As hunting season comes, here’s a little reminder of when to take a shooting lesson. We have so many people who call us three days before they are ready to leave to go to Argentina or on a dove hunt with their company They want a tune-up before the hunt and mostly so they will not embarrass themselves.
Let’s think about this. If you come for a tune-up three days before, after not touching your gun for several months, you are not going to be used to the gun or the recoil. What happens is you go into panic mode, and nothing you will learn will have time to go subconscious. And even more importantly, you will have several mismounts and the recoil will cause you to become sore right before you go. So you have spent all this money to go on a great hunt and you are already sore and thinking about all the things you have just learned. This is a recipe for disaster. Your great trip won’t be as much fun as it could have been.
As you get on your hunt, you have to think about everything. You won’t just be thinking about hitting the target. You are not going to perform as well as you could.
The time to take a shooting lesson for your hunt is one or two months before you go. That way you can practice the things you will learn in your lesson and they will become more subconscious and more natural. You won’t have to think about how to hit the bird; all you will need to do is look at the bird’s head. You will have plenty of time to practice and get used to the gun and the recoil and practice your gun mount so you will enjoy your trip. Seeing someone’s arm all bruised up is not my idea of a good time.
Practice your gun mount. Practice sitting down and shooting. Practice with a coat on. Practice looking at the heads of the birds in your yard. But give yourself a chance to make your hunt successful by taking your lesson early.
You and your instructor can problem-solve, then through conscious repetition, you can make it subconscious. If you don’t have to think about the mount and where to look and how to hit the bird, and all you have to do is to look for the head of the bird, your hunt will be more successful and of course more fun!
