Wednesday evening Practice (Sporting Targets)

Now that winter is out of the way...(almost) and spring is moving in, late night opening offers the chance to get out midweek and practice everything that I thing I have learned recently.

I started with some practice shooting in the 122 bay at Targets. Last time I was in here it was wet and windy and I had all sorts of issues so it was nice to be back on a calm dry evening. I practiced shooting the teal on the way up rather than on the drop as I would naturally prefer to do.

I also practiced the various crossers, trying to shoot them as early as possible. This was helped by the sun being low in the sky, as I tried to shoot each target before it raeched the sun.

I then headed up to the skeet range.

I shot two rounds with a couple of chaps who didn't mind me joining them. The first round I shot a 17 which is ok, then on the second round I concentrated on Steve Leonards advice for each stand which is to shoot at the first, give the second a foot, the third two feet same for the forth and fifth. Give the sixth one foot and aim at the seventh. It worked really well. I arrived at the sixth stand having only dropped one shot. However it was at this point that the wheels fell off! I don't quite know how, but I missed three out of four on the sixth stand... and although I would like to blame the sun which was in a bad place for the stand, one of the chaps I was with managed ok so I should be able to as well. I ended the round with a 20 which is a PB. I think it was more a case of not cutting back my lead for the sixth. I was so pleased with progress up until that point that I didn't prep myself correctly which led to the errors. What is worse is that I didn't fix it for the secont and third clays.

I headed down to the basin and again practiced on the c and d bird trying to shoot them as they left the trap and well before they reached the sun which was before their apex.
I was hitting over 50% really early and picking up 50% of the remainder on the drop so it was ok for me as I historically struggle with these birds.

I am looking forward to another competition at the weekend.