How to smash it

David Turner catches up with clay shooting hotshot Dave Ferriman

- JAMES MARCHINGTON

Dave Ferriman is the gunroom manager and instructor at Sporting Targets Shooting ground at Riseley in his home county of Bedfordshire. He also happens to be the current British Open Sporting Clay Shooting Champion.

This interview with an outstanding young sportsman — who has achieved great success in a very short time— is intended to give some pointers to newer shooters. In particular, I wanted to ask Dave some questions to which I felt new shooters might want answers.

Dave may only be 25 but he has much experience and shoots somewhere in the region of up to 500 cartridges a month. He is certainly at home in the crucible of competition and he won his county’s junior championship in 2014 with a score that would have put him on a par with senior AAA Shots.

Readers of my articles will know I often talk about the value of practice. It’s interesting to hear Dave’s response on that subject and others, so read on:

How long you’ve been shooting, when and where did you start?

I had my first lesson at seven but began shooting competitions when I was 13. As I am a Bedfordshire boy, Sporting Targets is my local ground, which has great facilities for sporting, FITASC and Sportrap disciplines.