The beginner must " paddle his own canoe " in 

 learning to shooL He must practice faithfully, and 

 trust in his own judgment; as no one ever learned 

 to shoot from reading books. One thing is abso- 

 lutely essential for good shooting, and that is a gun 

 that fits the gunner perfectly. Men are built on so 

 many different patterns that one gun will not suit 

 every one. 



Your gun should be so balanced that when you 

 put it to your shoulder it will " come up " exactly 

 on the mark eumed at. The only good rule in 

 wing shooting is to keep your gun moving lutth the 

 bird until after you shoot. 



If you have a cross shot at a fast-flying bird 

 you will aim sometimes ahead of it. If you stop 

 swinging your gun for a fraction of a second, on pull- 

 ing the trigger the chances are that you will shoot 

 behind the bird. As ducks are said to attciin a 

 speed of over 75 miles an hour, one can readily 

 understand the importance of swinging the gun 

 evenly, and the slightest delay in pressing the trigger 

 will cause a miss. In upland shooting the hunter 

 has memy quartering, or straight away shots, in the 

 open. In these cases, he can take his time, and 

 hold as close as he wants to; but in swift cross 

 shots, in heavy winds, he will have to rely on a kind 

 of instinct, that tells him when to pull the trigger. 



One of the unexplainable things in duck shoot- 

 ing is, that at times a good shot will be unable to 

 hit anything. He gets "hoodoed;" duck after 

 duck goes by, without one staying behind to warm 

 the game bag. Usually this " spell " does not last 



38 



