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Birdshot Podcast

#291 | Straight Shooting for Hunters with Will Primos and Anthony Matarese

Joined by Will Primos and Anthony Matarese, we discuss a newly released book authored by the two, Straight Shooting For Hunters: A Champion’s Guide to Using Shotguns in the Field.

Show Highlights:

Straight Shooting for Hunters

What Will and Anthony hope readers gain from the book

How to maintain focus on the target

Assessing and addressing eye dominance issues

How can bird hunters improve their wingshooting

An efficient gun mount is a “fast” gun mount

How to practice on the clays course for wingshooting

READ | Straight Shooting for Hunters

LEARN MORE | A.I.M. Shooting School with Anthony Matarese

SUPPORT | patreon.com/birdshot

Follow us | @birdshot.podcast

Use Promo Code | BSP20 to save 20% with onX Hunt

Use Promo Code | BP15 to save 15% on Marshwear Clothing

Use Promo Code | BSP10 to save 10% on Trulock Chokes

The Birdshot Podcast is Presented By: onX Hunt, Final Rise and Upland Gun Company Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Broadcast on:
11 Oct 2024
Audio Format:
other

Joined by Will Primos and Anthony Matarese, we discuss a newly released book authored by the two, Straight Shooting For Hunters: A Champion’s Guide to Using Shotguns in the Field.


Show Highlights:

  • Straight Shooting for Hunters
  • What Will and Anthony hope readers gain from the book
  • How to maintain focus on the target
  • Assessing and addressing eye dominance issues
  • How can bird hunters improve their wingshooting
  • An efficient gun mount is a “fast” gun mount
  • How to practice on the clays course for wingshooting


READ | Straight Shooting for Hunters


LEARN MORE | A.I.M. Shooting School with Anthony Matarese


SUPPORT | patreon.com/birdshot


Follow us | @birdshot.podcast


Use Promo Code | BSP20 to save 20% with onX Hunt


Use Promo Code | BP15 to save 15% on Marshwear Clothing


Use Promo Code | BSP10 to save 10% on Trulock Chokes


The Birdshot Podcast is Presented By: onX Hunt, Final Rise and Upland Gun Company

