Part 9

For pheasants, Mr. Wilson prefers to get behind them and race his gun to the front without stopping the gun to inquire whether he _has_ got in front, because he finds that such a stop means shooting behind. But although this is his plan, he questioned whether it was right, because when he has occasionally shot from a deep gorge, where there was no time for this method, he has found the game come down, just as he has when a quick second barrel has been sent after a first failure. The author thinks this only emphasises the use and value of swing; because in shooting at a pheasant crossing a deep gorge the very act of putting up the gun to the shoulder constitutes a swing in the direction the game is going. It is probably the fastest of all swinging, and the one to which the shooter is least able to apply the muscular stop. This, then, represents what some crack shots do now. But the most important thing to know is how did they arrive at that point? Did they begin by snapping at the place where the bird was going to be when their shot arrived, or did they begin by aligning, and so grow into the mastery of the gun?

The former has been the fashionable method to talk of in the press, but Mr. Rimington Wilson is very emphatic on the necessity of the rifle like aligning as a start. The author was very pleased to hear this, because it is one of those points on which he has always disagreed with what may be called the written schooling of the shot gun. We have all heard of the man who never would go in the water until he had learnt to swim, and probably the would-be crack shot who wishes to begin at the end will make no more progress than the would-be swimmer.

Mr. Wilson does not believe in choke bores. He thinks that the 8 or 9 yards of distance they increase the range is paid for very dearly at all near ranges. Another point made by this good sportsman is contrary altogether to accepted ideas. He does not believe driven grouse harder to kill than grouse shot over dogs, and would rather back himself to kill consecutive numbers of the former than the latter. Here, again, Mr. Wilson is in agreement with the author, who has often given this opinion in the press, and has, moreover, supported it by pointing to the wretched scoring of double rises at the pigeon traps, even at 25 yards and by the best pigeon shots in Europe. Pigeons, again, are much more responsive to lead than a right and left grouse at 35 yards rise in October. The grouse spring twice as quick as the pigeon. But Mr. Wilson was not speaking of the October grouse, but of average grouse shooting over dogs and average driving. Probably we all agree that there is an occasional impossible in almost every kind of shooting.

Another point that Mr. Wilson has assisted the author to place in its true light is that his big bags are by no means made for their own sake, but simply because the grouse are on the moor and his is the only way to get them. To hunt for grouse in driblets would be to drive most of them away never to be shot. They are so wild that they have to be broken up by the severest treatment, and as one man could drive them all away, so it takes an army of flankers and beaters to keep them on the moor during the driving days.

Mr. Wilson shoots with Boss single-trigger guns, and, contrary to expectation and ideas, one of these single triggers is often made to do duty in a day’s tramp after a couple of woodcock or a small bag of snipe.

FORM IN GAME SHOOTING—I

“Form,” like “taste,” is a very definite thing to every one of us, but probably no two persons have ever quite agreed about either. Shooting “form” is just as definite: we know for ourselves what is, and what is not, good form instantly; but again it is not an easy thing to agree upon in the abstract, although in practice when two men discuss another they will not be unlikely to agree that he is either “good form” or “bad form.” There appears to be no half-way house—it is always either good or bad. Form as it is generally understood has not much to do with success, but is more a matter of appearance. If a shooter at a covert side planted his gun at his shoulder when the drive began and so kept it until a pheasant came over into line, and then he let off, his form would not be either good or bad—it would be too uncommon for either; too ridiculous to be seen, in fact; but it is precisely that which pigeon shooters and clay bird men mostly adopt. It is outside the question of game killing altogether.

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.

There is “form” in walking also, and when stamina counts there can be no good style in shooting without good easy walking. Look at the different angles of body in which men go up and come down hills. In the ascent some people bend their backs over their foremost toes, and progress, truly, but they have to “right” themselves when the flush occurs, and before they have done it the bird has flown 20 yards. Again, in going down hill some men throw back their bodies, and if they have suddenly to stop they again have to “right” themselves before they can shoot with success.

But there is something worse than bad shooting style, there is bad sporting form; and coming down hill often brings it obviously to the man who is walking behind, and sees the leading man’s gun carried on the shoulder, pointing dead at the pit of the follower’s stomach. That cannot be avoided when the gun is carried on the shoulder in Indian file; but it never ought to be so carried then, and in the writer’s opinion, at least, is a deadly disregard of “good form.” In this case probably there will be no disagreement by any who from this cause have ever felt their “hearts in their mouths.” Guns can be jarred off, and the rough ground on a moorland down-hill path often occasions very sudden jars.

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.

Some of the most killing shooters are those who need ample time; those who get on their game 100 yards away, come with it as it approaches, then jerk forward and pull trigger at the instant, and never require to look round to see if their bird is dead—they know it is. The critic may think this terrible slow business; and so it is. What, he will ask, would happen if four came abreast and the gunner wants all that time for one bird? The critic’s opinion would be just if he watched and saw that the slow and sure performer did not, in fact, have time to deal with, let us say, two pheasants abreast without turning round. But to assume that a shooter cannot be quick because he is slow when quickness is not required, assumes too much. The “bang-bang,” in spite of expectations, may be so quick, from the apparently slow and sure man, that both birds, coming together, turn over and race each other through the air to the ground not 10 yards apart.

