First Time Skeet - Poco - Great Experience

Candychikita

Candychikita

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I went out to PoCo for the first time in about 10 years on Sunday to get ready for a grouse hunt...if you folks are on here, thank you very much :D :D

I was a comedy of errors. Damn Terry Fox run detour, arrived way too early, got lost, my favourite gun had a sheered off sight bead, my backup gun needed a little help (was ready for turkey), box o ammo was missing the right size shells (even had a box of the wrong gauge in there...dear sweet mother of pearl) If I had any idea what a walking disaster I was going to be that day, I may have been better off staying in bed bahahahhaha What a doofus.

Still had a great time and learned a lot. The group at PoCo took my doofus-ness in stride.

I sucked total donkey balls actually hitting the clays but I hear it gets better with practice :D Clearly lots more practice is needed :D :D What fun :D :D
 
As long as you had fun, it was a success. As far as the bead being sheered off is concerned, that isn't necessarily a bad thing when shooting skeet, a bead can be more of a distraction than anything else.
 
Candychikita said:
I went out to PoCo for the first time in about 10 years on Sunday to get ready for a grouse hunt...if you folks are on here, thank you very much :D :D

I was a comedy of errors. Damn Terry Fox run detour, arrived way too early, got lost, my favourite gun had a sheered off sight bead, my backup gun needed a little help (was ready for turkey), box o ammo was missing the right size shells (even had a box of the wrong gauge in there...dear sweet mother of pearl) If I had any idea what a walking disaster I was going to be that day, I may have been better off staying in bed bahahahhaha What a doofus.

Still had a great time and learned a lot. The group at PoCo took my doofus-ness in stride.

I sucked total donkey balls actually hitting the clays but I hear it gets better with practice :D Clearly lots more practice is needed :D :D What fun :D :D
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No great loss. Shotguns should not have beads. They are just a distraction.
 
Westward1 said:
No great loss. Shotguns should not have beads. They are just a distraction.
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I must admit,I do get a laugh when a new shooter shows up with one of those huge high vis beads attached to the rib of his shotgun. One particularly frustrated shooter asked me for some help to improve his skeet scores, so I convinced him to remove the huge slip on bead, and his scores improved immediately.
 
stubblejumper said:
I must admit,I do get a laugh when a new shooter shows up with one of those huge high vis beads attached to the rib of his shotgun. One particularly frustrated shooter asked me for some help to improve his skeet scores, so I convinced him to remove the huge slip on bead, and his scores improved immediately.
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Humm interesting . I am a Newby at shooting clay and a few week ago I found out that I shoot a bit better with my friend's gun.

He has an Ithaca pump (model 37 I believe) with a fiber optics sights
He has a smaller stock with a 26 inches barrel.
I am a big guy and imho my stock fits me better.
His gun is also lighter than mine.

I assumed I shot better because of the sight?
 
popol said:
Humm interesting . I am a Newby at shooting clay and a few week ago I found out that I shoot a bit better with my friend's gun.

He has an Ithaca pump (model 37 I believe) with a fiber optics sights
He has a smaller stock with a 26 inches barrel.
I am a big guy and imho my stock fits me better.
His gun is also lighter than mine.

I assumed I shot better because of the sight?
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To shoot clays to your potential, you need to concentrate on the target, rather than on the beads. The more obvious the beads are, the harder that is for many people. I have a few shotguns with interchangeable beads, and the first thing that I do, is to remove the hi vis bead, and replace it with the smallest white bead.

As well, when wingshooting, you don't aim a shotgun like you aim a rifle, you point a shotgun, while concentrating on the target.

I am a Newby at shooting clay
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Which is likely why you made that assumption. If you get to the point where you are shooting clean rounds, you will probably have a different opinion.
 
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Candychikita

Wing shooting is a very dynamic event. I liken it to driving your car down the road. You look at the road and let hand eye coordination guide you. You don't try to line up the hood ornament with the yellow line. Once you mind has subconsciously memorized a sight picture with the target clearly in focus and the barrel out of focus, but in your peripheral vision, you will find wing shooting MUCH easier

For anyone who wants to see the effects of looking back at the bead in an effort to sight like a rifle, try this experiment. Find somewhere you can watch cars go by. Focus your eye on the front wheel. Follow the wheel with your finger, but focus on the wheel. Now quickly shift your focus from the wheel to your finger and then back to the wheel. Invariably you will have slowed down your finger and it is no longer pointed at the wheel. Same thing happens with a shotgun if you look at the beads
 
R&R Rancher said:
Candychikita

Wing shooting is a very dynamic event. I liken it to driving your car down the road. You look at the road and let hand eye coordination guide you. You don't try to line up the hood ornament with the yellow line. Once you mind has subconsciously memorized a sight picture with the target clearly in focus and the barrel out of focus, but in your peripheral vision, you will find wing shooting MUCH easier

For anyone who wants to see the effects of looking back at the bead in an effort to sight like a rifle, try this experiment. Find somewhere you can watch cars go by. Focus your eye on the front wheel. Follow the wheel with your finger, but focus on the wheel. Now quickly shift your focus from the wheel to your finger and then back to the wheel. Invariably you will have slowed down your finger and it is no longer pointed at the wheel. Same thing happens with a shotgun if you look at the beads
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Exactly, and wing shooting with both eyes open greatly aids your peripheral vision as well. Trying to aim a shotgun like a rifle is a handicap when wing shooting, but doing it with one eye closed , is even more of a handicap.
 
Great bunch'a guys there....went out one Sunday this past summer - when I arrived my shotgun was unusable for a reason I'm too embarrassed to mention. I told the guy at the desk to keep my money and I'd be back in a while with the missing part....one of the guys piped up and said don't bother, and lent me his "extra" gun , some expensive European thing I can't even remember the name of. It was a great time.
 
Which place are you guys talking about? The place by the dikes off Pitt River? The reason I ask is I have been looking for a good place to go try it, total novice here. I've shot clays in the bush with my Dad but never at an actual skeet range.
 
bp2626 said:
Port Coquitlam and District Hunting and Fishing Club.

http://www.pcdhfc.com/
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That's correct, sorry. I hadn't come back to look at this thread

R&R Rancher said:
Invariably you will have slowed down your finger and it is no longer pointed at the wheel. Same thing happens with a shotgun if you look at the beads
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I think this may have been my problem...I have no issues with trap or instinctive archery. With skeet I was behind a fair bit, and I was told I visibly stopped following the target with the gun.

I also had a problem when the clays got a bit out of my comfort zone. I know the shot doesn't carry for a long distance like other types of ammo/gun combos, but the angle I was shooting raised mental alarms as if it could carry through to another range. I found that I wouldn't pull the trigger after a certain degree off of straight down the range. I knew there were people "over there" and if I couldn't see them, I wasn't aiming in that direction. I figured this was a fairly good mentality/awareness to have, and learn to shoot before it got near my own personal boundaries.

Need more practice :D :D
 
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