Richard, That's exactly the way I prefer to shoot game - head erect and bring the gun to my line of vision, never having to take my eye away from the bird's line of flight, whether feathered of clay.

im gonna hafta get some body to watch me shoot..sice you fellas been talking about this i never had thought about the way i shoot...now ive gotta know... charlie

I dunno Charlie - From my experience, a little knowledge can be dangerous. I have several friends who went thru extensive gun fitting sessions, and walked away with a slip of paper which had the gunfitter's equivalent of the holy grail.
From that day forward, they were convinced that they could never shoot a gun whose dimensions were even 1/16" off of the numbers on the paper. Totally screwed them up. Pick up the gun and shoot it!

I agree. Have a friend years ago went to Bishops and had his shotgun custom fitted with a new stock. Spent 2-3 days down there getting everything just perfect. Shot the gun the first year extremely well. After a winter layoff he never could shoot that gun well again. I personally like different stock dims. for different games. trap 2.25- skeet 2.5 - sporting clays 2.75. My hunting guns can have up to 3 inches of drop.

Drop at heel is about the most unimportant stock dimension of the four or five that are usually supplied to a stockmaker. About the only thing it may affect is recoil perceived at the face.

Shooting instruction and subsequent try-gun fitting are only sucessful if the shooter retains all of the instruction and consistantly repeats it, most of us don't. In time we seem to fall back to our individual way of shooting, the old habits are hard to break. The dog and pony show that most fitters use is amusing but seldom totally effective. I personally subscribe to fitting the gun to the shooter rather than the shooter to the gun.
In closed-face shooting, which is how most shooters mount, length of pull and pitch angle, establish a level plane for the barrels. Cast and twist are critical to centering windage. If you can eliminate the post-mount adjustments that shooters routinely do, it is much easier to concentrate on the Bird. Build off your instinctive anchor point and the gun will consistantly shoulder to the proper point of aim. Your speed and hit ratio will increase greatly.

Brad

The only way I improved my shooting after decades of rarely hitting anything flying was to read the Churchill shotgun book, buy into his system and do exactly as he said. It worked and my shooting improved dramatically. Now I have a "system" to go back to, a page 1 so to speak. When I start missing, I stop and go back to the system and remember where my feet are supposed to be, my left hand, light grip with the right hand, upright head, don't stop the swing, don't jerk the trigger, keep both eyes open, etc, and I immediately start hitting again. It works every time. It's no different than forgetting a good bird recipe and having to open the cook book to find it and follow it exactly if that what has worked in the past. I know a number of shooters who say they have no idea what they do, how they shoot. Good for them; perhaps they're good natural shooters. Me, I'm a good instinctive and natural pilot-no problem.... but, with shotguns, I need a "system" to consult which will get me back on track when I'm missing. I suspect a lot of people who are inconsistent in shooting could use the same thing.