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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[MUSIC] This episode of the Birdshot Podcast is presented by Onyx Hunt, the number one GPS hunting app, and Final Rise, premium quality made in USA Hunting Vest and field apparel, and Upland Gun Company custom built and fit handcrafted Italian shotguns. [MUSIC] Hey everybody, welcome to episode number 291 of the Birdshot Podcast. We're talking wing shooting today with two guests whose reputation likely precedes them. We'll talk to Will and Anthony in just a moment. I will thank Patreon Patrons of the Birdshot Podcast. Those of you out there making contributions in support of the show to keep these conversations coming your way. Patrons are eligible for some bonus content, Patreon giveaways, exclusive discounts. We got one from our short clothing, and we send all Patrons some Birdshot Podcasts, canned coolers, and stickers which hopefully are coming in handy for those tailgate sessions this fall. Hope you all are doing well and enjoying many adventures of field with you and your dogs and your friends. Today, we've got two guests who you may very well know as I mentioned before, Anthony Madaris and Will Primos of hunting and shooting fame, and now authors of Straight Shooting for Hunters, a champions guide to using shotguns in the field. I was honored to have these guys on the show, get to know them a bit, and dive a little bit deeper into their latest book release, Straight Shooting for Hunters. I did have the chance to read it and very much enjoyed it. It is absolutely a book written by hunters, for hunters, and you will hear all about it from our guest today as we talk about the inspiration for the book and ultimately how we can improve our wing shooting in the field this fall and years to come. So, the book is available all over the place, Anthony's website is linked in the show notes. You can get it on Amazon where you can also get the audio book narrated by Will Primos. Check that one out, I'll drop a link for the audio book in the show notes as well. Thank you to our guest today for giving me a chance to read this book and get them on the show in conjunction with the book release. So, with that said, let's welcome into the conversation and onto the Birdshot Podcast, Anthony Madaris, and Will Primos. [Music] We are rolling on the Birdshot Podcast and it's my pleasure today to introduce Will Primos and Anthony Madaris. Thank you for joining us on this episode. I am freshly done reading the new book release, which we're going to talk all about today, and I'm really excited to have you guys. On your Will, how was El Camp? El Camp was rough this year. We've been on that ranch for 22 years, the old police in New Mexico. And it was an east wind, which we never have any kind of an east wind and a lot of rain. And so, we killed one elk. We usually kill five to seven from our group, and we killed one elk. We had some opportunities that got screwed up, but you needed a lot of opportunities to do it on video. We had fun though. We're a great bunch of guys. Yeah, good deal. Was it pretty hot and dry out that way? The cold this morning was 42. Most mornings were 52 to 59 and got warm during the day. In the sun, it was very hot. Got it. Anthony, how about you? You've been out in the duck blind yet? Now, our duck season comes in October 19th. That Saturday in October, a couple of weeks, and haven't done any hunting yet this year. Maybe go do some archery hunting would take my kids out this this coming week. I wanted to ask you about that because I know you guys included a little bit of a, you have a whole chapter of the book about hunting with kids. And I appreciate that. I've got two young boys of my own and we're kind of starting to do some of that stuff. So I figured maybe the early season archery would be on your mind at this point. Yeah, it's a get them in a box blind. I mean, they're young. My oldest one is 10. I mean, my youngest one is too young to go, but my three year old, you know, she went lat. She's four now. She went with us last year a couple of times. We killed a deer. So it's easy to take on, you know, but if you've got a good spot, you know, box blind with a couple of kids is pretty useful. But it's just the weather warm and, you know, they can see some deer and if you get something that's a bonus, but now it's a good, good way to work there. So Nick Anthony told me he wouldn't live anywhere else because of where he lives. It takes him five hours to get to England when he's shooting in England. He's he's fishing for Marlin. Didn't you tell me either you caught 19 Marlin the other day. We did call 19 white Marlin and the biggest right here on Ocean City, Maryland is where we keep our boat. And it's only two hours from where we are here in New Jersey. So, and the biggest Marlin was 750, 750 pounds. Yes, I was a blue Marlin, but that was 750 pounds roughly and we caught a bunch of white Marlin's, which they're small. The picture you included in the book that we included in the book with you and the kids fishing. That's pretty cool. Yeah, it's fun. Well, Anthony, when you are, I kind of feel like, you know, I will have covered some of this in the intro, but both my guests today, I feel like your reputation precedes you a little bit. It's like I said, it's an honor to have you guys on when you're not catching Marlin and taking the kids out into the deer blind, you're, you probably breaking some clay somewhere. What's the, what's the, what's the shooting season right now? Are you kind of, is it over and done with? Where are we at? No, so the