From the lads

35 bundles of tea tree were sawn down, hog tied and delivered to the swamp. The lads started before 8am and didn't get back to the landing until 5pm so she was a fair day's work. The Park Grand Mansion gobbled up 11 bundles, she's a massive maimai that one. The boys cut several bundles of very long stuff for McLennan's and it sounds like they did an awesome job. Waikato H&F put on their annual duck hunters shoot yesterday, and when I spoke with Andy H in the morning it sounded as though hundreds of shooters turned out. Dad competed in the shoot-off for top place, coming in third behind Larry Discombe and XXX, good to see that the old fellah is still at the top of his game.

A wee (twisted meheh heh)discourse on competition shooting. Deep down I know that I haven't got the mental game to do well at this discipline. I get bored. I lose concentration. I start hot and finish luke warm. I used to shoot skeet every week 15 years ago and would get lots of 23's & 24's. The occasional 25 would come my way, and it wasn't the same target that I missed either, but I'd just get bored, or be drifting away, or whatever, consistency eluded me. DTL bored me silly. Sort of like shooting against pre-programmed robots. I did shoot a couple of sporting events as a "non registered/non graded" shooter and did well enough to win. But I doubt I'd do as well now, back then I was shooting an awful lot and now its very seasonal.

Does competition shooting help with game shooting? I think it must, if your gun comes up the same way every shot, and if you're not dealing with raised cheek/lifted head syndrome and if you have your sight pictures sorted then surely you're going to do well on birds? But do game birds fly straight? (Clays mostly do, apart from battue, running rabbit, springing teal). Why do real birds put so many top shooters off their game? See it must be a mental thing. You MUST pick your target, you must watch your target, you must kill your target and be computing the next one. I've seen some guys really get worked up about shooting at real live birds. So add in, you must relax. And you must have an arsenal of sight pictures to draw on. Here's a neat thing I thought of ages ago that works for me. I watch the bird's chin. Be it a duck or oncoming rooster, I'm watching the chin just behind the beak. Its an almost perfect place to be concentrating on for the majority of incoming or crossing shots that present themselves. [Prolly why I don't get many quail, they are chinless!!!! :)]. Shoot 'em in the chin. Don't watch the body, if you watch that chances are your shot charge will take the rear of the bird which is a crippling shot. With enough experience you'll also mentally sort your chances. You'll have an A, B & C target option - and I suppose those guys with 9 shots up the spout have to have more than that when 30 geese come in.

That was Snuffit on shotgunning. God bless the target shooters, keeps ammo prices down. ;D