Wisdom of the greats

Tom Payne reveals the tricks to great shooting he has learned from watching some of the true masters of our sport in action

- Tom Payne

Looking out of my window at a big cock bird picking his way down a hedge, just beyond my garden, it strikes me that I shot fewer days this season than in any other since childhood. In truth, it showed. Rather than getting into my stride, I frequently found myself feeling rusty.

For the first time in a while I found myself having to really focus to shoot with any consistency, purely because I wasn’t getting enough time in under the birds. Missing, as is often the case, made me think about the truly great Shots I’ve seen over the years. Certainly, these old boys have put the practice in, but watch them closely or get chatting to them on the Gun bus and you’ll soon realise they have a few tricks up their sleeve to minimise the sort of misses most of us make.

Every once in a while, we find ourselves driving home after a day where some stranger has shot impeccably. They may have got lucky or they may have been shooting strategically. If it’s the latter, there’s a few things they might have been up to. I’ll give a few of them away — not all, but a few.

Shoot on a wing beat

Pheasants are interesting flyers and are relatively big birds. It is amazing how much a pheasant can suck up the impact of shot, especially a gliding one and a gliding cock bird even more so.

This may sound extraordinary, but I was told this years ago by one of the old greats: to box pheasants up, if you can, always shoot them on a wingbeat, never gliding. The latter part is well known; gliding birds are usually moving in a way that isn’t obvious, not just on a straight trajectory overhead, but are also likely to be sliding, which make them very hard to shoot.