rusty

It’s almost the weekend, friends! Anyone have some fun plans? It’s apparently supposed to rain here all weekend… Boo. At least the weather held up the past few days, as I was able to go on my first dove hunt of the season this week. With every season opener, I remember how much I really love dove hunting. Usually…

A love of wing shooting does not always come without setbacks. My dad and I got into the field with the rest of the hunters mid afternoon and settled down in the heat (95*) to wait for the doves to start flying. Sure enough, it wasn’t 10 minutes before the birds started in, and we were able to get some really good shots. Let me say, I use the term “good shots” loosely. In the first 5-10 minutes I had pulled the trigger about eight times. How many doves did I have on the ground? Well… Approximately zero. I literally had not cut a feather. Now, I am not typically a poor shot. Admittedly, I am not exactly what one would call a stellar “athlete,” and I don’t really get competitive when it comes to sports and the like. In fact, I like to joke about how bad I am at sports like basketball, despite being 2 short inches shy of 6 ft tall. But shooting? I loaaaatthhe shooting poorly, and hate admitting it just as much. Like I get really frustrated. Which I know only exacerbates the problem. On one hand, knocking down your first dive on the first shot of a hunt is often the kiss of death, and has you missing the next five or six. But on the other hand, missing your first (and second, third, and fourth) is just as bad. I turned back to my dad and even asked him if he had given me shells not loaded with shot. Hah! I was. Not. Impressed.

I’d like to say my face is red because I was about to have a heat stroke, but I think my poor performance had a liiiiitle something to do with it.

I felt about like this sunflower. Womp womp.

Thankfully, I was finally able to knock down the next bird that flew over. And four more promptly behind him. What happened? As it turns out, I was just shooting behind the birds. Once I figured out what I was doing wrong and corrected it, the hunt instantly turned around. Having shot minimally since the end of duck season (hello, busiest year ever), I was just a bit rusty. As my dad put it, “Think about pro athletes, like golfers [a sport we know very little about, admittedly]. Take Tiger Woods, for example. He can be the #1 golfer in the world after 1 tournament, and not even qualify for the next. There will always be days when you just aren’t at your best. It’s why football players have spring training. Just like any other sport, you have to practice. And even then, you can still be rusty. You just have to get back into the swing of things.” [No pun intended.]

Solid advice from a cool dude, I must say. As it turns out we ended up with a fair amount of birds in my shooting quality drastically improved as the hunt continued. By the end, I was back to my old self.

I also thought I had some photos of our final bag of doves, but they seem to magically and mysteriously have disappeared from my phone/cloud. I’ll update if they turn up.

I think I am ready for round 2. Who’s with me?

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