot a shotgun. Some ways have more risk than others.
Second, shooting has less to do with your eyes being open or shut and more to do with what you are looking at. The basic difference between rifle /pistol and shotgun shooting is that rifles and pistols are aimed, and you are very aware of the sights. Also, the target is stationary allowing for precious time to align the sights with the target and the shot to be taken.
However, in shotgunning, because the target is moving, the more you are aware of the barrel or the sight picture, the less you are aware of the target. We call this “shooting the lead.” If you are trying to find that lead picture, you will take your eyes off the target and put them on the gun barrel, therefore, you will lose sight of the target. The shot cloud is very forgiving as long as the address is correct. The most perfect “sight picture” in the world is wrong if it is not delivered in the right place!
One of the marks of an experienced professional instructor is to always establish with the student his or her goals, as well as being honest with the student about whether or not their goals are realistic. This is the way an experienced instructor determines how much change a person is willing to go through to increase their performance and whether or not the person is willing to make the commitment to practice the change enough to get good results.
It sounds to me as though you were told about the “two-eyed thing,” but you still don’t understand it. If I had to guess at the cause of your confusion, you were looking for the one-eyed picture using two eyes.
I would guess that the one thing that is giving you the most confusion is that you are being way too precise with lead. The more precise you are with lead, the more you have to be aware of the gun. The more aware of the gun you are, the less aware of the target you become. The less aware of the target you are the less you know about where it is.
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