Bird shooting

“ For shooting in thick cover a light short-barreled gun that scatters well is desirable, for snapshots at short range are often necessary. I prefer a light charge of fine shot, which scatters more and does not tear the birds so badly. A good dog adds much to the pleasure of hunting and is very helpful in locating or retrieving birds. The birds will sometimes run for short distances before a setter or [Pg 74] pointer, and it is often necessary for the shooter to flush his own bird, which may place him in a poor position to shoot. ”

“ The reason for this diversity of opinion is simply that there exists no bird more difficult to shoot than all others. Even as beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder, so does the difficulty, or otherwise, of shooting any particular species depend upon the idiosyncrasies of the would-be slayer. To some shooters all birds, with the possible exception of the coot, are difficult to bring down, while others are able to make every flying thing appear an easy mark. ”

“ At the big shoot for the Sterling Cup presented by the Club, and open to all the North of England, held on February 4th, 1909, I killed twenty-two birds out of twenty-three. This was accounted a wonderful performance for a novice.
For the benefit of those who are not familiar with pigeon shooting, I may explain that one is faced by five traps, and the man who is shooting does not know out of which trap the bird will be released. The pigeon must be killed within the thirty-five yards’ boundary. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He may then ultimately acquire the knack of killing snap shots, and bring down a November bird the moment it tops the stubble, or a rabbit popping into a furze-brake, with more certainty than he was once used to shoot a young grouse in August, or a partridge in September.
Many begin with very quick shooting, and kill admirably well, but are often apt not to let their birds fly before they put up their guns, and therefore dreadfully mangle them, and, I have already observed, are not such every-day shots as those who attain their rapid execution on a slow and good principle. ”

“ We have seen a bird no larger than a half-grown chicken killed off-hand at eighty rods (nearly fourteen hundred feet) ; have known a deer to be killed at a good half mile; have shot off the skull-cap of a duck at thirty rods; at twenty rods have shot a loon through the head, putting the ball in at one eye and out at the other, without breaking the skin;—but such shooting, ordinarily, is a physical impossibility, as any experienced rifleman knows. ”

“ In approaching this way, the birds will usually fly directly off-shore and away from you for a distance, thus affording the best kind of a shot. Taking the birds by surprise, you can afford to let them get steadied in flight before shooting. Do not shoot as the bird first starts off, as his twisting will destroy the aim; but let him get settled, cover him with the muzzle of your gun, following him with it for an instant until your hand is steady, and then pull the trigger. ”

“ Even before the author ever engaged in driving game, he had shot at the first bird of a covey and killed the last one, 7 or 8 yards behind. In shooting driven game this is not an uncommon experience for beginners, and is a very useful lesson; for nobody has ever had the opposite experience, and killed the first bird when shooting at the last. But when this shooting at the pigeon and killing the crow occurs, it is not always because of so vast a misdirection as is suggested. ”

“ Fire at no skirter, or chance shot. Reserve yourself for the bird or birds at which he points; a caution more necessary on the moors than on the stubbles, as grouse spread while feeding. When you have well headed him, walk towards him and spring the birds. Use straight shooting-powder. Take a cool aim well forward, and knock down one. Do not flurry the dog by firing more than a single barrel, or confuse him by killing more than one bird. ”

“ I refer to the instinctive and difficultly controlled impulse to shoot too quickly when the bird rises. The flight seems to be much more speedy than it really is; and the undrilled shooter, if he has any idea in his mind at all, is dominated by the fear that if the [Pg 206] formality of aiming his gun is observed the game will be beyond range before he shoots. This leads to a nervous, flustered pointing of the gun in the direction of the bird’s flight, and its discharge at such close range that the load of shot hardly separates in the intervening distance. ”

“ His manner of shooting them is, to ride in a chair or gig over the fields which they frequent, or along the roads in their neighbourhood, by which means they can be approached near enough to enable the sportsman to shoot with almost a certainty of success, as the bird rises out of the grass. If one attempts to get near them on foot, they rise at too great a distance, then sweep in circles over the spot, and alight a considerable way off. They are seldom met with there in flocks of more than four or five individuals. ”

“ Now and then a distant shot tells us that we are not the first hunters out afield this morning. The guns are cracking everywhere along the road that skirts the woodland, and back in, close to the 'chopping,' some better wing-shots are posted by the openings into the woods where the birds fly lower, but where the shooting is more difficult. It is largely of the 'pick your bird' style, for the flight of a pigeon is very swift, and when they are darting among the tree-tops of a small forest opening, rare skill is required to bag one's birds. ”

“ Wanton killing of animals is a crime; and our hunters, at first sight, might be thought chargeable with this in having wantonly shot down the eagle. Such was not the case, however. They did not do so out of any feeling of wantonness. They had a proper object in shooting the bird. It was the representative of a rare and little-known species, and the possession of its skin for scientific purposes had something to do with the fatal aim that brought it down—for it was from the double-barrel of the naturalist the shot was sent that destroyed it. ”

“ Fire at the heads, or, if they have got their necks stretched up, aim at the neck, just below the head. You needn't be afraid that you'll lose many shots that way. Young birds are right gentle, and they'll let you fire half a dozen shots at 'em, and won't move without they're hit. Of course it would be better if you had one of them little pea rifles, that don't make no noise and shoot a mighty small ball, but your gun will do, and it's pretty good practice shooting the heads off grouse; you get to learn just when to pull your gun off. ”

