Tired of missing so many dang birds.😅 Is there a class you guys recommend near San Antonio?

Just go shoot more during the off season, Teach yourself.

Shoot some skeet and sporting clays.

Op- first and foremost get your gun fitted. You may have a cant or bad check weld which could be an easy fix.

I had my wife’s gun fitted and to find out she had very long length of pull. With and extension and a slight stock twist her shooting jumping to 50% increase.

Last year I realized that I had paid for all types of private lessons for my kiddos to improve on skills in their endeavors but I had never taken any lessons myself.

So I called a local sporting clay place and asked if they did private lessons and scheduled one. I enjoyed it so much that I scheduled a few more for myself and my wife. Has significantly improved both of our shooting. Shooting clays is different than live targets, but technique is technique. We worked on all aspects of shooting. I would highly recommend it.

I think skeet is better than trap- depending on the bird. If you are in a planted dove field the shots will be passing/crossing/side ways and that's what a lot of skeet shots are. It costs more to set up a skeet range but they ought to be more common. Actually instead of the high tower/low tower- use two trap throwers behind berms- so you can shoot at crossing targets- maybe a new game.
QUESTION.....I don't know if anyone else has experienced this but on clay targets you have an object that is slowing down verses a live bird that may be constant or speeding up. On opening day I may miss a few live birds until I get used to the difference. Just wondering if anyone else experiences this- that to hit live birds you have to be doing some constant shooting at live birds.

I personly shoot better on live birds than clays. I average 1 box of shells per limit of 15 dove over the course of the season. First few weeks its 21-23 shells....then a box or little more as the season goes on. I really cannot give advise as I'm self taught but I use to be a horrible shot when I started hunting dove. 2 things changed my shooting. First I started focusing on being strictly "instinctive" in my shooting....that helped a lot. Second was I started practicing mounting my gun the proper and same way each time. Combined with instinctive shooting I shoot with extreme confidence now. When a bird is flying right at you and you move to shoot it....then it slows down a bit to flair another direction....clays can help on that shot. To me the easiest shot I make is a bird flaying cross ways low to the ground and really getting it, fast moving bird...and I see it almost to late. I "instinctively" swing on it and drop it literally every time. If I practice mounting my gun in August and stay true to instinctive shooting, I can put my gun away in October and not pick it up until August....and never miss a beat

Hope I'm not opposite of you when you're shooting that low crosser.

Whats the best place to get a gun fitted?? I live next to the national shooting complex so I've thought of meandering in

Good first post.

Also learn to shoot a shotgun with both eyes open. Shooting trap in the late 80's I did this and my shooting improved. One eye tracks the target the other one judge's depth perception.

Clay shooting lessons will be money well spent. Are you shooting today with both eyes open? If not, this will be a whole new way of shooting for you . You will probably want to take, and will need, more than one lesson. I used to take about 3 every off season. I good instructor will check gun fit and eye dominance. If you are shooting right handed, hopefully you are right eye dominant, that could be the problem.

Try to find an instructor that bird hunts, and tell him this is what to get good at, and he can tailor his lesson to your needs. Example clay shooters say "pull" with gun already mounted. This is not groining to help bird hunting, you need to say pull with gun down like you are hunting, and when target is flying, sit still like you do hunting, let your eyes focus on the target, then mount your gun and pull the trigger when the gun hits your face.

Skeet shooting lessons all you need for bird hunting. I also think skeet fields are good because they are 40 yards across, about the limit on range for shooting birds, it helps to teach you this range, it helped me a lot to know if birds are out of range, I just think skeet field.

One of the most important things I took away from the lessons was to slow down. I had a tendency to rush my shot (a lot of us do). Before the lessons my first shot was a waste the majority of the time and more consistent with my second shot. After the lessons I became much more consistent. Two birds coming at me, 2 shots, 2 dead birds. I also got to where when I missed I could self diagnose why I missed. Also as said above, I was able to judge better which shots to take and which to pass on.

Have not missed a wild bird in two years
Let the gun do the work and don’t analyze

Lot of good advice. If you want lessons then try here. I think lessons from a pro is the quickest and surest route to your goal.

OP,

What shells are you using?

I ask because I was losing my mind missing shot after shot shooting Winchester X-perts. Like you I was looking for shooting lessons, but the following weekend, I picked up two boxes of Kent.

I dropped everything that was in my sights.