But it is not good style, this poking and following; it may be very admirable bag-making, and is so when the quick second barrel just described is added, but not when each barrel seems to require equally long to get off. But it is not pretty; it cannot by any stretch of imagination, even in the best built and most graceful of men or women performers, be regarded as good style. The gun that goes up to the spot and is off the instant it touches the shoulder represents the best of good style. But the author doubts whether it always means the most success in killing. At any rate, the highest exponents of the art do not invariably adopt this plan; probably when the top man is at the top of his form he can shoot in this way, with as great success as he can in any other: but that is the point. Who is invariably at the top of his form? The writer would back a great shot to disguise the lack of it from everyone but himself at any time,—him he cannot deceive,—he knows in his heart that sometimes he is a fumbler, but nevertheless one who has such mastery over the many manners of shooting, that if he cannot shoot to the right spot in one way he will assuredly be able to do it in another, provided he has a bit more time. At the top of his form he will be aware that he can rise to any occasion; and the less time he has, the more brilliant will be his work, the less time he will require. He will be able to bring tall pheasants down, even those that only show 6 feet through the gaps in the fir trees, with as much certainty as if he had them outside and began his aim 100 yards away. But that represents his very best; he cannot do it every day, whoever he may be, and whatever reputation he may have to sustain him and to be sustained.

At covert side it is difficult to be always quite awake; the first few birds may be slovenly taken, and so the shooter may go on until a difficulty rouses him to exertion, and he becomes fully awake without recognising the process of arousing. In grouse shooting over dogs the same differences of form are seen, and others also. One shooter puts up his gun at the bird fluttering at his feet, waits until it gets 30 yards away, and kills it dead, and he may be quick enough with the second barrel. Another waits with his gun down until the birds are a proper distance away, then his “crack—crack” takes the farther off bird with the first barrel and the nearer next, and they tumble on top of each other. The one is “form,” the other is equally good bag-filling; but then these are _not_ the days of pot-hunting, and the difference between the two methods is as great as between the flint and steel and the modern single trigger.

There are more differences than the mere art of killing, and the manner of its doing. In walking up to a dog’s point, for instance, the sportsman and the mere gunner proclaim their different “forms” as wide as the poles apart. The one walks like the crack man across country rides, wide of the “dogs,” perhaps one will be 25 to 35 yards to one side or other; another man may walk right at the dog and level with his head as he draws on, until perhaps he consequently loses the scent; or turns and rodes the birds right between the gunner’s legs, or would if he opened them and failed to get out of the way. In such circumstances the dog needs no help in pointing out bad form in sportsmanship, although he will not pass an opinion on gunning. The dogs that turned tail and went home, because of the frequent missing, existed, it is said, in the early part of last century. But in those days they had not instituted spring field trials, in which dogs do their work as well as in the shooting season, and in the total absence of the gun and the slaying of game.

FORM IN GAME SHOOTING—II

The manner in which various shooters hold their guns, or rather the position of the left hand, has been elevated to the dignity of a shooter’s creed almost. It is not so important as is supposed. It is merely a fashion, which changes with generations in England, and has never assumed importance out of our very little island. The fashion at the present time is to push forward the barrel hand almost if not quite as far as it will reach, whereas two generations back the fashionable shooter for the most part placed his hand in front of and upon the trigger guard, and although a beginner now who did so would be told that he would never shoot, the author has seen as good work done by those who adopted that method as he ever expects to see.

The forward hand was an outcome of pigeon shooting, like the very straight stock. The first can be theoretically defended by those who do not require to swing with their game, just as the over straight stock is a good expedient for shooting a little more over a rising pigeon than the unassisted intention of the shooter would accomplish.

The method of pushing out the left arm may be good for some people and bad for others. There is not the slightest doubt that there are not only individuals who do best with either plan, but that different methods of shooting are each most suitable to different individuals.

Individuals may be divided into those who have long arms and narrow shoulders, and those who have short arms and are wide between the shoulders. The former class have much more room for play with three sides of the triangle (of gun, left arm, and width of body), always kept at nearly the same length, than have the short-armed, wide-chested men, who, in swinging the gun a greater degree to the right than they turn the body, increase the necessity for one long side to the angle much more than the others do. But the hand holding the barrel is not a fixture, and can slide down to the fore end as the necessity for the long left arm increases by swinging to the right. This is obviously the Prince of Wales’ method. However, when the swing round to the right is very far, the position of the fore end stops the hand at a certain point.

