This article is a purely personal opinion of a professional hunter with extensive experience of hunting and shooting in different climatic and seasonal conditions on the territory of the Russian Federation and neighboring states and is based on his personal experience and on the experience of shooting hunters for whom trophy hunting was organized.
The art of marksmanship has always been appreciated since the use of small arms.
A swift French attack was repulsed by a Russian jaeger regiment In the Battle of Borodino in 1812. "We have never lost so many generals and officers in one battle," wrote the French ambassador to Russia, Caulaincourt. - They were disabled by the hunters of the Russian army.” It is known from the experiences of combat operations in military conflicts of recent decades that from 20 to 30 thousand (!) cartridges were spent on one killed from small arms. Snipers used 1-2 to hit the target! The main qualities of a sniper are: intelligence; emotional stability; poise; physical fitness and health; field training.
This is the quote from the book "SNIPER" Domnenko A.F.
The above can be attributed to a real hunter. It is known that snipers during the war were mainly hunters because vital necessity had already developed in them all the qualities listed above. I am constantly convinced of the correctness of these requirements described by A.F. Domnenko. I had to use almost all the qualities described above during the hunt for the Kuban tur in the Krasnodar Territory.
Physical fitness and health.Hunting in the Caucasus mountains is one of the most, if not the most difficult in terms of physical exertion. The guide and I had to spend about 5 hours to climb to the hunting area with all equipment. To chase the beast in the mountains. To butcher the tur on the steep slope. To return to the camp on steep cliffs for 4 hours and carry a load weighing about 30kg. It happens that the hunters should overcome such mountain ascents and descents several days in a row.
Field training.We did not find turs in the places where we expected to see them (the very tops of the rocks). But we saw them much lower in a small forest. The terrain around was open, which made it very difficult to approach the beast. That was the situation when I used everything I learned as a child in school at the lessons of the initial military training; during my sports and, of course, in the army (I am a reserve officer of motorized rifle troops). In that situation, even my guide could not help in any way. Rather, he was already in the way, since he did not have all the tactical and practical skills I had.
Intelligence. I asked the guide about the landscape of the area where the male was to be hidden, assessed the situation and calculated the route to my trophy. I had to hike part of the way, hiding behind small ridges. I crawled a part of the way, and I had to move down the slope upside down, but it was impossible to overcome that section (about 300 meters) in a different way.
Balance. We found ourselves in close proximity (25-30 meters) with a bear while we approaching the tur. We had to avoided any contact with it, in every possible way, so as not to scare the bear off, with the tur. I had to crawl once again the last part of the way about 100 meters and we were already at the edge of the forest, where it was easier to disguise ourselves.
I managed to approach the turs at a distance of 30 (!) meters moving silently and hiding behind trees. (Later, I managed to approach Dagestan turs at about the same distance. What even experienced mountain guides were surprised at)?
Many hunters who are in such close proximity to the beast often have their hands shaking or even chills running through their entire body. It is in this case that emotional stability is required. I won't hide that you are overwhelmed with excitement, but those who can overcome their inner excitement manage to pull themselves together can make a confident shot in this situation. Otherwise, a miss even from such a close distance will not be an accident. Such situations are not uncommon in my outfitter practice. Once in Khakassia, a former sniper of the Bundeswehr, saw the marshal at a distance of 200 meters from the excitement, shook and chattered his teeth so much that we had to calmed him down for several minutes. In the end, a miss!
It also happened that I had to gather all my remaining strength after long and hard wanderings through the mountains and put them into one aimed shot at a distance of 200-250 meters. There was a case when we were in the mountains for six days. We rode horses from 20 to 40 km a day through the mountains at altitudes over 4,000 m above sea level. In addition to this, I had to spend the night at an altitude of 4,300 meters above sea level in the open air at a temperature of -20 degrees after riding a horse at night on steep cliffs. At night, a large tumor formed in my throat, in addition to that, I was shivering all over. It sometimes happens from physical and moral overstrain.
Early in the morning we moved to the hunting area when it was still dark. We had to sit there, practically motionless, in the cold wind for about two hours. After that, we had to make a march along the ridges for 1 hour. At last, I crawled to the firing line from the last remaining forces. Two ibexes were at a distance of about 200 meters, as my guide said. The sun was shining right in my eyes. I could shoot both ibexes, but saw just one until the last moment, because I was afraid that they might notice the glare from the optical sight and hide. Then I would have lost the last opportunity to take the trophy. It was necessary to aim and shoot very quickly! I had to mobilize all my physical and moral forces.
