Fear from a Lack of Plan

You can see people walk up to a stand, and they are scared to death to get ready to shoot that target. They don’t have a plan of what they’re going to do with the targets. And you can just see them when they’re gripping their gun, with sweat coming down their face, because they don’t have a plan. They don’t know what they’re going to do with the targets; therefore, they become very fearful.

When they set up to call for the bird, they sure don’t have their eyes still. They’re just popping all around trying to find the bird, because they don’t have a plan. Everything seems to speed up. You’ll see them go through two or three pairs in about five seconds.

Of course, when they get a little concerned about a target or a group of targets, the first thing that happens is they put their face on the stock. At a recent clinic in Colorado, everybody was dead set to keep that head on their stock.

I had to physically just grip their necks and say, “Face over here so you can see the target a little bit early.” Again, it goes back to that fear, because they don’t know what they’re going to do when they get in the stand. They’ve looked at the targets, maybe, but they don’t really know what they’re going to do with it once they get in the stand.

A lot of people make a big lead and then slow down and let the lead collapse. Then they couldn’t figure out why they didn’t hit the target.

“When you start moving, be steady the whole way through,” I told them. “Don’t stop. Keep steady the whole way through.” And when they did that, they would hit the bird and they would be a sense of relief.

“Ahh, thank God that I hit this bird.”