national championship is the last week of October. So that kind of wraps up the season. So just getting gearing up to do some practice and get ready for that. I'm doing lessons, shooting lessons throughout the year. I've been, this is a real busy time for lessons, but busy all year for me. So the shooting season starts in early February with some tournaments in Florida and wraps up at the end of October. So it's pretty steady right throughout the year. I shoot about six or seven big tournaments a year. And there's plenty more you could do if you wanted to do more, but I shoot the six or seven biggest ones of the year. Sure. Wasn't there, wasn't there a real big one in Wisconsin? Was that a fee task? Yeah. The world fee test championship was in Wisconsin actually lost by a birding, came in silver medal. Oh, still good, but go ahead one more. Yeah. Yeah, man. That's, I don't shoot competitively. We could, we could do a whole separate podcast on that, but I know that is a, as a game of, you know, a miss here and a miss here kind of decides the whole tournament. Yeah, I mean, at the, at the highest level, it's pretty unforgiving. I mean, the targets can be challenging and the scores can be lower, you know, and so certain times I won the US Open this year with a 185 out of 200, which is a pretty low score. But the targets were hard. There was a lot of really good shooters that were, you know, in the scored in the 160s. So it can change, but you can sometimes you could shoot, you know, 98% and lose, you know, so you can't miss many that you're not supposed to miss. And the US Open was after the world fee task and Etsy not only won the US Open, you won several other events, didn't you Anthony? Yeah, I won the preliminary event there, won the five stand event there. And I came in second in the B-test event, so I had a good week. So nobody is more competitive. Anthony is so competitive. And he works so hard. You talk about, you get what you work for that man right there. He works in it because I can imagine that that it takes that sort of level of effort and determination to compete at that level. Anthony, I mean, you and I have never had the chance to meet, but I think the first time I heard your name, and again, this is coming from a guy who's I'm not in the know as far as super highly competitive shooting. But I was interviewing Andy Duffy, a guy who you probably know. And I think he said something to the effect of he was sort of commenting on sort of his hey days and shooting and some of the younger guys that were up and coming. And he said something to the effect of watching Anthony Madder East shoot is a thing of beauty. So that always, that always stuck with me. And lo and behold, here we are to Chen with you and Will Primo us on the bird show podcast. Yeah, well, that's really interesting because I am shooting with Andy Duffy in the morning at nine o'clock. Are you really a school? Very cool. Very cool. I got to ask, how did you guys cross paths? Will where you just missing too many birds and you tracked Anthony down or how did that go? No, I started shooting and really fell in love with it. And my first tournament was 2019. I shot in the World Feed Test event. I really, really did exceptionally well. I shot 90 in Super Sport. And I mean what's called E-Class. And so I won E-Class in that event and that bumps you up to other classes when you get enough touches and so forth. But I then started trying and I couldn't hit the browser out of a barn. I mean, and I've hunted all my life, but you know, somebody told me when I was young, you got to shoot in front of what you want to hit because they're going to fly into yourself. I just always shot in front of the bird. And if I hit it, I hit it and I didn't. And sometimes it took me four boxes and shells to kill 15 dogs. So I finally had some time. I've worked really hard on my life. And I finally had a little time. And the Providence Seal sporting clay range is 20 minutes from my house. It's an incredible place. And so I went out there and started shooting, started taking lessons. And then I went to St. Augustine, Florida and took lessons from John Woolley because he trained the guy that was training me. Then when Anthony wrote the book, I bought the book and I just loved the book. And he was at my club to shoot the fee task event. He flew in to shoot that event. And I heard he was going to be leaving. So I ran home and got my book and came back. He walked up to him and said, Anthony, I said, Mr. Madreese, would you sign my book? Well, I'll be glad to sign your book. And I was just a joker. No, my name. I thought he'd use my duck calls. His brother used my duck calls. And so, okay, great. So he goes home and I go home and I've got to shoot another event the next day. But that morning I get up, I got an email from the guy. I'm going, holy Christ, how do you get my email? And he says, call me sometime. And he put his number on the email. My colleague said, it's just a good time. He said, sure. He said, let's write a book together. I told him my story. And he said, perfect person who's made so much improvement. You're shooting by shooting 40 clays. And I think we can help the average shooter or the above average shooter, the guy in the field learned how to use certain techniques to shoot and how to mount the gun, etc, etc. So we got started. I went to New Jersey several times and hunted and met with Anthony and Carrie Luft. And Carrie Luft's the editor of the book. He was fantastic. I learned a lot doing it and I had a blast. Yeah, I thought the, you know, just Will, he was talking to me about how I got into