“ He knows that at times during certain summer months [Pg 147] these birds pass southward in their long migration, but he cannot know whether they will keep far out at sea or will on some unknown day be driven by wind and weather to the shore for temporary rest and feeding, and thus give him his opportunity. Though the presence on marsh or shore of a few bird stragglers may put him on his guard, it must still remain a question whether the game in sufficient quantities to make good shooting is hundreds or thousands of miles away or in the neighborhood of the shooting grounds. ”

“ Then, too, the sportsmen's guns and the small boys' slings and shooters of various sorts are constantly bringing down numbers of the feathered songsters. In many parts of our country men and boys roam the fields, shooting at every bird they see, and their action is tacitly approved by the community. ”

“ Half the wood being shot, the guns move round to the outside. What has hitherto been done, has been chiefly a means to an end. The pheasants have been driven with the object of getting them into this particular corner. Possibly the wood stands on the slope of a hill; this gives the best shooting, as the birds fly over the valley affording high and difficult shots, especially if coming down-wind. I think there is nothing prettier than to see real high birds well killed. They fall like stones, with heads doubled up—not waving down, wings and legs out-stretched like the arms of a semaphore! ”

“ The same proportion should be retained if the gun is heavier or the charge increased. Where more shot is used power is lost and recoil aggravated; and if the powder is not augmented one ounce of shot will do better execution than two.
Many persons who have ascertained this fact and practise upon it, will inform you that they drive their shot through the birds, and consequently kill them instantly. This is a mistake; small shot are rarely, if ever, driven through a bird ”

“ A good shot will frequently kill twenty single birds in succession, and some persons who have made this sport their specialty have been known to kill many more; but the majority of excellent sportsmen will not kill over nineteen out of twenty. The best field-shots are often bunglers at trap-shooting. Where double birds are shot at, it is rare that twenty are killed without a miss, and an excellent average out of ten double rises would be seventeen birds. ”

“ Elsewhere, and at other times, they become sufficiently shy; and though the gunner may always get within range of a single bird, or two or three, seated upon a branch, it requires both cover and careful stalking to obtain one of those wholesale shots poured into the thick of the flock and counting its score of victims. Almost invariably, when you are just upon the edge of shot-range, some old bird, wary from the last year's experience, gives the cue to the flock, that with a loud clapping of wings flits off to some other resting-place, a hundred yards further on through the woods. ”

“ Shot plays curious freaks sometimes: I know a case in which a gun was accidentally discharged in a dairy paved as most dairies are with stone flags. The muzzle was pointed downwards at the time—the shot struck the smooth stone floor, glanced off and up and hit another person standing almost at right angles, causing a painful wound. It is a marvel that more bird-keepers do not get injured by the bursting of the worn-out firelocks used to frighten birds from the seed. ”

“ In this way the birds are kept upon the move all the time, they are attracted to your hide by your decoys or dummy pigeons, and many times over 100 and sometimes over 200 pigeons have in this way been killed in one day by a single gun. The shooting is all the harder because of the necessity of shooting from a shelter, except in snow-time, when occasionally a white nightshirt is a good substitute for any hide, and the gunner may stand out in the open unobserved by the birds. ”

“ Not that pigeon shooting is much of a school for this class of shooting either, but it is shooting at birds going away from the gun and rising at a fair range. At 30 yards rise the majority of those who shoot pigeons fail to kill many more than half their birds with two barrels. It is a very poor shot indeed who misses as great a proportion of shots at driven pheasants. Yet with this evidence constantly before the eyes of everybody who reads his sporting papers, it is very frequently asserted that driven game is much more difficult to kill than birds rising in front of the shooter. ”

“ We would sooner tolerate a shooter, for he at least kills the bird and has done with it, and the discharge of his gun at intervals makes the birds alert and wary. But the bird-catcher by his sly insinuating methods will carry off a dozen birds where a gunner might not get more than one. He is at his nefarious business early and late in a certain spot so long as he knows a single bird worth catching remains in it. ”

“ Probably what comparatively few birds are left migrate to the Atlantic coast farther south or to the Gulf or Pacific coasts. Probably excessive shooting has driven them from their former haunts. They have always been popular with sportsmen and have been slaughtered unmercifully. They share with some other species the fatal habit, prompted by sympathy or curiosity, of circling back again and again over their fallen companions after a flock has been shot into, so that it is an easy matter for the gunners to kill them in large numbers. ”

“ There is a stunning effect produced by large shot, which throws the bird off its balance at once. Small shot has not the same immediate effect. Hares, rabbits, grouse, pheasants, and full-grown partridges, will carry it off, though they fall within a hundred yards. It is very seldom, indeed, that a bird towers after being fired at with large shot. ”

“ But without making the gun the actual signal for feeding-time, it is easy enough to let the young birds hear enough of it to disregard it entirely. If this is not done, the birds will not settle during shooting in the neighbourhood, and if they will not alight they cannot be driven. Another difficulty is that these birds love to associate in great numbers, and in a big flock what one does they all do. It is clearly too mad for a moment and dull for an hour when all the duck come over at once, and so end a morning’s shooting. ”