From the upright position...

There are times in duck and goose shooting--when we’re cradling our smoothbore in both hands--the birds are coming--we’re ready. Even at predicted times like this there are still shotgunning basics that can go wrong. In previous columns I’ve tried to address the issues that can hopefully make us all better, more effective mounters of the gun.

But in waterfowling there are undoubtedly a number of occasions when we don’t have the gun in hand. Maybe we’re working birds with a call. Maybe we’re watching an approaching bird or birds--and we dare not move for fear that the motion will spook the ducks or geese we have worked on for maybe hours--to say nothing of the figurative blood, sweat and tears that have gone into your personal waterfowling effort--for maybe days, weeks, even months.

As mentioned in the title--it was a reader who wrote in with the question of how to best handle proper gun mounting--when you were not actually holding the wildfowl gun in both hands. Obviously, it’s a good question, and not one that’s all that easy to answer.

To review just a bit--when we have the gun already in hand--we want to have the muzzle somehow pointed in the general direction of the incoming birds--but obviously in front of their flight path. We begin the mount by starting the muzzle(s) first, and then almost instantaneously blending in the butt stock coming to the shoulder and cheek. But it’s very easy to have the pistol-gripping hand move faster than the hand on the fore-end. So we want to be wary of this. Instead, we want both hands to be working in conjunction with one another--not opposed to one another. Instructor and top shooter Wendell Cherry says if the hands don’t work together--this affects the eyes. Conversely, if the hands do work together--that makes it easier for the eyes to stay glued to the target. And top instructor Chris Batha suggests pulling back ever so slightly with the pistol-gripping hand--while pushing the fore-end hand ahead ever so slightly. Doing this, Batha says, is a big help in getting the hands to work together. If the pistol-gripping hand does more work than the fore-end gripping hand--the muzzle(s) is likely to take a “dipping” or “up and down” movement with the target--which is not a good thing.

Another mantra we want to work on with the gun mount is to slow down as much as possible. Admittedly, this can be very tough to do on some waterfowl shots. But at the very least we want to be thinking about slowing down--and always fighting off the impulse that we need to hurry. There’s a lot more to developing the perfect gun mount, or even just a good one, and I think you get my point.

But now--back to the reader’s question--what can we do to be most effective with the upcoming shot--when we are not actually holding the gun? In my first shotgun column for Wildfowl I offered suggestions about shooting from layout blinds. One of those tips was to put the right-handed shooters on the left-hand side of the decoy spread, the left-handed shooters on the right side of the dekes. This is because a right-handed shooter can swing farther to the left (sitting or standing), and a left-handed shooter can swing farther to the right, which gives the shooters considerably better coverage no matter which way the ducks or geese come in--or which direction they leave.

The same philosophy should be implemented from a layout ground blind or a layout shooting box on the water--assuming two or more shooters are in either blind and they shoot from opposite shoulders. So what if both shooters shoulder the gun from the same side? The shooter on the left should have his muzzle pointing left. The shooter on the right should have his gun’s muzzle pointing right--a simple safety consideration.

But--what to do when birds come in--scaup to the layout shooters--ducks or geese to the field blind shooters? The best philosophy is to think about making a proper gun mount, even before you actually pick the gun up. Think about the general direction you want to get the muzzle pointed. Think about how you are going to start the butt stock to your shoulder--milliseconds after you get the muzzle moving in the right direction. Think about how smoothly you are going to make this motion. Think about how hard you are going to concentrate on the bird’s head--heck you can even start doing that before you make your first move with the gun.