The Top 10 Shooting Excuses

Didn’t shoot as well as you would have liked? Need an excuse quick? Roderick Emery has the answer. Just don’t expect any sympathy…

- Roderick Emery

The sun was in my eyes…

This is a classic, especially among partridge shooters in, as it might be, October when the sun tends to hang low in the sky of a morning. Step one, of course, would be to slip on a pair of sunglasses. Really good sunglasses, mind you, not the £4.99 ones you get from the petrol station in an emergency. Packing the right equipment is a key to good shooting and top shades are a given for top shots. Mark you, the problem will probably be the same for your neighbours and, indeed, the whole line since a good keeper will never drive partridges into the sun. It just doesn’t work. So here’s a thought. Why not turn through 45° degrees and shoot the birds over your neighbour’s head as a long crosser and invite him to do the same for his neighbour? And so forth down the line. Remember, it’s a team sport.

The wind was pushing the birds off line…

The wind was not pushing the birds off line, the birds were using the wind to glide on the curl to bamboozle you and it worked a treat. Payne- Gallwey, in High Pheasants in Theory and Practice, describes the curling bird as the most difficult shot of all. Tall pheasants in open sky, sliding across the wind. You’ve got far too much time to think and more than enough to start squinting down the barrel like a complete beginner. Especially after the first half dozen have sailed past without so much as a shrug. Forget about lead, line is everything here. This is where the mantra “bum-belly-beak” is often deadly because following through the bird will give you the line and the speed of swing needed to overtake it will deliver the lead. Watching the birds is also crucial. Once you have worked out their route past the line, you are in with a shout.