I saw ibexes as soon as I crawled out to the crest of the cliff. I caught the first one in the crosshair. The Shot! It rolled down the stone placer. The second one stood there, not understanding what had happened and where the danger was coming from. I reloaded quickly, took aim, and fired. The second ibex followed the first down. My guide rejoiced like a child. I was recovering from physical and moral overstrain for a long time. But I got the result.
I learned about the peculiarities of the psychology of marksmanship in conditions of overstrain only two years later and purely by accident. There was a report on the training of the British special forces on the Explorer channel. They noticed interesting features in the performance of shooting exercises. The higher the loads were, the faster and more accurate the shooting was. The explanation for such a phenomenon was a simple thing. It was all about the degree of motivation and concentration of consciousness. The presenter expressed one very interesting idea in the commentary to this report: “If you tell the Special Forces that he can't do it, and he will do it”.
I gave that example so that the inexperienced reader could understand how high motivation and concentration should be during a shot to make only one or two aimed shots in such difficult conditions and get a trophy for which the man had made a long and difficult journey of several days and hundreds of kilometers.
The shooting process can be characterized by athletes or a simple layman, as the mechanical action of pressing the trigger in order to produce a shot with the whole or aiming at the target of the crosshairs or the optical sight point. They are right but… This is actually the case from the point of view of the scholastic approach. But I would like to discuss all the details and subtleties of the shooting process performed by a hunter and in the process of various types of hunting.
The skill of shooting is taught in USA, almost from the childhood. Moreover, both boys and girls shoot from infancy. What advantages give it for the shooter and the future hunter? First of all, a person gets used to a weapon, considers it his integral part of being, and it is easier for him to build that line of eyes-sight-target and direct the charge or bullet exactly where it should fly. But you must always remember that this process is always guided by your brain one way or another. The success of your shooting will depend on how stable and confident you can build this sensory-motor connection.
I will try to analyze the shooting experience, which I learned from various sources. These are books, instructions from my teachers on shooting in school years; competitive experience in shooting from a small-caliber rifle; watching the shooting of professional shooters; communication with professional shooters; experience of independent shooting from smoothbore weapons, hunting with a friendly dog and shooting on mountain hunts, shooting hunters-archers. The bias will be made on the psychology of the hunter's shooting.
I've been shooting since I can remember. I don't know who infected me with this passion. There were not hunters among my ancestors. My father was a good shot in the army with a pistol of the Nagan system. That's probably all the shooting roots. It was very difficult in Soviet times to go and shoot from any weapon. I gained a little experience of shooting figures when shooting at a shooting range with an air rifle. There I learned how to combine and align the rear sight with the front sight and pull the trigger smoothly. I acquired the first, truly conscious experience of shooting from a serious weapon, which at that time was a small-caliber TOZ-8 rifle, at school. My first real shooting teacher was Sergey Pavlovich Kudrin, a retired major in the Soviet army and a teacher of primary military training at our school. The dioptric sight system helped me to expand my understanding of the types of sights and methods of aiming. We formed a team of several guys from all over the school, who showed good results in shooting practice. Subsequently, we trained with this team and participated in competitions for the city championship. There I learned the monotony of aiming. It was a very necessary thing for shooting the hunting carbine. I learned to breathe while shooting. There at school we were taught how to choose a position convenient for shooting. I haven't achieved any outstanding results in competitions. But I could always hit a series in a circle the size of a "10" target. The caretakers of the shooting range were too lazy to shoot the weapon properly, and Sergei Pavlovich emphasized the accuracy of shooting. It was possible to move the sighting device just before the competition.
Once the shooting range keeper who knew me well appreciated the importance of that skill of monotony of aiming when I, being already an experienced hunter in 2016, was shooting my carbine with a newly installed sight. He saw three bullet holes in a circle with a diameter of 0.5 cm, and asked with undisguised surprise: "Who taught you to shoot like that?". I told him that I got that skill from S.P. Kudrin. “Who was he?” "My school teacher," I said with some sarcasm. That guy hasn't known the name of our teacher, but I am still grateful to him for the basics of shooting that a simple teacher at school has given us.
