Good balance is important on this shot. Keeping the gun on the "line" of the bird is always just as important as the lead. However, it's easy to move the gun slightly off the line of the bird and lose your balance because you are swinging the gun more or less up overhead, and if your feet aren't already positioned perfectly, getting slightly off balance can easily move the gun's muzzle one or two inches left or right off the line; and one or two inches at the muzzle(s) is magnified out to 35 yards.

So if standing in a field or elsewhere, take up a firm position with your feet. Stomp out good footing in the grass, a plowed field, wherever. If in the confines of a blind, take care to come up into the shooting position well balanced. In either case, first work on moving the muzzle(s) toward your selected bird. As the muzzle moves your arms necessarily follow, plus the rest of your body. Naturally, your gun mount to the shoulder is shortly blended in. Avoid trying to shoulder the gun, then starting the muzzle(s) to move. If you do that the overall gun mount will be very jerky, plus you'll end up with the muzzle starting farther behind the bird than necessary. Work on perfecting a gun mount that is smooth, effortless, like you're not trying much at all. Of course, once you put a great gun mount together, the shot becomes so easy as to be anticlimactic.

Another place an erect head position can be beneficial is on a crossing bird. With your head in such a position it's easy to see the target throughout the swing whether you are of the swing-through, maintained-lead or pull-away persuasion. As with the previously described high overhead direct incomer, the higher the head on the crossing shot, the higher the gun will shoot. So it can be easy to shoot over this crosser with an erect head position. You can take care of that possibility by simply keeping the bird in view just above the barrel--right through the shot. By doing that the muzzle can be lower than the bird, but because the gun is now going to shoot high (compared to where it would shoot if your head was buried in the stock) you have the best of both worlds: seeing the bird all the way through the trigger pull.

Don't forget the "line" of the bird in this instance either. Again, proper balance all the way through the shot is a key. Don't allow yourself to begin falling forward with loss of balance, and don't allow a shoulder to drop, especially the right shoulder of a right-handed shooter on a left to right crosser; the left-hander should avoid dropping the left shoulder on a right to left crosser. Dropping a shoulder or otherwise getting out of balance results in pulling the muzzle(s) off the line of the bird.

But let's say seven mallards have started to drop into the blocks. You smoke the closest greenhead, but there's a strong wind behind you. Before you can trigger off that second shot the rest of the flock has made a near 180-degree turn. So this time it's a straight going away, slightly rising shot. Head buried in the stock you inexplicably miss. What happened?

Like Bill, your head was buried in the buttstock. You shot right under this bird. With a more erect head position you see more of the rib, so the gun is shooting a bit higher than it normally would (compared to your eye looking in a lower position down that rib). Thus the more erect head can give you a bit of built-in lead for the slightly rising straightaway shot.

Conclusion
It's always important to have your head on the stock. But squeezing your head ultra-tight to the stock certainly is not the best technique in the shots presented here. Also, the tighter your head is screwed into the stock, the more you are going to feel recoil. Another factor in putting your head real tight to the stock is that it almost always involves lowering the head to the gun, whereas raising the buttstock to the face is the way most instructors suggest as the proper way to mount the gun. Proper shotgunning technique involves little or no head movement, thus another reason to raise the stock to the face--instead of the other way around.

Nick Sisley can be reached at nicksisley@hotmail.com.