Show acri HOW TO ar 4 F ano A L by bob nichols shooting editor feld and stream HE shot that to 18 missed more often T THE than any other shot in hunting Is the fast flying overhead shot g in 1 directly over you this la Is the that the duck hunter encounters frequently although it does not present itself very often in upland h inting when such a chance does present it self however what do you do to score a hit for years as a boy I 1 wasted shell after shell trying to connect with fast flying duel duels s coming in directly over heal head sometimes they vituld not be he any more than thirty yards high in variably I 1 would score a miss on them coming in rot not a few of the times I 1 would then turn around and drop the bird going away I 1 t un ferstand ler stand why I 1 was missing the older heads than mine were both ered by the same pulling ling shot one old duck hunter and a very success tul ful hunter he was too once told me that it was useless trying to kill a duck coming in on this kind of shot his explanation was that the shot sira sim ply vy would not penetrate to the bird s vitals shooting crosswise through the duck s heavy breast feathers fei I 1 et he counseled me and shoot into em from behind the way their feathers lay and you 11 kill em every shot this dlan didn t sound reasonable to me I 1 had a very wholesome respect for the speed and penetrating power of shotgun pellets at 30 to 45 yard range one day sitting in a coanshock corn shock blind ahad I 1 had rigged up bor for myself in came a flock of about a dozen blue wing teal they were coming straight over me at about 85 35 yards high and they were coming fast my ily concealment was so constructed that I 1 knew I 1 would never be able to get out of it in time to shoot at them going away behind me As they whirred into me I 1 pulled up on the leader gave him what I 1 thought was the proper lead and fired what bal ha bened so amazed me that I 1 forgot to shoot the second barrel I 1 had shot at the leader and killed the last bird in the flock I 1 which meant that I 1 had shot behind the bird I 1 pulled on and missed it by a good six feet when I 1 examined the dead bird I 1 found its breast right where its feathering was the heaviest v was as neat ly punctured by four 4 as s so I 1 rea my old advisor was wrong and if no 4 as s would kill through the breast feathers of a teal they would do the same thing to a mallard or even a goose and the whole trouble was chit that I 1 leading my overlie overhead ove rheid ad ing shots enough I 1 couldn coulden t figure out why such a big lead was nece necessary on this type of shot all I 1 knew wis was w is that you hod had to double your lead and that whenever you d d it this way you scored I 1 had proved it that was enough but it wasn gasn t until some years later that I 1 arrived at the correct ex plan atlon here it is on the overhead incoming shoot you of course can t see your target at the instant you pull the trigger you bury the target as the saying goes but the instant your eyes lose sight of the target your hands and arms un tin consciously stop the swing of your gun the result Is that instead of shooting ahead h d of r the target with the proper killing lead ad you actually shoot almost at the target and by the time the shot charge gets up there the duck has already pissed passed the danger point and t the be charge tears a large hole in the air behind him A good rule to follow on this type of shot Is to pull dead on the ing duck and then lust just at the instant of firing swiftly lump jump the m up over the target so thit that it will seem LO 10 be shooting at i a point about twice as far in front of the target as wo lid ild 9 seem eem necessary necess irv in other words try to double your lead a very g od rough estimate est imite of what it seems you are doing when you do it correctly try this see how readily it solves the puzzle I 1 0 western newspaper union |