Then the psychology of shooting was laid in us subconsciously. We just followed the commands given to us by the teacher. And we were doing pretty well. I was able to understand much later why we were good in shooting. But all that came in handy while I was serving in the army.
The state called, and God sent me to serve in the Trans-Baikal Military District. If you serve in the army, you have to shoot, and the more, the better. That's how I saw my service. And how it happened. Infantry on the BMP. All the hills and valleys were ours. We were shooting sometimes around the clock from almost all the weapons that were in the army. I really liked it, unlike what filled our time in the intervals between shooting. We fired AK-74 or AKM at moving and stationary targets at distances from 150 to 450 meters. It was a wonderful shooting experience, wasn't it? Right there I got acquainted with a sniper rifle for the first time.
The feeling of "love at first sight" for weapons as well as for a woman is characteristic of any normal man. So it was with me. Since then, I had dreamed of shooting with a rifle with an optical sight. I was always impressed by the role of a full-time sniper, and I saw myself as such. We had very good instructors in shooting training, who methodically passed on their knowledge to us. I learned to shoot very well from almost all types of small arms; at stationary and moving targets; lying, sitting and in motion from the side of an IFV; day and night. Unfortunately, I only lacked special sniper training. But I made up for it myself when I started shooting with a hunting carbine. At that time, I had already had all the qualities necessary for a sniper. All that I needed was practice. Initially, I focused of one aimed effective shot. I participated in several hunts where the military weapons were used. It was in the time when it was allowed to buy and use military weapons on hunting. Telling the truth, I was shocked by the result of the shooting from the SCS and Tigers. The hunters, mostly professional rangers released a whole ammunition (10 rounds) and could not stop the beast. There were a lot of wounded animals and unjustified losses. Irresponsibility for a shot was the norm at that time. In my opinion, it was a crime! Even then I understood that the shot should be one, accurate and in the aim. The beauty of hunting is not in the insane density of fire from different distances, but in the ability to approach the animal as close as possible and to make that decisive shot. Only such shot gives the hunter the right to be called a real hunter and a good shooter. It's my opinion.
I tried to link together everything I had learned earlier using the accumulated shooting experience. But new methods had to be introduced. In particular, I was always trying to see my shot. What do I mean? After I put all the necessary aiming elements together, I tried to imagine how the bullet hits the place where I've aimed right before pulling the trigger. This is a small background of my theoretical and practical shooting training.
Shooting at a shooting range from a rifled weapon is significantly different from shooting from a smooth barrel on a stand. If the type of nervous activity of shooters in the shooting range tends to be phlegmatic, then stand-ups are closer to choleric. The first one needs to be as calm as possible, the second is the constant readiness to shoot at a target that appears suddenly, quick reaction and honed standard movements.
A true versatile hunter must have all the qualities inherent in both. I started hunting with a smooth barrel. The main objects of hunting were birds. I couldn't say that I shot ducks, grouse and grouse well, but on average the percentage of hits was about 50. I practically didn't go to the shooting range. Just one time. I shot 18 skeets out of 25 on the stand and did not appear there again. My dogs taught me how to shoot.
First time it happened in 1993, I found myself at the opening of a swamp-field game hunt with my drathaar, named Gera, who was young only 8 months old, but already worked perfectly in the field. The most interesting thing began directly on the hunt. The bird, the dog, my shooting all seemed to exist by itself for me. Why? There was just one reason – I could not understand the psychology of the bird's behavior after takeoff (I lacked experience) with the manner of work of a dog (lack of practical experience) and a very low percentage of hits, as the apotheosis of all that. Each rise of the bird after the dog stand was more of a surprise to me than a pattern. I wasn't ready to fire, and hence a large number of misses.
Yes, I shot about twenty birds on the very first day! But, how many cartridges did I use up at the same time?! I didn’t account them! There was more disappointment from a miss than enjoyment of the shooting process. Even the dog turned her head in my direction after another mistake and looked at me with such reproach that I was ready to crumble in front of her in apologies, if she understood them. I promised her to improve. And I did it.
The effectiveness of my shooting has changed significantly after several years of hunting with dogs. I have already surpassed the best shooters in our area. Why is this possible? First of all, there was a lot of practice and mandatory analysis of the entire process of hunting wild game. I trained three of my dogs and several dogs of my friends to work in the field. I tried to hunt with them in the field as much as possible. I hunted in my region and traveled to other adjacent regions of the center of Russia and shot from 100 to 200 pieces of marsh-meadow game only during the season.
