Kibworth 100 bird competition

Last Sunday I shot at Kibworth with my good friend Andy Clifton from Sporting targets Clay Pigeon Shooting Ground. It is always good to tag along with him as he does push me hard. I scored a 59 which was ok for the first time at that ground. I had been hoping for a 65+ if I was honest, but there were plenty of targets that I usually struggle with so I suppose I shouldn't be too disappointed.

Clay Pigeon Shooting boils down to two simple components in my opinion, firstly you need reasonable hand eye coordination, but that alone isn't enough. If good hand eye coordination was all it took we would all get straights every round. Second is the ability to read a target. This is the more important skill in my opinion as there are many factors to consider.

There are only 6 basic types of target, incoming, going away, crossers, quartering, teal and rabbits, everything else is a combination of these. My greatest problem is what I call 3 dimentional birds, namely a target that is not just going up, or crossing left to right, but the curling quartering going away type of swine that they put on against a sloping background for good measure.

I need to put systems in place to look firstly where the trap is, where the clay lands, its speed, if you can see more face early or late etc etc...... all these factors are things that currently I am not paying enough attention to and it is costing me points.

I am shooting the 100 bird sporting Competition at Sporting Targets on Monday the 26th so it will be a good opportunity to put these new measures into practice, although it will be raining so anything might happen!