What You Cannot Learn On The Peg

Many of the best Shots started young and had a rural upbringing, but there are other ways to become a good all-rounder, says Tom Payne

- Tom Payne

What does it take to be a Top Shot? How do you become an all-rounder? We can all advise accordingly on how to improve your shooting, whether that be practice, finding the right instructor for lessons or having your gun fitted. But there are things that can’t be learned at a clay ground or standing on the peg that really give the top shooters an edge.

When we use the term ‘allrounder’, there is so much to consider. It’s all very well shooting pheasants and partridges but counties vary, topography changes and weather is rarely consistent. Grouse shooting in North Yorkshire is very different from shooting grouse in Inverness or the Angus Glens. Shooting pigeons can vary over different crops, conditions, and times of the year. With wildfowling, you have various species and techniques, flighting ducks of an evening in difficult light or trying for that goose on the coast.

All-rounders are rarer now than during, say, the 1980s and 1990s. The top clay Shots during these periods got into clay shooting off the back of game shooting, pigeon shooting, and walked-up expeditions. It was very much the rural man’s sport.

Reversed

These days many clay Shots don’t shoot game and are from a different background altogether. Many are unfamiliar with rural living, and it is a credit to clay shooting that it is so inclusive and welcoming to all. If anything, clay shooting has created more access to the sport.