I was watching how the dog works on the bird in the process of training, and then hunting, tried to understand how the bird itself behaved under the dog, from where and when it took off, how it flied. I paid attention to all the smallest details of the bird's behavior under different conditions, as well as the difference in the behavior and manner of flight of meadow birds. I was pleased to get acquainted with the work "Hunting and commercial birds of Russia” (1900) by Professor of the Imperial Moscow University M. A. Menzbir. He described in detail about 130 species of birds, the way of life and habitat of the beloved and respected by hunters, the great snipes, snipes – the main and most interesting objects of my hunting. There, I found out that the great snipe, although it lives almost in the same places with the snipe and has practically the same color, but its lifestyle and habits are much closer to its forest counterpart, the woodcock. I'm not talking about the significant differences between the flight of a great snipe and a snipe.
All these points that I paid attention to eventually, helped me to predict with a high degree of probability the location and type of bird that the dog was working on. The shooting turns out to be much more effective when you have learned how to determine it and draw the right conclusions. There were not quite typical cases.
Once, my drathaar Ulli fom Rauhhaar and I hunted a snipe in the Vologda region. It was very interestingly and effectively hunting. When the dog stood once again o in an open meadow, I was inclined to think that another great snipe was hiding nearby. The only thing that slightly puzzled me was the dog's too short and firm stance. He was standing with his muzzle pointing down in front of him. As it turned out later, a brood of grouse was hiding in the meadow. They sit very tight in August. Suddenly, the black grouse exploded right from under the dog's nose. I even froze in surprise for a few moments. The young black grouses began to rise behind her, one by one. I managed to concentrate quickly. I released the female and two young cockerels went to my bag after a successful doublet.
It was often earlier with myself, and then I observed the same situation with other hunters that the mistakes occurred after an unexpected and sharp rise of the bird. In that case, the shooter was not sufficiently focused on the shot. The sharp rise of the bird deprived the shooter of the opportunity to concentrate on the target.
The result of that accumulated experience of hunting such small and agile game was that sometimes I was not so interested in even shooting. I thought that I looked like some kind of "liquidator" than a hunter. There were long series after another when I shot at a great snipe then and a snipe, and I did not miss at all. Believe me, it's not very pleasant. The bird rises, then the shot and it falls. Again, and again. I just raised the butt to my shoulder and pulled the trigger, not aiming. That kind of shooting was already more like instinctive shooting from a traditional bow. You understand that such effective shooting is the result of your own training and analysis of successful shots and misses, but it still seems to you that something is wrong. Some element of competition with the bird was lost. I didn't miss even the snipes, which were probably the most difficult to hunt. At the same time, I understood perfectly well that I would not be able to hunt any other way. Could I go down a step lower? That contradicted the essence of all that I had accumulated over many years of hunting and shooting.
I've never understood the special charm of skeet- shooting on the bench. In my opinion, all the moves there have been predicted for a long time and the only thing you need is to concentrate on the shot itself. I found evidence of that during broadcasts of shooting competitions on trench and round benches. Top-class shooters achieve almost the same results, and the winner is decided only in shootouts, where everything depends on who has stronger nerves. The shooter who does not make mistakes until the last, and wins. It's a completely different thing to shoot at a small bird that takes off from under a dog and flies along an unpredictable trajectory.
Recently, I have had a desire to hunt swamp-meadow game without a dog. It makes shooting even more difficult, because no one shows you the direction of the bird's location. It is no longer difficult for me to get a dozen birds (a great snipe or a snipe) after spending only 11-12 shots on it thanks to the experience behind me.
In the paddock with optics.
I had never agreed with the generally accepted opinion that the hunter need to go to the corral only with a smooth barrel rifle or with a lancer fitting or carbine without optics. It is absolutely true that the shot at the corral is mainly fired from a distance of 10 to 50 meters. The second factor that gives preference to weapons without optics is that there is practically no time to aim using optics. But everything depends on the preferences of the shooter. I want to give examples from my practice of shooting on corral hunts.
I had a certain practice of hunting in the paddocks with a smooth barrel before I purchased a carbine. I fired from my IZH-27. The shooting success on a corral hunt depends to a greater extent on the behavior of the shooter on his number. Many modern "hunters" don't attach much importance to this moment. They can afford themselves to sit down and to drink alcohol and then get a snack from a cellophane bag. They are not confused by the crunch of plastic, which the animals can hear and conclude not to go there. Then such a hunter can get up and step aside to relieve his natural need, without thinking about the fact that he spoils the hunt not only for himself, but for the shooters on neighboring numbers too. And then they usually complain that there are not enough
beaters and therefore they haven't driven the beast to their feet when they have been drinking vodka.