But the various manners of shooting also seem to necessitate two different methods of holding with the left hand. Much has been said about the necessity for holding well forward, but the reasons advanced in support of this method do not bear examination by the light of physics. It has been urged that the outstretched arm properly relieves the trigger hand from the necessity of assisting in the aim. It is doubtful whether it should, and it is quite certain it does not, relieve the trigger hand, but on the contrary throws more work upon it. The proof of this is very easy. Let the gun be grasped in the centre of gravity by the left hand and presented, the trigger hand being unemployed. It will be found a difficult but a possible operation. Then shift the left hand up the barrel as far as it will go, and try to bring the gun up from the “ready” to the “present.” This will be found much more difficult, and probably impossible. Obviously, then, the outstretched arm is not the way to hold a gun if the left arm is to do the pushing and pulling about. This reason, which has been very much relied upon, breaks down entirely; but that is not to say that the forward hand is wrong, but only that its advantages are but little understood, although they are fully appreciated.

In order to present a gun at a point of aim that is still, probably the extended arm is always the best, whether the point of aim is a point in front of fast crossing game, or a motionless object, or a straight-away bird. This can be supported by another very simple experiment. The gun presented at a point is much more apt to “wobble” than when it is intentionally kept moving in any one direction. One of its worst “wobbles” is a drop of the muzzle at the instant the trigger is pulled. It is caused by sympathetic action of the muscles. In order to avoid “wobble” of any kind, it is best to hold the hands as far on either side of, or rather in front and behind, the centre of gravity as possible. To try this, let the gun be presented and aimed without the butt resting on the shoulder; first, with the hands in the usual positions; second, with one hand on either side to right and left of the centre of gravity—that is, just in front of the breech. The tendency to “wobble” will be easily observed in the latter holding and aiming. If one should be so steady as not to see it, then a trial of the same thing in a high side wind will very quickly show which is the steadiest way of holding.

But even if we are such clever shots as to require no swing to get on to “the spot” for the first barrel, we shall certainly require to swing for the second shot, or, alternatively, adopt the plan of taking the gun down from the shoulder and re-presenting it. For this reason the position of the left hand is not ideal for the second barrel when it is outstretched to the full length of the arm, or when the arm is shortened with the elbow bent is the position ideal for getting on a point without swing. It is doubtful whether such a thing as the latter can happen on fast crossing game, because there is obviously unconscious swing in the act of bringing the gun from the “ready” to the “present.”

There is no doubt that the learner, as well as the gunner who is temporarily out of form, are best served by a method in which they can most easily swing the gun, because it is by the act of swinging the gun with the game that good form is so often recovered, through increase of confidence, after a partial absence without leave. But the act of swinging can be done as much with the body as with the arms, and certainly lateral swing can be very effective when partly accomplished in this way.

One of the most fertile causes of missing is swinging round with the arms and shoulders, and not with the hips. Obviously, if the shooter can always keep facing his game, the triangle sides made with gun, arm, and body all remain of the same length, and besides, the head and eye remain relatively in the same position, and absolutely in the same line with the rib and sight of the gun and game. If, then, a shooter can rely upon thus facing his game, he has more need of bringing up the gun to a point than he has of muscular contraction of the arms in pushing and pulling about the gun, in swinging with the game.

Still, we can none of us afford to be handicapped, and there are occasions when the arms must swing for all they are worth, and for this reason an easy position for the left hand is desirable, although that position need not necessarily be looked for on the trigger guard, or even on the fore end of the gun. There is a medium in all things, and assuredly those who strain to get their hands more forward than looks comfortable are likely to miss in consequence. This remark is made because the author has seen some beginners striving to reach forward, because they have read that it is proper; whereas they looked as strained as if they were on the rack, and besides, killed no game.

One of the most awkward attempts is to try to follow game overhead and fail to get enough in front to fire. There is then no time to turn round. When turning round is necessary, it should be done with the gun at the “ready,” not at the “present,” and not until the foot is planted firmly should the gun be raised. Any following round with the gun, or even with the eye if the game is going over, will not prove very deadly as a rule. The late Lord Hill and his brother, the Hon. G. Hill, were as good pheasant shots as anybody is, or has been, and it was very obvious that they both went round and planted a firm foot before looking for their game from overhead.

The two positions of holding the left hand may be seen in the shooting of the Prince of Wales, with the straight arm, and in Mr. R. Rimington Wilson, with the bent left elbow.

The question has often been asked, What should one do in case a neighbour hits a bird that is obviously going away to die? It seems to depend on what your neighbour would wish: a bad sportsman, if that is not a paradox, may ask you why you are shooting his dead birds. That is only because he would rather run the risk of leaving wounded game than lose the off chance of claiming another bird. But a good sportsman would generally know by the appearance of the game whether it was likely to fall within reasonable distance; also he would know that by the unwritten laws of sport first blood constitutes ownership without any claim being made, and there should be no false pride that prevents wounded creatures being added to the bag as expeditiously as possible. There is another consideration. It is the worst possible form to cause much time to be occupied in looking for wounded game. It spoils the sport.

At the same time, one who values the good opinion of others will avoid a practice of sharing birds, or shooting at those more properly the targets of the next man. There is often a doubt as to whose shot a bird properly is. It is not good that both shooters should decline the chance for the sake of the other, but generally one man knows the other’s form so well, that if the latter does not take the bird at one particular instant of time, it may be taken as left alone for the former to deal with.

Probably anyone who remembers the sound advice given in