Clay Target Q&A
With Russell Mark, Olympic gold and silver medallist
Questions: russell@corporateshootingstars.com.au
Q I was wondering what you think about practicing my Trap and Skeet skills by using very tight chokes to train with and then opening up the chokes to normal for competition? I believe this might fine-tune my accuracy.
Patrick McManus, Vic
A It sounds very good in theory Patrick, and it’s certainly not a new idea. American Skeet shooters have been using the same training drill for years. Without being too disrespectful, American Skeet is probably the Clay Target game that has the greatest margin for error out of all the major disciplines, so you may be able to get away with tightening up your pattern somewhat and still shoot a reasonable score.
The obvious problem you may face, however, is that if your scores decline too much it will start to affect your confidence and in the end, you will change your technique thinking this will compensate. I am not totally against the idea - just be careful not to change anything else while you are trying this.