“Focus on the target”, from John Woolley’s five steps to good  shooting.  For those of you just tuning in, the five steps are; (1) hold your head still, (2) use a proper gun mount, (3) focus on the bird, (4) never let the bird past your gun, and (5) proper gun fit.

Anyone who has ever had a lesson with John Woolley can tell you that his mantra is “Look At The Bird”! In fact, that phase became so familiar to me in my early instruction with John that I considered having it tattooed on my forehead.  Seriously though, we’ve even made “LATB” our email address.  Some of our longtime friends and students have been known to modify the phrase a little.  Randy Travalia of Minnesota often says, “Look at the bird, Stupid!” and Joe Palmer of Nashville has been known to admonish himself after a miss in that booming voice with a “Look at the bird, Dummy!”.

So what do we mean by “Look at the Bird”?  First, pick up a standard clay target and notice the ridges and the rings.  Usually the bottom is black and the top is orange.  Now remember that when you are shooting at the moving target, try to look at the target so intensely that you can still see the rings, the shadows, or the definition between black and orange.  If the target is too far away to see those things then look at it as if you can see them.  The point is that if you are completely focused on the target, the gun will naturally go to the right place to kill it. An analogy that John uses is catching a ball.  If a ball is coming toward you, naturally you will reach in front of it to catch it. Regardless of how quickly it is moving, your body will react accordingly.   Your brain, when left to instinct, will put your hand in the right place to catch the ball if you are focused on THE BALL.  If you focus on your hand, or your gun, you’ll miss.

How many times have you completely annihilated a difficult bird and thought, WOW that wasn’t as hard as I thought?   Often with very tough targets, we concentrate so hard on watching it that the first shot absolutely smokes it.  The problem comes when you try to exactly duplicate what you or someone else did to hit it.  (Like when someone tells you that it needs 7 feet of lead.)  You hit it the first time using your instinct, just trust yourself to do it again.

The most common problem that comes with not following this rule is trigger freezing, or flinching.  What happens is that you take your eye off of the target to check where the gun is and although you think it’s time to shoot, your brain no longer has the target in sight, therefore it won’t let you pull the trigger.   Sometimes after a flinch you can find the target again and still hit it, sometimes not.  To consistently hit the target, you must focus on it entirely. This doesn’t mean that you don’t see the gun.  You do.  It should be in your peripheral vision and you will be aware of where it is without being precisely sure.   John says, “you should FEEL where the gun is, not actually see where it is when you pull the trigger”.

It all goes back to the fact that the game of sporting clays was based on simulating wild game hunting.  It was meant to be played instinctively while shooting a wide variety of targets.  Just like in hunting you might see birds that whip and curl like battues or bounce wildly like rabbits.  You’ll find, if you ask around, that hunters rarely ever trigger freeze.  This goes back to years of training their eyes to stay focused on the bird.  Think about it, it makes a lot of sense.

NEVER LET THE BIRD PASS YOUR GUN.  This is step 4 in the John Woolley series of instruction based on his five steps to proper shooting.  The five steps are; (1) hold your head still, (2) use a proper gun mount, (3) focus on the bird, (4) never let the bird past your gun, and (5) proper gun fit.

                This one is simple physics really.  If you come from behind a target and attempt to shoot in front of it to intercept it and kill it, you must move the gun faster than the bird to get to the breakpoint, right?  Therefore, the gun is moving so fast that it is only in the right place to kill the bird for a fraction of a second as it moves away from the bird.  That is why we say, don’t come from behind a target, it is inconsistent, whippy, and it doesn’t look or feel smooth.

                A lot of people think that John only advocates maintain lead shooting.  On the contrary, he teaches and uses all three methods, maintain lead, pull away, and swing through.  The main phrase that was so cleverly coined by John Bidwell, “Move, Mount, Shoot” needs to be the basis for each of these styles of shooting.  Basically for maintain lead, you should mount in front of the bird to the distance you want to lead it and pull the trigger as the gun hits your shoulder.  For the pull away version, you should mount to the front edge of the bird and as the gun hits your shoulder extend it away from the bird.  With this version the gun is in your shoulder a fraction longer than with maintain lead.  For swing-through you should mount to the back edge of the target and continue the flow moving away from the bird but in time with it.

                The most common problem John encounters with pupils has to do with this very rule.  So many shooters on all skill levels either mount behind the bird or allow it to pass them, often allowing an eight to ten foot gap, and sometimes as much as forty feet at the target distance.  Often the cause is that they stop the gun, which happens naturally if you take your eye off of the target, or they don’t pick up the bird as it is launched and it gets past them before they know it.  That usually happens because they start the gun too far back towards the trap.       

                There are several steps you can take to ensure that you mount smoothly on the target.  First, watch the show bird carefully.  Notice specifically where it comes from and at which point you pick it up clearly.  You will then start your gun somewhere in front and below, but near the point where you clearly see the bird.

You may have noticed that many of the top shooters point their finger at the show bird.  There are several reasons that they do this, the first is to determine where to start the gun.  If you point your finger at a target and notice yourself trying to catch the bird, you obviously started too far back towards the trap.  If you are not the first shooter in the squad, you can practice the finger pointing while others shoot until you find the place where you comfortably intercept the target. The second reason to point your finger at the show bird is to get a feel for how far in front the gun has to be to kill the bird.  Your finger will naturally move to the right lead if you focus on the target.  Thirdly, in pointing your finger you also find the point in the flight path that you are comfortable pulling the trigger.  It helps if you say to yourself “bang” when you think you would shoot. Other tips gained are the target speed and direction.  Therefore, if you use this finger pointing technique, you should know exactly where you will start the gun, how fast you have to move it, and where you are going to kill the target with the approximate amount of perceived lead.  Armed with this information, you should not be caught off guard and consequently can mount and shoot smoothly with complete control.