clays and, you know, really hunted his whole life. And when he started doing sporting clays and then stepping it up to competitive sporting clays, you realize how little you actually knew about shooting a shotgun. Very true. There's a lot of people. There's a lot of hunters out there that get their birds or do okay or would like to do better than they do in the field that really don't know as much about shooting a shotgun as they think they know, or they do realize that they don't know as much as they like to know and want to know more. You know, Will's story is like the perfect introduction to that because this is a guy who made his living in the hunting world and being on TV and teaching people, you know, how to be better at hunting turkeys and a better archer, etc. And here's a, he's saying, look, you know, I was out there for 50 years, you know, with a shotgun on my hand and really didn't understand what I was doing, you know, I did okay and got some ducks, etc. But I realized I could be a hell of a lot better than I was and sporting clays kind of opened his eyes to that. And it just, I thought that there's opportunity to reach the masses, you know, there's incompatible sporting clays it's a very niche market. People that are out in the field duck hunting dove hunting upland bird hunting there's millions of people out there that we could make them enjoy their time in the field better. Be more proficient, take home more birds, make more ethical shots, you know, there's a multitude of, you know, if you have limited opportunities, hunting, and you don't capitalize on your opportunities, you know, that you go home empty handed. And not everybody has the best spots or the weather's not always good and the climate's not right. You don't see that many birds or get as many opportunities as you like to. So if you go home with a couple birds that you went to at home with, then the book was a success for you. Yeah, let me say this too, in the sporting clay world, I had no idea that I was going to be meeting people like the people that I met, or, you know, make in the hunting world. You know, you realize, so I was a grouse owner, you're instantly connected, you're instantly can talk about it, you easily, and you can size somebody up real quick and understand what they, you know, how they might be able to help you or you help them and you just want to do it. You just want them to win, meeting these people all over the country. I have met so many great people. I'm not going to stop shooting sports plays if I shoot a zero because I love the people too much. It has been a blast. I have met some great people, Anthony being one of them. Yeah, yeah, I think they, you guys will know this. I mean, the hunting community is, it's a small world relatively speaking and, and as Anthony points out, I'm sure the sporting clay is one is the same. So we tend to stick together and it was one of the things I really appreciated as I was reading through the book, you know, hunting is one of these, one of these awesome things that there are so many reasons to go hunt. Whether it's sitting in the duck line, watching the world wake up or putting the world to bed, you know, as you're sitting in the deer stand, these lines on the book are coming back to me. There are so many reasons to be out in the field. Most of us do want to be better at what we do and be better with a shotgun and understand the fundamentals and the principles that make a shotgun go bang and shoot where we look. And, and that was really what I felt was sort of at the core in the foundation of the book because I think, as you fairly pointed out, Anthony, so many people sort of, they find their way into hunting through one where the, whether it's dad or grandpa or uncle, which is a, it's a beautiful thing. But a lot of times the actual shotgun shooting itself is, is an afterthought and people are lacking some of those fundamentals and those car concepts would you agree. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's very hard. I mean, to, if you, if you get introduced to hunting and your dad takes you out and your grandpa takes you out, they can only teach you what they know, and they can teach you every single thing and have all the best intentions. But that's different from someone who's a professional trying to lay that out to you what to learn. So invariably, you're going to have people that are hunters that just don't know some of the fundamentals simply because they weren't taught to you. And, you know, trial and error is a, is a long road, right? And when you only get so many opportunities in the field, it takes a long time to learn how to, to figure out what you need to do differently, right? And the same shot is not recreated over and over. So if you miss a crossing dove and you miss a crossing duck, you know, you're not at 40 yards, you're not going to get that opportunity exactly the same the next time. So it's hard just to recognize, you know, even if you're using trial and error, the opportunities that, that exist that are the same exact shot are not that often. So think what happens is people don't really have a good way of measuring, you know, how successful or proficient they really are. There's no way to keep score except for if you go home empty handed or you go home with a few, few doves or a few ducks or a few pheasant. So we don't really think that much about it, you know, if you, because continually went home empty handed, you would obviously know. But if you go home with a few birds in your bag and you had a good time, then you might consider yourself successful and we want. We want