RNBT Clay Shoot

I am not a massive fan of clay shooting, but I was cajoled into taking part in the Royal Navy Benevolent Trust Clay shoot.  It was thought that it would be good for those who had  paid a lot of money to shoot, for a Uniformed team to be there.  Our remit was to chat, and be a good example, but we were not to win!!
The Royal Navy team had won the previous year and would again this year.  There team included an English International shot.

Well, there was no danger of us winning, as two of the team shot clays regularly and myself and another chap rough shoot and are not good with consistent clays.  However when it came to a flush, 50 clays released to four guns.  We had discussed tactics but these when out the window as adrenaline hit.  We two rough shooters had found our niche and blasted away.  The ladies loading for us had a great time reloading and spotting for us and did there job really well.

When the smoke cleared we had hit 49 clays!  Needless to say we won the flush shoot.

What is interesting is why did we rough shooters do so well at the flush but not so well at clays?  Two things occur to me; When the clays were consistent we over thought how to shoot them, instead of just reacting.  And when clays did un-natural things such as dropping down towards you we tended to miss.  The flush however was more like rough shooting with limited time to react, so we tended to follow through rather than leading with a gap.

Evan's first rabbit.

I suppose everyone remembers their first rabbit caught. It is when you join that exclusive group of hunters bound by skill and blood and loss.

Evans shot was a really good one, of coarse as his father I am biased.   He had been practising for a couple of days with my BRNO .22 and had become quite proficient with it.

We went shooting up in the hills of Mid Wales on a large farm with plenty of cover for rabbits.  Walking up to the hill gate we spotted a rabbit sitting by a fence at the bottom of the field.  Evan using the gate post as a rest for the rifle took careful aim at his quarry some 80 yards away.  The rifle is silenced and we were using Eley subsonics so a click as the firing pin struck the cartridge was followed by a load thwack as the hollow point round found its target and killed the rabbit instantly.

A very proud father took the photo of sons first rabbit.