                As always, we strongly recommend you practice these techniques regularly in order to make them second nature. One way to do this is to practice your gun mount at home.  Imagine a target flying along the line between your wall and ceiling from one corner to another.  Use one corner as your start point and the other as the breakpoint.  Practice slowly mounting the gun just below the line of the target and have it meet the target and hit your shoulder right at the breakpoint.   If you mount too quickly, you will find yourself riding the target, which causes you to look back at the gun, which stops the motion and lets the bird get past your gun.

                The bottom line of this rule is, keep the gun moving with the target.  Regardless of whether you maintain lead, pull away or swing through, always move, mount, and shoot in time with the bird.  The most common method used is the pull away version of the move, mount, shoot method.

      The final step in this series is to have a gun that fits you properly. 

Gun fit is important! I wish I could just leave it at that. But I suppose you want to know why John Woolley believes that it is one of the top five most important steps to breaking targets. (Otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this article.) In order of significance the five steps are; (1) hold your head still, (2) use a proper gun mount, (3) focus on the bird, (4) never let the bird past your gun, and (5) proper gun fit.

You should have seen the look of confusion and slight panic on my face when John began explaining what this article needed to entail.  He was using words and phrases like pitch, cast on, cast off, toe, comb, length of pull, stance, etc.  Sure I’ve heard them all before but I have always rested in the comfort of knowing that he understands all of that so I don’t have to.  Kind of like how I can sew a button on his shirt so he doesn’t need to know how.  Nonetheless, I have now been assigned the task of relating to you what he said, so here goes.

First, why is gun fit important?  Basically it is essential in order to achieve steps one and two listed earlier. If the gun doesn’t fit your body correctly, you will be unable to keep your head still and have it be in the right place. Therefore you will be unable to have a proper gun mount. 

So, what do we mean by “gun fit”? As you know, we all come in different shapes and sizes.  The average guns on the shelves in stores are made for a right-handed man who is between 5’8” and 5’10” and weighs between 170-190 pounds.  Most of us do not fall into that category and therefore need some adjustments made to our guns. For example, if you are left-handed then you will need a different cast to your stock than a right-handed shooter.  The cast is the bend in the stock from the face to the heel.  “Cast on” is for the left-handed shooter, “cast off” is for right-handed. Cast is necessary to enable your dominant eye to see straight down the barrel without bending your head over the stock.

Now if you are large in the chest (man or woman) then your gun may need some adjustment to the pitch.  Pitch is the angle of the butt plate from the heel (top) to the toe (bottom).  For example, a large chested man and most women need less toe.

Stock length or length of pull is another important detail that needs to be addressed.  Obviously if the gun is too long you will have trouble mounting, holding and moving it.  Too short is very awkward for the same reasons.  When you mount the gun properly, you should be able to put the width of two fingers between your nose and your thumb where it comes over the pistol grip.

We can all MAKE any gun fit us well enough to break a target. However, if you shoot a lot, you will notice some signs if your gun doesn’t fit you.  For example, if you can see down one side of the barrel with the gun mounted, and you are holding your head correctly (eye’s level and nose angled towards gun), then the gun needs the cast adjusted for you.  Another common problem that you’ve probably seen out on the range is a bruised, sometimes even bleeding, cheek. Usually that is a sign of cross dominance, for example a right-handed shooter with a dominant left eye.  Sometimes it may indicate that you are pushing your head down too hard on the gun or rolling your head over the gun, which also shows the need for an adjustment to the cast of the stock.

I realize that this may sound like a lot of mumbo jumbo to the occasional hunter or novice clay target shooter but it really comes down to your future goals in shotgun shooting.  If you want to shoot to the best of your ability, you need to have a gun that fits you specifically.  Once you have the measurements taken then you can either have a stock made to your specifications, or you can have a gunsmith make the necessary adjustments to your current stock. A typical gun fit session takes about an hour and costs around $150. Some clubs have an instructor who also does gun fitting or they occasionally bring someone like John in for a few days.  The most common tool used is a try-gun, which is fully adjustable as well as functional.

                Here is how a typical gun fit session goes with John. First he takes the shooter out and watches them shoot a few times with their own gun.  From that he can tell if they need help with the way they hold the gun, the way they stand, or if the gun needs adjusting, or maybe all three. After watching for a few minutes, John can usually adjust the try-gun to fit them near perfectly.  The shooter then practices mounting and John tweaks the measurements until it is perfect.  Then the shooter takes the try-gun out and shoots some targets with it.  When everything is done, John writes the measurements down on a form like the one shown here and you take it with you to have forever. Provided your weight stays close to the same, your measurements should not change.  This paperwork acts like a recipe for any fully qualified gun stock maker or gunsmith to make or adjust for you exactly what you need.

Well we’ve come to the end of our 5 step series on John’s way to shoot your best.  We hope it has been helpful to you. In summary, if you keep your head still using a proper gun mount with a gun that fits you, all you have to do is focus on the bird, never letting it get past the gun, and your brain, your instinct, your reflex will take care of the rest. Good luck to all!