Just for information! It is rare when more than 4 beaters In Siberia. Usually there are two or three of them. The round up lasts from 1 to 3 hours usually. The beast is driven mainly by two or three beaters. "How can it be so?", - our European consumer of corral hunts will ask. But it is so. A beater (the intelligent one) or just an experienced hunter who knows the terrain well, doesn't make mistakes with the direction of the beast's course in various weather conditions. Therefore, hunters are placed at these crossings. The hunters have to shoot at a distance of 50 to 200 meters at moving animals. God forbid you to miss or, even worse, to scare the beast away with noise on such a corral hunt. It will be clear from the tracks why the beast hasn't gone to the shooter. I can cite many such cases.
Once, when we hunted in a corral in Khakassia, we could not understand why the animals did not come out to shooters. It seemed that we did everything right, and the beast went in the right direction, but turned around and went away before reaching 200-300 meters to the shooters. It was easy to explain. We decided to have a snack and organized a small breakfast. But one of the German hunters refused politely our offers, he referred to the fact that he had already had a snack. It turned out later that he settled down on his place, took out his favorite smoked sausage, that smelled so much that was felt at a decent distance and tasted that delicacy. The result of the hunt was logical.
But the apotheosis of hunting lack of culture is smoking when you stay on the number. I was pleasantly unaware of the permissibility of such behavior by hunters up to a certain time. It turned out that I was deeply mistaken. There are people who think that it is possible to drink cognac and smoke expensive cigars while standing on the number. This behavior is the guarantee that the beast won't go to the hunter, or even turn back and leave through the beaters, as males of deer and moose do.
The animals are so sensitive that the moose is able to catch the smell of cigarette smoke from a distance of three kilometers. The animal will always stop and stand for some time before moving through the forest and especially before a forest road or an exit to an open space. If the hapless hunter ignores the rules of disguise on the number and at least moves a little, the beast will immediately notice this movement and won't to move in this direction.
Therefore, I always take a very careful approach to choosing the shooting position on the number. I get up only in front of a tree or bush. I make sure that there are no branches on the side, about which I could touch in case of rotation. I always remove all the knots and branches from under my feet that can create noise with their crunch in case of stepping from foot to foot. In winter, I always rake a small hole in order to get up there, and put several branches of spruce on the bottom, to hide the noise from the movement of the feet. I get up on the number and freeze. You don't have to move. The only thing I allow myself is a slow transfer of the center of gravity from one foot to the other and the movement of the toes inside the shoes It doesn't allow me to freeze if it is cold and unloads my feet. I had many examples when the beast turned away from the next number and came straight at me thanks to that. It was clearly audible by the footsteps of a boar, deer or maral.
Lately, I rarely participate in corral hunts, mainly because of the low cultural level of "new" hunters who inadvertently can shoot along the numbers. There were several situations when such hunters shot over my head. But sometimes I have to participate at the request of friends. I remember the moments of shooting at wild boars in conditions of limited visibility they are often preserved in my memory.
The forest roads are the usual place in such cases, the shooters on corral hunts are often placed along them. Visibility in such places is often from 10-15 meters to 25-50 maximum. Just imagine, how much time you have to aim and shoot if there are wild boars. There are often about everything 1-2 seconds for everything. I was not always sure, until the last moment, that it would be possible to shoot at the beast. The validity and safety of the shot - first of all! I don't like to shoot badly and to wound the animal most of all. That tactic has never let me down.
If you have experience of shooting in a confined forest space, you can follow all my recommendations described above and you'll have many chances to make a well-aimed shot. You need to rise the rifle or carbine much earlier than the approach of the beast you (if you have no experience of shooting "offhand"), or you should wait until the last and to throw it up only when the beast is clearly visible to you. In the first case, you will wait for a long time, and your hands may get tired. Your chances to make an accurate shot fall. In the second case, there is an instinctive shooting (common among traditional bow shooters), which you come to with experience.
