Well it’s finally that time of year that we look forward
to, the beginning of the big tournament season. For us it always begins with the Seminole Cup and this year we
are looking forward to sticking around South Florida to shoot the Caribbean Cup
too. But uh oh, tournament time means
that I really need to get back into practicing my gun mount, get back in shape
after the laziness of the holidays, and get out to the local course to
practice. Maybe you have the same sense of urgency so let me give you some
simple tips to help.
Most
importantly, practice your gun mount everyday for at least two minutes. The best way to insure doing this is to have
your gun fairly accessible and hopefully in a place where you will see it daily
and remember to practice. Personally, I
take my gun out in the evening and lay it on the sofa (after the kids have gone
to bed) and whenever a commercial comes on TV, I practice mounting several
times. If you have a mirror handy then you can mount towards the mirror
pointing the gun at your dominant eye which should appear in the mirror just
over the barrel. Basically hold the gun in the low position with the barrel
reflection in the mirror a few inches beneath your eye and mount the gun using
your forward arm to push the barrel towards your eye in the mirror. The barrel
should always be moving towards the “target” and shouldn’t dip down or flip up
when mounting. You want to keep your mount nice and smooth and controlled. This daily practice may sound trivial but it
really helps to ensure a consistent mount when you are in a tournament
situation. The idea is to practice the movement so much that it becomes second
nature; therefore, in competition you can just focus on each individual bird,
that’s all!
Now I don’t know about you but I
have not even picked up my gun in quite some time. I really enjoyed the
holidays and the good food that came along with it and like many people I know,
I joined a gym in January! Talk about a booming business post New Years
Day. Seriously, though, it helps your
scores through enhanced endurance if you stay fit. At the very least, my suggestion is to go to the gun club to
practice and while there, forego the golf cart and carry your own gun and
shells and walk the course while shooting it.
After all, many tournaments do not allow golf carts so you should be
comfortable with that amount of exertion.
By the way, if you have had any significant weight loss or gain it could
potentially change the way your gun fits you so you may want to have that
checked by a professional.
Speaking
of practice, that brings me to my last point. There is no doubt that practice
is a key to consistently shooting well.
However, if you ask several different top shooters they may all have a
different opinion of how much you should practice. We recommend at least
shooting a couple hundred targets per week. In general, John does not recommend
that you keep score when practicing. He suggests that you go out and shoot as
many different targets as possible and if you have a problem on one particular
station, don’t be frightened to stay there and shoot twenty or thirty of them
until you have the right feeling with the gun.
If you decide to keep score on a round then take that opportunity to analyze
your scorecard at the end and pick out any obvious patterns regarding missing.
For example, do you almost always miss the last bird? Or do you often inexplicably drop a pair in the middle of a set
of ten and break all of the rest? If any pattern such as this emerges then you
will probably see the same thing in competition as well. So use your practice
time to overcome these things as soon as possible. In the example of always
missing the last bird or shooting a lot of 9s on your scorecard, go out and
practice breaking ten in a row. Pick an easy bird at first and just work on
breaking ten in a row. It’s basically
practicing your mental focus. If you
are regularly hitting the first six birds on a station and then missing most of
the last four then take a step back after the first six and then step forward
and start over for the last four. That may sound silly but you can ask Randy
Clark at Quail Ridge and he will tell you that it really works! Also when
reviewing your scorecard if you notice a particular bird that you struggled
with, say left to right quartering away, go out and practice that angle of a
bird until you are confident that you can break it regularly.
Most of
all enjoy yourself and this fun sport!
Introduce your friends or family members to it and encourage its growth
by helping new shooters get started.
Don’t forget to practice your gun mount everyday and practice as much as
possible. I will see you on the trail, happy shooting!
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