Shooting and the Basics

Posted On: 11-29-2022

David R. Vaught, Ph.D.

The art of clay target shooting begins with the basics.  Yes, I said art and yes, I said basics.  I think we all understand the purpose of the shotgun and that is to deliver shot to the target.  Or at least shot into the air.  If we really want to take this sport to an art we have to start with clearly mastering the basics. 

I said art so lets start there.  Art is based on colors.  We have red, blue, yellow and green.  So if we paint or draw with just those colors we are indeed at the basics.  If we are a natural we make those colors work.  If not we start to mix the colors to make new colors so all of a sudden we have to know more that red, blue, yellow and green. But I offer that mixing colors might indeed muddle the true understanding of those basic four colors.  In other words, if we cannot master those basic colors what good is moving on?

In shooting we HAVE TO MASTER THE BASICS.  It makes no sense to move on without first understanding and then mastering the basics.  Perhaps one could argue that we may never master the basics, but we can really get close. 

Lets be clear, anyone can shoot a shotgun and anyone can break a target.  I once had a student in a shooting course that must have missed well over 100 targets until finally they hit one.  Believe me, anyone can hit a clay target.  So consider 1/100 and then we have to hit 2/100.  At this point we have no basics to work with, only that fact that we know what a shotgun does, and we know it can discharge shot to break a clay target.  We unfortunately don’t have a clue how to hit more targets with consistency.  So we get told the basics and work on those. 

I wait to add in the basics, because in their simplest terms they are footwork (red), motion (blue), gun-mount (yellow) and eyes (green).  These get broken down into subsets, but just like the basic colors, we have to master the basics. 

Our footwork has to be consistent.  Same place every time in every condition, in every practice and every event.  Wear the same shoes, boots, footwear, socks and whatever to be consistent every time we are on the line.  Do it right enough and we have a rote memory of footwork and lo and behold we don’t think about it anymore.  That is where you want to be.  You walk up to the line and your mind provides no thought process into where your feet go on each station.  PRACTICE this.  Pick a seam in the sidewalk and walk up to that line and imagine each station and set your feet.  After about a 1,000 tries you mind will burn it in deep enough you don’t need to think about it anymore.

Now do gun mounts, then eye work, then mental conditions, and then motion.  You get it, break this down to the smallest pieces and you will better understand the root causes of missing.  Master then and misses will become few and far between. 

Take the time to work on each of the four basic pieces before you move to even firing a single shot.  By the time you pull the trigger it is too late to recover from poor basic mastering.