Time and motion

Malcolm Plant looks at the technique and skills you will need to employ to ensure you hit your target

- Malcolm Plant

How can I help you? Conversations with shotgun clients who have some experience centre on what’s going right, what’s going wrong and whether they really know how they currently shoot a target.

All the basics seem to be operating reasonably well — no master eye problems, foot positions seem to be understood, gun mount and gun fit look OK, and upper body and arm movements are good.

And all of these can be checked with a few crossing clays from the right and from the left.

Then we get to the interesting discussion and exploration. Going-away targets, low incomers and high crossers are what the client wants to investigate and improve, namely walked-up and driven grouse and pheasants.

Straight lines

The only targets that do not require the shot pattern to be placed ahead of the clay on its Flightline are targets going straight away from you, like a ‘down-the-line clay’ or targets coming straight towards you, such as a clay landing 20 yards out in front. Just shoot straight at them.

The going-away target is usually best shot after giving it a chance to flatten out into a horizontal trajectory. This also means that the target is at a distance where your shot pellet pattern has had a chance to open up a bit, to say 2ft to 3ft in diameter.

The incoming clay is also best shot when travelling horizontally towards you before it starts to drop towards the ground.

With both of these targets, the mental confidence to get the timing of the shot correct is fundamental — wait for the opportunity then don’t hesitate, have instinctive confidence; if you check and recheck the target begins to fall and becomes much more complex. With these clays ‘all’ we need to do is sit the clay on top of the rib of the gun and pull the trigger.