St. Louis

Two great days in St. Louis with some repeat offenders and a lot of new faces, too. We also had a writer from Safari Club International to cover the school and to learn to shoot, so be looking for an article about all the good things he learned.

About half of the class were hunters and half were a little more competitive. But all of them need not only the basics but a firm understanding of where their eyes should be to be a successful shotgunner.

As I watched everyone’s faces as Gil went through the animations each morning some bought in immediately. There were also those Doubting Thomases, but by lunch the first day, we had them. Seven of the ten were there for both days, and boy, they were glad they did. Each of them said they were wise in taking the two days, as it seemed to all come together by about 10:30 the second day.

Wow, what a difference!

A Great Group of Students

I had a wonderful couple from Arkansas who had tried to come for years, but other things would get in their way. Miss Jane was brand new to shooting and her husband Ed had been a hunter all his life. He had also looked straight down the gun his whole life. He fought it for a while, but finally gave in and couldn’t believe it was so easy to hit targets and not look at the gun. He knew where the gun was, but realized he didn’t have to look at it to hit anything. A true revelation for the whole group and a great relief to Jane who had been told (as we all were) to be that magical “three feet in front” and not look at the gun. Not possible!

Charles (aka Chuck) is an NRA instructor and hunters’ education instructor. He had a great first day and an even better second day. Caught on early and progressed rapidly. He got a lot of good information to pass on to his students to help them.

Larry is a hunter. And it took a bit to catch on that what we were teaching him would transfer to the wingshooting field and that was the way he shot birds and could never miss. But he had gone from just looking at the bird to trying to see the lead and couldn’t hit anything. He realized that just looking at the target worked better and to not have the gun mounted before calling “pull.”

The biggest “a-has” were that you could hit targets without looking at the gun or the lead and it would work each time. REALLY!

We went over the flashlight drill and three-bullet drill with everyone to help them after they left the class. We’ll be checking in on them in a few weeks to make sure all is well.

The next stop is ENGLAND! It’s the first trip for me. Tune in and see how much fun we had there.