that is a good day. If you had if you were successful and you killed some birds, whether you missed 10 and brought home for them, you had a great day. But we want you to be able to capitalize on your opportunities when there's when there's less of those opportunities. And, you know, the thing that happens is, let's say you're shooting ducks in a duck blind and they call the shot and you four guys jump up and shoot at a flock of ducks and three or four ducks fell down. Pretty successful got three or four birds. You shot 12 shots. Okay. So, and nobody knows, nobody knows who killed what really. Okay, so we don't really always know exactly and there's no way to keep score. So we're laying out everything in this book that you should know and should understand what and it's all the way from it's not all just the fundamentals of shotgun shooting. There's strategies and how to capitalize on your opportunities and how to make sure that, you know, just your position and standing the right way, et cetera. And capitalizing on everything that's going to put you in that position to not only be a better shooter with a shotgun, but to capitalize on your opportunity. So there's a lot of my most important tips on duck hunting or my most important tips on upland hunting or wills that come from a lot of experience, coupled with the understanding of shotgun shooting and what's important. And between all of those, our goal is that people, you know, people read the book and whatever you're most evident. There's something there for you that you, that you walk away on man after I read that book. I can capitalize on my opportunities a little bit better and if we need to go out to the clay target range and practice a little bit, you know, one thing that one thing that is important in any discipline is getting a little bit of practice in and hunting doesn't always give you enough scenarios to learn through doing right so if you can get to a clay range and work on some of those fundamentals that are outlined in the book. We suggest that I mean the the average hunter may or may not go to the right clay rain clay target range at all whether it's a ski range a trap range a sporting clay range, some of them do for sure. You know, our encouragement would be if you go once or twice a year go three or four times a year, you know, if you don't go at all, at least go once or twice, right, you know, if you if you go once a month go twice a month because surely if you can take some of the lessons from the book and then go work on them, you're going to be, you're going to be a lot better. Yeah, let me, you know, two years ago, I was in Arizona and we were had the dogs run the Mearns quail and about six of them, six and quail flushed and went up the up the hill there and it was not a safe shot for me because one of the shooters was there so I just stood there. And all of a sudden two Mearns flushed off to my left going up and I, you know, my eyes grabbed that that one of those birds and I mounted right behind that bird and I came through I shot, I would not have been crushed that bird. The bird was 30 35 yards away. I would not have been able to do that if I hadn't learned to shoot 40 clays. Another thing I want to say is I'm super proud of carry and anti and myself. And what we did for about the gun fit how important it is or how important it's not and mount when I was a kid gave I was remember I think it was 11 they gave me a 12 gauge Remington 1100 adult gun. It was way too long for me. It didn't fit. I didn't know it didn't fit. I didn't have the idea. I'm blasting away. And that was fun for a young kid but, you know, like, like, burretta makes a gun that's adjustable it's got a comb adjustment it's got a stock link to just you know what is that gun at the 300. Yep. And they have spacers you can put in or take out them a compact model for kids which is a really. So when I, when I see an welcome to help a young child get started. I like to sit them down and say look been a little bit of money get what's right so that you can get them started and allow them to grow and to see some of them be so successful and these kids reflections are amazing how fast their eyes and hands can be. So I think that's really important in the book to get people started and if you go on through the book and if you got started like me and you never were very good at it, you can help fix that. Yeah, so pretty pretty cool pretty cool diagrams in the book explaining all that I think I wish I'd had the book when I was. 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Drain holes have been strategically located for quick and easy cleanup and the kennels are stackable for easy storage. Other features include integrated tie downs, non-slip rubber feet and heavy duty lift handles. Available in multiple sizes with made in USA construction, five-star crash test rating and a lifetime warranty, your Lucky Dog Kennel will be protecting and transporting your best friend for years to come. Head over to LuckyDuck.com to learn more and get yours today. There's great visuals in there. There's actually a really cool section. I'll look up the page number later, but it's right here actually. It's not that the listeners will notice. Page 13, you guys got this cool photo about where you're sort of talking people through how to focus on a target. I've never really seen it captured in a photograph like this where you're showing, if you're looking at the barrel, you're very clearly going to have not great focus on the target. But if you are focused on the clay, your barrel is there in your peripheral. And the book goes in depth on