Don't get me wrong. Like others have suggested get out there and practice before the next season, but do pattern the shotshell you're using. May make a world of difference.

I do shoot with both eyes open and honestly a few years ago I was doing okay but then all of a sudden I cant hit the broad side of a barn. Other guys have used my gun and done just fine so something happened. I wasn't that great to begin with so I definitely need the help either way.

It usually varies slightly but mostly remington and ones with a decent FPS or my gun stove pipes

If shooting a 12 ga. Stay away from 1 oz. Loads they are fast but suck at holding a pattern. I like 1 1/8 #8's in a 12 ga load. This load holds approx. 400 BB's and should help.

Some good advice here so far. Have you had your eyes checked recently? I developed a blind spot in my dominant eye (right) and it has definitely affected my ability to hit with a shotgun. I am trying to adjust and even thinking about switching to being a lefty. I have always shot with both eyes open. You might think about getting checked.

[/quote]
If shooting a 12 ga. Stay away from 1 oz. Loads they are fast but suck at holding a pattern. I like 1 1/8 #8's in a 12 ga load. This load holds approx. 400 BB's and should help. [/quote]

Great info!

I have and nothing crazy came up though I do wear glasses

I've found being able to shoot well takes all the fun out of it.

Certainly takes less money

I would just find a shooting range that has traps or better yet a dedicated trap & skeet club where you can get as much shooting practice you want. Trap & skeet was originally created for bird hunters to sharpen their skills.

That is true if you are practicing the right way, and you have no other issues going on like gun fit or eye issues. If you go to a skeet range, and you are missing all the time, something is wrong, maybe it is bad habit you are doing, and practicing a bad habit over and over again, you are just making things worse...

You can't go wrong with a gun lesson, even a great shooter can benefit from it.

One of the great things about taking a lesson is they can tell you where you are missing, front, back, high, low...They can see the shot string. One of the last clay shooting lessons I took, probably over 10 years ago, I told my instructor (RIP Gaylen Capps) I want to work on long shots. So that is all we did, I took long shots. I kept missing from behind, he kept saying "missing from behind", "missing from behind", "you are missing from behind!" he was getting mad at me, and finally he said "I want you to miss in front this time!"..."Dammit, I said miss in front!!". I got mad at myself, and said "F it, I'm for sure gonna miss in front this time!", boom I busted the clay! It was really hilarious. And I kept busting them. It is really hard to miss in front, especially long shots, you are throwing up a shot string, you get in front of the clay it is really hard to miss in front. If he was not there to help me, I would have kept on missing over and over again, and that gets you no where.

Taught to me as a child:
At least 75% of wing shooting is the mount. The mount is an individual move that must be developed. Until it is absolutely consistent, shooting lessons are a waste of time, or will be spent working on the mount. Shotgunning is done with the eyes. A wing shooting mount is best learned in the mirror. Looking at the pupil of your dominant eye, in one motion, place the shotgun on your cheek, directly under the eye so the pupil sits smack dab in the center of the rib, while the shoulder rolls up and into the butt plate. Done correctly, the gun in the mirror and the one in your hands completely cover each other. Feedback is instant. Learn to do it correctly and practice till it is committed to muscle memory. You are learning to mount the shotgun to your eye, exactly where you are looking to effortlessly come up on the line.
Now if you move with the target and look at the sight picture you want, the gun will mount to your eye and dead on target without the need for much adjustment.
The best picture of that is to watch international skeet shooters mount their guns and shoot.
Next place a 48”x48” sheet of cardboard with a small square of duct tape in the center at 10, 20, 30, and 40 yards. Shoot it and make note of the size of the pattern at each distance. If you are looking at the bead, half of that pattern is behind where you are looking. Half the width of that circle in front of the bird at whatever the distance, is zero lead. That is what it takes just to put your whole pattern in play. To see, it pull up on the edge of the pattern at each distance. Learn your leads from extending that baseline. Keep both eyes open to see 3 dimensionally to judge speed and distance.
Mastering those simple things will give you a foundation to build on and put you well on the way to better wing shooting. Practice will hone the coordination and confidence to execute comfortably. How much practice it takes is in direct proportion to talent.
After you have those basics locked in, you will get your money’s worth out of a lesson if you still need one. The best shotgunners develop their own game that works for them and know it inside out, rather than mimic someone else.

