[Richard Flanders]

It was gorgeous here today.... 50deg and sunny, so I went back downriver to my favorite private sand bar to try shooting clays again with a 26" VH12. The first 80 clays or so was a bit depressing and saw me hit very few. After that I decided to try a different ready position. Instead of my long-favored Churchillian low-gun position, I tried a half high-gun position, which ended up giving me a much cleaner, faster and better gun mount and I smashed the next 30/35 birds and I wasn't punishing my already bruised shoulder as before. What a difference that made. I also picked up the pace to as fast as I could put in a shell and step on the electric trigger for the thrower and I tried to mount the gun and shoot as quickly as I could. The barrels got pretty hot, but it worked! I was finally powdering them one after another, 15 in a row at one point. I'm pretty sure I was just doing too much thinking and "aiming" before. I picked up all the unbroken clays and shot at them until the box of 135 was kaput.... and I had but one shell left. I went through ~7 boxes of 1oz reloads. Good thing I have 5-gallon buckets full in the basement. Next nice day I'll be back down there with two boxes of clays and at least a case of shells. I just might figure this out afterall. The effort might just get to be fun from here on.