really how you should be with respect to muzzle awareness. We're not looking at the shotgun. We're not aiming at the shotgun. You guys cover all that stuff in the book. But the way you tie it, a few of those really key pieces together with some of the visuals in the book. And then, again, as Anthony mentioned, you kind of broke it out. There's really a section in here for everybody. You have it. It's written for hunters. There's a waterfowl section. There's an upland section. There's deer in turkeys. There's hunting with kids. There's practicing on the clay course. I mean, it's really all there for anybody that is wanting to dive deeper in their shooting as it relates to their hunting of choice. If you do them all, then yeah. When you talk about not looking at the barrel, Anthony is a book straight shooting, which is just an absolutely incredible book on a clay. It talks about merging on a highway. And you don't look at your hood. You peripherally see it. But you're deciding you're looking at the traffic. And do I need to speed a little bit faster or to get in front of that car? Or do I need to slow down just a little bit? But if that car's going 60, you may be going 63 or you may be going 58 to merge into the traffic safely. And that's a great example and a great analogy to compare it to moving a shotgun. Great. I love that you can learn a lot when you can be fit and your eyes can visually feel it. Yeah. Yeah. The hardest part, and this is definitely right at the heart of a lot of hunters don't understand or don't realize. And it's also a little bit of a learned thing. So you need some experience doing this, right? So the most challenging part of shooting a shotgun is that you need to get the gun in the correct position to kill the bird, the clay or the live bird. The angle, the speed and the distance of the object that you're shooting at determines how far in front of it you have to be to hit it. And therefore the gun has to get positioned at the correct position in front of the bird. That position, one, takes experience to know. Okay. So it's like throwing a football to a degree. You can't measure exactly how far you're going to throw that ball in front of the runner running down the field. But you have some experience if you've thrown the ball at him before and it landed behind him the next time you throw it further in front of him shooting a shotgun. We don't get that clear visual of where the pellets went. It's a little bit more of a mystery. So if the most challenging part of shooting a shotgun is being able to get the gun in the correct position. Okay. But when you're doing that, the target is moving. You have to keep your eye on the target, not that barrel or not that lead. Okay. So most people, when they're trying to lead the target, they're looking at that relationship between the bird and the barrel to get that gun in that position that they think is correct for that given shot, which that based upon the angle of the speed and the distance. But their eyes are either on the end of the gun or on the space between the bird and the barrel. And really our eyes need to stay on the target, whether it's a clay target or the duck or the dove, et cetera. You need to see the lead peripherally. Okay. So that's where the hood of the car example is. When you're driving down the road, the hood of the car is right in front of you. You see it. When you pull into the parking spot, you see it. That's how you don't run into the car in front of you. Okay. But you're not necessarily, you're looking at where you're going. So the challenge that we face is how do we lead the clay, but maintain our focus on the target or how do we lead the duck, but maintain our focus on the duck experience comes with that. One, one part of it is you have to know that that's the goal. Okay. If you don't know that that's the goal, then we become very lead oriented and barrel oriented. And a lot of people are looking straight down their barrel. Really, the beat of your shotgun is only on there as a reference not to be looking at it. If you mount your gun, the beat can help you understand if your gun is mounted correctly or if it happens to have two beads. If they're in line, that helps you understand if it's mounted correctly. But during the shot, you really need to be watching what you're shooting at and the position that you are relative to that duck or to that dove or pheasant or whatever it might be. That position should be in your peripheral vision and the target should be in focus, whatever it is that you're shooting at. That's a challenge, right? It's a challenge even for me to maintain that level of what I would call like a visual discipline to watch your shooting at, not watch the end of your gun or watch your lead. Yeah, absolutely. Man, it's almost refreshing to hear you say that it's a challenge for you because it's one of those things where you can say it out loud and you know it. I need to be laser focused on this target, but then you step into the cage, say we're at the clay's course and kind of things happen fast. The target goes, I move the gun, I shoot, miss the bird, and then you kind of almost sit back and think, wow, I did not have, I have no visual of that target. I was clearly not focused on that target, it almost kind of happens to you unknowingly. How do you work through that kind of stuff, Anthony? It's just a constant battle, it almost sounds like. Yeah, there's a part of it that's just discipline and reminding yourself and telling yourself. Even for me, I could be in a duck line and shoot and under excitement, et cetera. I can't tell you at times which