Yeah a big part of the lesson is being shown how to mount the gun, making sure gun fits right, there are no eye issues... My instructor had several mount drills for me to practice, including the mirror drill you describe, I was doing 25 to 100 of those per day (do 100 and you will feel it). As well as other mount drills. So I would not say it is a waste of time to take a lesson if you have not mastered the mount first. You said you learned this as a child, you got your mount lesson then, your Dad probably showed you how to mount a gun. This is why more than one lesson is important. Each lesson you are given basically home work assignments to go practice on your own, then your next lesson evaluate progress and take the next step.

It sure would not hurt to watch some youtubes on how to mount your gun/drills, check eye dominance, gun fit etc...before your first lesson. There is ton of info out there on youtube you can learn from, but nothing is better than a private lesson from a pro.

Good book

"Principles of Quick Kill - The U.S. Army Manual of Instinct Shooting: Learn to accurately shoot targets as small as an aspirin tablet with a BB gun without using sights. Paperback – October 31, 2013"

I’ve taught friends how to shoot and I’m no pro. I just can’t remember a time in my life I couldn’t shoot a shotgun. The best practice there is is to just get out and do a bunch of shooting. I think it’s being a little snobbish to say you need to have a shotgun “fitted” to you. I feel like I can adjust to whatever shotgun I’m shooting and still hit birds with it. A buddy of mine I bird hunt with that’s about my height has a $30k shotgun that was built for him, It was fitted and he has been trained by the best. That shotgun feels way too long for me but I’ve killed a few birds with it. He can’t shoot it worth a chit. He has a certain way he was trained to mount it that looks silly to me. Maybe I’ve always shot a gun that’s too short and just flip it up on my shoulder and kill the bird? He is a great guy but treats his dogs a lot differently than I do. I love my dogs but they aren’t my kids.

Lucky McDaniel took a scoped rifle tossed a silver dollar in the air, turned the rifle upside down, and pulled the trigger. The silver dollar looked like a washer when it came down. I grew up using a BB gun gun with open sights. using the old pumpkin on a post method. I thought better shotgunners were simply aiming faster. He changed my way of shooting. There is no magic in the method. You can see the BB in the air and direct the BB just like water from the nozzle of a water hose. Back to the sun and only two pumps on the gun to slow the BB down, when you first start.
I got up to a constant score of 23 on skeet before I gave it up.

I got my own BB gun and showed several friends the method. I gave my first gun to a dog trainer and bought this one. I painted a wooden dowel black and mounted it on top of the BB gun barrel, to make it look more an O/U. I plan to give it to a friend when he shows up for my 20 gauge Beretta, O/U, with 26 inch barrels, bored skeet and skeet.

Look up Gil Ash on YouTube. He has alot of great videos

I'm not saying you should have a gun fitted to you. I'm saying if you are having a hard time wing shooting, seeing a pro is a good idea and will be money well spent. Period. Gun fit "might" be an issue, a pro will tell you. Most male adults that have normal body shape, gun off the rack will fit fine. I have not had any of my shotguns fitting to me, all mine fit me fine off the rack. I would say gun fit is probably the least likely issue for the OP, probably eye issue and/or bad shooting practice.

I think it is silly those of you encouraging the OP not to see a pro just because you shoot fine. Once you know how to shoot correctly and you have no other issues (eye/gun fit), you will always be a decent shot even with no practice. I have not shot clay or practice in years, and I shoot decent every hunting season.

I have had guns fitted for my kids. My son's 12g had a pro fit it, when he got older we put the original stock back on it, and it fit him fine. My daughter, I fitted her 20g shotgun.

She seemed to be looking down the barrel in the bottom photo. That is the way I shot before the lesson.. Think of the shotguns as a baseball bat.

Bill you should wait till after 3pm for your martinis.

Ain't that the truth.

Maybe baseball alone. Imagine you are looking the ball al the way into the catchers mitt.


" Nolan Ryan means deer, dove and quail hunting.."

"Keep your eye on the ball", that is definitely the same concept for wing shooting, it should be "keep BOTH eyes on the ball". If you take your eyes off the ball, you are sure to miss. That is because when the ball is thrown, your eyes are trying to focus on the ball, when it first comes out his hand, it is a blur. As is gets closer, your eyes lock in. Kinda like "missile lock". If you take your eye off the ball while it is coming at you, no way you will be able to get your eyes back on the ball and go through focus process again, not enough time. Same with football. Any time a receiver takes his eyes of the ball to maybe see where he wants to run or to look at a defender coming at him, normally that will result in an in completion, because there is not enough time to get his eyes back focused on the ball. And the older you get, the longer it takes for your eyes to focus, "lock in" on the target.

