Good Marksmanship

I pride myself on my marksmanship with a rifle. I have been shooting since I was a boy with a Crosman BB gun in my father's backyard. I spent untold hours shooting at bottles, (glass, it was kinda stupid to get broken pop bottle glass all over in retrospect), plastic 2 liter bottles, pop cans and whatever else I could get my hands on. There was a very old steel shed he used to keep stuff like the lawnmower, shovels, the hose and other yard care items in so they would be out of the weather. I am not sure how old it was, but it had an all over coat of orange rust. I would often set up my targets near it, and use the steel walls as a backstop. Well, to make a very long story short, the weather my dad was wanting to keep out was getting in because there was not one square inch that didn't look like swiss cheese. Needless to say, my dad wasn't real pleased at having to put up a new shed to keep his stuff in!

Most of the males in my family have been deer hunters, from my grandpa to my dad to me. I started going with my dad when I was 12 or 13, I think. When I started going hunting, I would sit in a ground blind with my dad, and watch a bait pile of shell corn, apples and carrots about 50 to 75 yards away. (At the time, baiting like that was pretty much standard here in Michigan, unlike today, with it outlawed because of bovine TB.) I had never shot at a deer before, so I was real jumpy when one came out to browse. My father's intention was to hand the rifle, (a lever action winchester model 94 .30-.30, complete with a side mounted scope) over to me and let me take the shot. Due to the fact that A.) I was 12 years old, B.) the rush of adrenalin was surging through me, (just ask any hunter about the jolt a guy gets), and C.) the blind we were in was kinda ricketey, I shook so bad as I was reaching for the gun, I knocked over one of the dry rotted 2X4 wall studs and made one hell of a thunk sound.

At the instant the deer heard the noise, 4 white tails went up, (the danger signal spooked whitetail deer get), and they took off like hell. My father leveled his rifle, got the correct amount of lead that a shooter must have for a moving target, and pulled the trigger. I watched in amazement as his deer ran straight at the blind, veered off at the last second, ran past us and fell over dead no more then 30 feet from the blind. I was in awe. What makes it even more amazing to me is that my dad is one of the very few people who can not close one eye, so he fired with both eyes open, with a side mounted scope that you have to aim off target. He learned to shoot with both eyes open, (he didn't have a choice), so I guess in his mind that way was perfectly natural, but to this very day I am still in awe at that shot.

I think that some people have a talent for marksmanship naturally, and some don't and have to try very hard to sharpen their skills to put a round where they want it. In my family, we are natural shots I think. That is not to say that right from the start we are excellent shots, (I would be full of shit, and anyone who says they don't have to practice is lying), but we have more of a foundation to build on I guess.

As I am a major fan of the works of Stephen King, I have read the Dark Tower series,( if you haven't, I highly recommend it). The main character is Roland Deschain, a gunslinger. He has a motto I love, and actually works. It is:

"I DO NOT AIM WITH MY HAND, HE WHO AIMS WITH HIS HAND HAS FORGOTTEN THE FACE OF HIS FATHER. i AIM WITH MY EYE."

"i DO NOT SHOOT WITH MY HAND. HE WHO SHOOTS WITH HIS HAND HAS FORGOTTEN THE FACE OF HIS FATHER. I SHOOT WITH MY MIND."

" I DO NOT KILL WITH MY GUN. HE WHO KILLS WITH HIS GUN HAS FORGOTTEN THE FACE OF HIS FATHER. I KILL WITH MY HEART."

In the story, the purpose of that mantra is to calm the shooters nerves, so that the shooter can aim true, and not miss. Maybe repeating it in my own mind when I am shooting is a little corny, but it works, and I think I am a better marksman because of it.