Part 17

All the talk of the speed of driven game making it difficult has frightened and unnerved many a beginner at such birds, but it is merely the echo of what was said before shooters had learnt that they had to swing and aim ahead as well. To talk of speed of game now, as if there was some mystery in it, is merely to unnerve more disciples of Diana. When once the gunner knows where he has got to shoot for the driven bird (in the singular), the shot is much easier than the going-away game, because the longer you wait in one case the worse chance you have, and in the other the better chance you have. If the shooter thinks differently, he can turn round in the grouse butt every time, instead of shooting his game coming; but he will soon give that up, because he will find his gun is not equal to the greater requirements of the going-away game.

H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES SHOOTING GROUSE AT BOLTON ABBEY, SHOWING THE VERY FORWARD POSITION OF THE LEFT HAND. ]

After writing the remarks above, it seemed to be the proper course to consult some of those excellent marksmen who are discussed by everybody. Consequently, the author bethought him of the article he had written for Bailey’s Magazine on the twelve best shots, and decided to ask for the views of a few of those expert marksmen who had, by the votes of others, come out as best. He was impelled to this course not with any desire to have his own views corroborated by such good authority, but in order, if possible, with the greater authority, to correct what to him appear very erroneous notions so often seen in print. As nobody can assist those who are perfect already, it is clear that the novice is the person who can benefit by a discussion of the subject. For this reason it was not so much to inquire how crack shots shoot now, as how they learnt to shoot, that was the intention of these inquiries. Often have been put forward the methods of shooters after they have become expert, which is about as helpful as telling a schoolboy, “There is W. G., go and imitate him with your cricket bat.” The author’s own fault of delay and the limitation of space has rendered it necessary to compress this information into very small space.

After disowning any more connection with the twelve best than a hundred others have an equal right to, Mr. R. H. Rimington Wilson was good enough to reply to some leading questions in much this way:—

In shooting at fast crossing game he looks at the place he is going to shoot, not at the game.

He admits that the “ideal” best form in shooting would be to bring up the gun in the nearest way, without swing, and to shoot to the right place, but he questions whether it can be done for high, or fast, wide birds. He can do it for near grouse, just as the writer has explained that he does it for rabbits. But Mr. Wilson is convinced that for far-off fast game you must “swing.” He once questioned Lord de Grey on how he shot, and the reply was that this great performer took every advantage the game gave time for. That is to say, he only shot quick, by the throwing up and firing without swing, when there was no time for swing.

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. R. H. RIMINGTON WILSON SHOOTING GROUSE, SHOWING THE BACK POSITION OF THE LEFT HAND ]

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.

WARTER PRIORY. LORD DALHOUSIE. ]

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.