That is why I said in a previous post, sit still, give your eyes time to focus and "lock in" on the target, and whatever you do, do not take your eyes off the target. That is why you never look at the bead on the barrel, you are talking your eye off the target, do that and you will probably miss. You see the barrel in your peripheral vision, but you sure do not look right at it.

"Locking in" on a bird is much easier than locking in on a clay. The flapping wings of a bird help draw your eyes to it. When a clay comes out a station, it is a small orange blur at the start, but give your eyes time to focus, and everything slows down and becomes easier.

When you are young, your eye and hand coordination, and the speed at which you can "lock in" on a target is much better, and this can mask bad shooting habits. Then you get into your 40's, and really it can happen all of a sudden, your eyes slow down big time, then you cannot hit crap, and you don't know why. That is what happen to me, and might be what happened to the OP. My situation was worse, because I never learned to shoot correctly as a young man, I closed one eye, I looked at the bead, but I still shot decent because I had good eye hand coordination, and that covered up my bad shooting habits.

I think your best shooting instructors are the older dudes that understand all this better.

To add what guy said, don't just lock onto a bird, lock onto its head or bill to get supper focused. Same can be said about a clay, lock on to the very front edge of the clay.

My recommendation:

1. Start by shooting more in the offseason. Try and get a group together and plan a certain day of the month, week, etc and make it regular, and keep it fun. That way everyone looks forward to that time out. There are also plenty of leagues around to join and shoot with. If possible, shoot with someone better than yourself.

2. Find a good source of info on fundamentals. the internet has a wealth of shooting videos. Watch them and they will help you through the weeds and you'll find proper techniques that will work for you. There are a lot of guys offering good info, but i always find it "holds more" if I can see it... and the internet instruction is "free".

Bast way to practice with clay, is lay the gun against a tree, cup of coffee in your hand, and say pull.

The most challenging wing shooting I have ever done to date is to shoot ruffed grouse in northern Wisconsin.

To get geared up to score some hits on these birds, we would practice shooting mini clays. Because the mini clays are so fast, when you start hitting those you are getting on the "bird" very quickly and pulling the appropriate lead. You are getting ready to kill ruffed grouse on the wing.

Short of hitting mini clays, the biggest reason I miss is that I'm shooting behind my target. When I catch myself missing behind, I try to force myself to miss ahead. I almost never do miss by leading too much. Point is, give yourself more lead on your target and you most likely will improve your outcome.

For what it's worth.

I can't speak for everyone but hanging out at my local trap & skeet club has helped me substantially. I learned from other members on how to properly follow through on shots instead of stopping the gun for example. I do consider myself an experienced upland bird hunter having hunted since i was in high school back in the mid 80's but hanging out at my local skeet club was the best thing I've done & I've learned things that I can apply in the field.

Another thing that probably doesn't get mentioned enough in regards to shooting is foot work (shooting stance). My first lesson my instructor just watched me shoot. Had me coming in and out of the stand btw shots (resetting my stance without me knowing). After a dozen shots or so he asked me what the difference was btw my hits and misses. For whatever reason, sometimes I would get into a decent shooting stance (not a great stance) and other times a very poor stance. Decent stance I hit more targets (not all) and poor stance I had no hits. Now that I have practiced my stance and built that muscle memory, it comes second nature. I now even find myself setting my feet when shooting from sitting on a bucket during dove season.

For me, I wanted to learn some of the theory and techniques to be more consistent shooter. Only way I could accomplish that was to take a lesson from someone that once was a competitive shooter. I enjoyed it so much that I still take a lesson here and there throughout the year. I learn something new every time.

Wow, ive never know anyone to go 100% on dove for a season......actually, not even close!

That’s because they didn’t let the gun do the work.

key is to be patient. wait til they land.

Now that is the best tip on this thread, you will shoot over a 100%!!

Well now, i didnt think about that!

The real key is to not shoot at a wild bird for 2 years. Heck, I’ve never missed a Ruffed Grouse my entire life!

I'm I the only one that pratices shoot and release during dove season.