Are You Being Too Forward?

We’ve all heard some well-meaning amateur shout ‘you’re behind them, mate’ — but they may be entirely wrong, says Simon Reinhold

- Simon Reinhold

You will probably have heard it at some point on a clay ground from the back of the cage: “You’re behind it, mate.” While it is meant well, there is little more irritating than this kind of unsolicited comment. Another supposedly self-evident truth that is trotted out repeatedly on a game day is “You don’t miss ’em in front”. But is it true or are these just lazy stereotype remarks from well meaning amateurs?

If you have spent all summer shooting long battue targets on your local clay ground and are used to seeing a gap between your muzzles and the clay, you may find yourself having to adjust when it comes to game shooting. It is no good simply getting further and further in front of the birds following a miss, thinking that this will fix the issue.

Most instructors on a clay ground will explain the three methods of connecting your shot string to the bird: swing through, pull away and maintained lead. Maintained lead has been employed very successfully by some shooters who rely on an almost superpower-like gift of hand-eye coordination, and it can be necessary in certain situations.

There are some top-level US skeet Shots who shoot nothing else and have runs of hits that go into the hundreds, but for most of us it can lead to problems as there is little or no relationship between barrel and bird. If you try maintained lead on driven game you may get lucky but most of the time you won’t.