I will give one example to illustrate this type of shooting. The corral. You hear a few shots inside the corral, but the boars are reluctant to go towards the shooters. It turned out later that someone was drinking, someone was smoking, someone was just noisy on the number. It was a beautiful winter day with a slight frost. That was the reason why the beast's step and even its breathing could be heard at a great distance. The animals heard us too. The young boar went to my neighbor on the right, but did not reach. It turned around in the spruce forest and went to my neighbor on the left, then turned around again and came right at me. The distance was 15 meters. My gun was down. I was frozen, I didn't even breath. The shooting area was about 10-20 degrees. The boar stood and sniffed. Obviously, only the smell gave me away. The boar made a sharp jump to my right. The second jump was its last. I hit just behind the shoulder blade. The corral continued, and the beaters had pressed the boars to the line of shooters. I could hear the dogs worked not far from me in the spruce forest. After 5 minutes, the second young boar appeared closer to my neighbor on the left. He did one shot. The miss. The second shot. He missed once again and the boar went between me and the unsuccessful shooter. The space for a shot was very limited and there was only one possibility – to shoot straight ahead at a running boar from a distance of 15 meters offhand. There would be no way to shoot after it - there was a very dense forest. I would have to allow that boar to go. Safety on the hunt is first of all. But I decided to take advantage of the small opportunity that still remained. The Shot! The boar collapsed right at the beginning of the forest road. It took me a maximum of 1-2 seconds to analyze the situation and to shoot. However, I hit the boar in the sacrum and broke the spine. But the beast was immediately killed on the spot. Two shots offhand – two trophies. But there was nothing particularly outstanding in that. You just need to observe the ethics of corral hunting and to understand the psychology of shooting a boar offhand.
The next time the situation was more complicated. My place was on the edge of a forest road. The next number (shooter) was far away from me around the corner, so I was allowed to shoot a boar, even if it was on the road. A boar stopped thirty meters away from me in the bushes. I didn’t see it. But I just heard it inhaled air noisily and prepared to jump across the road; I imagined that I would have no more than 1, maximum 2 seconds to aim and shoot. I got ready, and as soon as the boar appeared, I raised my gun and shot the beast on the second jump, without aiming. The bullet hit right behind the heart, but the boar passed only 20-25 meters and fell. No more shots had to be fired at it. It was over.
However, such mastery does not come immediately And I was no exception in that regard. Unfortunately, I have not met a description of the formation of an effective and diverse shooting by any of the hunters in the literature. It was a pity! I collected everything myself by the pieces.
One more time I had to shoot an adult boar with a carbine with optics "on the jump". There was a wounded wild boar in the corral. It had the decent size and belonged to those specimens, a meeting with which, especially with a wounded one, would be completely undesirable for an inexperienced hunter. The boar wandered around the paddock for a long time in search of an exit, but everywhere it came across shooters who did not bother themselves with observing the rules of behavior on the number. Eventually, I heard that the boar was moving towards me. There was a dense spruce forest in front of me. I was standing in a small clearing. Snow was above the knee. And none of the trees near me. Experienced hunters can imagine the situation in which I have found myself. I had the only one chance not to be on the tusks of a wounded boar – to shoot accurately. The boar approaches thirty meters almost noiselessly. I didn’t see it yet. It was in the forest. Suddenly it blew up the snow and made two jumps, and on the third I managed to catch it in the crosshairs and made a shot. The boar fell and almost disappeared in the loose snow. (Carbine - Los-7 with 3x9x40 optics).
One more interesting example. A corral hunting. Dogs barked at a small family of wild boars. It was agreed to take only one small boar. The line of shooters had the shape of the Russian letter "Г". I was the last from to the right. A shot rang out on the other side. I thought that the beast was got and there would be no more shooting. And relaxed. Suddenly I heard two more shots. Then I began to doubt whether the beast had really been hunted. The dogs continued to work in 50 meters away from me. Suddenly, a young boar appeared right in front of me, 25-30 meters away. Its appearance was unexpected because it almost silently went to the edge of a small grove where the dogs were working and froze in front of a small forest road that went perpendicular from me into a small copse. My Sako 75 carbine with a Leupold 4.5x14x50 sight was lying on the forearm of my left hand as usual during the corral hunting. The young boar stood, sucked in air and thought what to do. I was thinking about whether I should shoot or not if the one boar had already been taken? Suddenly, the boar startled and began to jump through the road. It managed to make a couple of jumps. I raised the carbine when it did the next jump, caught it in the optics and pulled the trigger. It took me not more than one second.
