View to a Kill

Though you know where you are going wrong, failure to connect with the birds is demoralising. And even the glorious vista provides little succour

- P. Quagliana

For much of last season I found myself wrestling with a problem, a problem to which I found no solution, though I certainly tried hard enough. My problem was this and it may be one with which you too have occasionally struggled — that is, how we can somehow manage to enjoy ourselves on days when we are shooting badly. I confess that I had plenty of practice with this problem last season, for the ability to kill pheasants with anything like consistency deserted and demoralised me. We can all cope with the occasional bad day, at least most of us can, but it becomes more and more dispiriting when they become the norm rather than the exception, following one another with confidence-sapping regularity.

The solution seemed simple enough. I took myself off to the Crabtree shooting ground near Kendal where, with the expert guidance of my coach, Jonty, I was soon smashing difficult clays with assurance. However, this did not solve my problem because I could not transfer my way with clay birds to the sort that have feathers. I returned to Jonty in search of more help and learned all over again how to swing on to and ahead of birds. I thought that the pheasants of Cumbria would soon be telling each other to avoid Cat low at all costs but the next shooting day forced me to admit that, with very few exceptions, their best route to safety had been straight over my head.

Visits to the swing doctor

There are those who argue that clay and game shooting are entirely separate disciplines and that skill in one is no guarantee of competence in the other. There are, of course, obvious differences but I have never come across a good clay Shot who was not also able to kill his share of demanding pheasants. Throughout the latter course of the season I made fairly regular visits to my swing doctor.