Читать книгу The Complete English Wing Shot онлайн

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No kind of shooting requires more sharpness of eye than grouse driving, and when the gun is at the shoulder, engaged with one bird, we all know how easy it is for others to slip by unobserved, and then we get just as bad a reputation as if we had blazed away and missed.

Obviously, quickness of perception has much influence on success, but whether it has anything to do with form is doubtful. It is curious that what we all agree is the best possible style for the second barrel is the worst possible for the first. The man who takes down his gun between the double shot is a fumbler, unless he has to turn round; but the man who keeps his gun at the shoulder for the first shot is worse. The reason it is bad form in one case and good in another may not be quite the same as why it leads to success in one case and not in the other. Perhaps an appearance of ease has some near relationship to good form, and ease itself has a nearer affinity to success with the gun. It would tire out the arms to practise in game shooting the pigeon shooter’s methods, on whose arms the strain in the “present” position lasts only until he calls “pull.” The strain in game shooting would last long, and it would certainly happen that when, at last, game did come within range, the arms of the shooter would be too cramped to deal properly with it. “Form,” therefore, appears in this instance to have some relationship to success. But this is far from being always so. The author remembers one case of a young man who did not kill much, but of whom it was said it was more pleasant to see him miss than to see others kill. This was in shooting over dogs, when good style greatly depended upon “wind” and “stamina” to get over and shoot from any rough foothold.