Any action sometimes needs only a push. The thought flashed through my mind that other shooters might not have hit the boars only when the boar began to move. There were no experienced and good shooters there, there were licenses, and I decided to shoot.
This is the example of decision that I made because was highly concentrated and had a lot of experience shooting "on the flip" primarily from a smooth barrel (!) in combination with the skill of shooting from a rifled weapon with an optical sight. But the main point in that situation was a high concentration of consciousness on analysis and decision-making in the shortest period of time.
This experience can be useful to any hunter who will hunt hoofed animals in Siberia, and especially when hunting a bear. It is important when you follow the trail of a wounded bear or accidentally find it at a close distance close, when it will neither hide nor think, but attack, all of the above skills can save your life. You will not be able to miss a good trophy ungulate of you have a good shooting skills.
But there were also very offensive misses from the distance of a confident shot. I want to share the experience of the first shooting with an optical sight on a corral hunt. It was the first time when I took my new, Los-7 with a 3x9x40 sight for a moose hunt in our Vladimir region. I was placed at the intersection of two forest roads. It was the very nice place. I could see far. The distance from me to the supposed place of appearance of the moose was no more than 20-25 meters. The hunters don't even aim when shooting from such distance. I have complicated my task as much as it can be imagined. I set the multiplicity of the sight to the maximum value of "9" and narrowed the viewing angle initially. Then, I started shooting with one eye when the moose appeared, and didn't control the target with my peripheral vision. The result was the miss.
I have heard the opinion that almost two packs of cartridges have to be shot every week before the start of the hunting season for accurate shooting. Moreover, it is necessary to purchase cartridges from one batch of production. Maybe it makes sense for someone, but I strongly doubt that shooting skill will depend on the number of shots fired before hunting. I haven't considered the problems associated with the quality of cartridges and the influence of external weather conditions on the deviation of the trajectory of the bullet. These factors are quite subjective and difficult to analyze due to the fact that the wind rarely has the same direction throughout the flight of the bullet, and the cartridges will not differ significantly in different batches of manufacture. And it seems quite ridiculous to reach into your pocket or backpack for a device to measure the strength and direction of the wind in order to make a lateral correction when you have the opportunity to shoot a good trophy at a distance of about 300 meters. Moreover, these deviations relative to the animal's torso will be simply insignificant. It makes sense when shooting at a distance of 500 meters or more. There are connoisseurs to shoot at 800 meters and even at a distance of 1 km, but arithmetic will matter more.
The beast lives by its own laws, and won't wait to turn its side for a shooter. Sometimes a hunter has 1-2 seconds to aim and shoot. And the hunters have to use that time, otherwise the beast will simply hide behind natural shelters, such as a thicket of forest, a rock, a fallen tree.
There are other ways to train and to improve shooting skills. You can practice with a small-caliber rifle with the same optical sight. It doesn't matter what kind of weapon you shoot, when you will learn how to build correctly the eye-sight-target line and how you pull the trigger. The main thing is to understand clearly the psychology of the shot and to strive for uniformity in aiming when shooting from a rifled weapon. All other things will come with time and acquired experience.
The essence of hunting for me is still to hide the beast, to approach as close to it as possible at a distance of a confident shot. It is not entirely justified to fire at an animal at extreme distances in the hope that the wind speed will be constant, the distance is measured by a rangefinder up to a meter, and the cartridges are required to go "one in one", and at the same time the animal will stand sideways to the shooter.
I pay tribute to the long-distance shooters who make accurate shots at a distance of 500-600 meters to 1 km, or even more, I can't call it hunting. It's just shooting, even at objects of the animal world, and at such long distances.
I could hardly call it hunting when you seat on a chair, and your carbine is clamped in the machine and the whole question of hitting the target is reduced to the mathematical calculation of the trajectory of the bullet only and making adjustments to the wind.
I wish accurate shots for real hunters, and beginners to complete the path of improving their skills successfully, to appreciate and feel responsible for every shot made on the hunt. I summon to remember that we are not butchers and not murderers.
WE ARE HUNTERS!
Dmitry Vstovsky.
P.S. One more very important observation. Your gun is not just a piece of iron and wood or plastic You need to treat your weapon as an extension of yourself. You must merge with it into a single whole, which will allow you to achieve an absolute mutual understanding that will contribute to a successful hunt.
