Читать книгу The Complete English Wing Shot онлайн

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There are other shooters who always seem to be at the ready, whether they are going up hill or down; whether they are jumping from peat hag to peat hag; or, in the bogs, from one rush clump to another, to save themselves from sinking in the intervening soft ground. Balance has a great deal to do with it, and some there are who can shoot straight even when the foothold is rotten and is giving way under them. It is clear that good form requires that the performer should be able to shoot from any position the rise happens to find him in. If he must get the left foot forward and the weight of the body upon it, he will not be as quick as others who can get off their guns no matter where their feet may happen to be.

This seems to be all a matter of balance, and the nearer we imitate cat-like equilibrium, and not only keep our heads uppermost, but keep them cool in all circumstances, the more surely shall we get our guns off at the right moment.

The latest phase of shooting is to make it as easy as possible to accomplish the difficult. Paradoxically, we have our boarded floor in our grouse butts, racks to keep the guns off the peat, and shelves upon which to distribute our cartridges, and we place our grouse butts to favour the guns. Then, having made everything as easy as possible for the sportsman, we now attempt to make the birds as hard to kill as wings and the wind can make them. We send over the pheasants as far out of reach as we can make them fly; we take particular care to send the grouse down wind if we can; and when we have got our guns swinging yards in front of the streaks of brown lightning, then we are especially pleased if we can bring off an up-wind drive in which the birds can just, and only just, beat up against the gale, and so defeat the guns again by the new variation of flight; one in which any sort of lead on the birds, any kind of swing, will have no other effect than shooting yards in front of the game, and perhaps in turning it back to fly over the drivers’ heads and miles down wind beyond.