duck I shot or you know, but under excitement, you're not necessarily always looking at the target as clearly as you should be. And then there's the propensity to aim and measure and try to get the lead perfect, then your eyes definitely leave the target. The part that you can get better at is that ignoring the gun and watching the clay or watching the duck or the dove or whatever it is that you're shooting at gets easier with experience because your brain learns where the gun is without looking at it, right? So the best analogy I could give if we all sit down and eat dinner and we're sitting at the table here, actually, I'm sitting now and we're eating and you drink a glass of water or glass of wine through dinner. You never look to see that your hand grabs the glass. Okay, you never look at the glass precisely, you never look at your hand precisely because your brain knows exactly where it is. Okay, but a little kid's cup has a lid on it or a weight on the bottom of it because they don't have control of their hands and their eyes yet because they're motor skill of using that is not developed yet. Okay, so that comes with repetition. Okay, so if you know it's important to look at the target that you're shooting at and you know it's important to get the gun in front of the crossing shot to hit it. And you get on a clay range and you'll work on getting the gun in front of the bird, but maintaining focus on the target. What happens is your brain starts to believe and know where the gun is without looking down it. You know, the other analogy that I give is if you first got your driver's license, right? You know, the road kind of seems small, right? You're like, there's not a lot of room between the two lines, like, you know, you have to really pay attention or you happen to be in traffic. You know, you're nervous when you got cars on either side of you. And the reason is because you don't know where your car is. Okay, you don't have a good feel for it without looking at it. Okay, you're looking more at the hood and you're looking to see that you're not looking really where you're supposed to be out in front of you. You're looking to see that you're in the correct position, but you're looking to see that you're in the correct position because you don't have enough confidence. Okay, you don't have enough confidence that you're going to drive the car without running into something. So if you don't have enough confidence that to be able to know that your gun's going to go where you want it to without looking directly at the end of the barrel, looking directly at that lead, then it's much more difficult to keep your eye on the duck or the dove or the clay or whatever it is that you're shooting at. So I'm a bit is learned, for sure. Yeah, and I think that Anthony emphasized to me and others have to. But, Will, I don't want you looking that says that I want you looking at the ring around his neck. I want you looking at something specific because that just lasers you in and your brain then knows where your hands need to go. Yeah, I mean, if you pointed an object across the room and then move your eyes to the left or the right of that to some other object within, you know, put or, you know, point it to the point it where the door jam meets the ceiling. And then look to the left of that and stare to the left of that by a foot. Your finger gets fuzzy. Okay. That's what your gun should look like. Okay. So if you try, somebody's listening, they want to try it, you know, point it something. Look at your hand and look at that object, then stare to the left or the right of that, which is the equivalent of lead and stare at another object or a point on the wall. And your finger will not be as clear as it was when you first put it on there. That's how your barrel should be. You'll know where it is, but you're not looking at it. When we talk about odd dominance in the book, Anthony told me what he wanted me to do, specific to help teach people where they left right eye or cross dominant. And when I'm looking at Anthony's eye and I was pointing staring at his pupil, and if I look down at my finger, it comes in focus and he goes with fuzzy. You naturally point your finger at object and your gun can do the same thing, but it's amazing with that dominance. When you do that to somebody, you can tell real, real quickly if they're left or right eye dominant or if they're maybe 40, 40, 60. There's unbelievable how people use their eyes and everybody's different. Yeah, the eye dominance one, again, something that's covered in the book and listeners of this show may be familiar with it because we've definitely talked about it before. Through my work, I get to be around a lot of gun fittings, and it's amazing how many people have eye dominance issues in air quotes that they're unaware of. And that, as I'm sure you could comment on Anthony, is that's a recipe for a lot of misses if you've got an eye dominant issue that you're not aware of. And it's very well said that they're unaware of. They have no clue. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of hunters out there that just shoot with one eye and they shoot with one eye because that's what worked. Some of those, if I test them during a lesson, you know, I do see a good number of hunters come through for shooting instruction. They could have been shooting for 30 years hunting for 30 years and the right handed left eye dominant and they go, man, that's, I always shut my left eye. And that's why, you know, so eye dominance is really important. If you, if you have something going on significant there that you can't remedy, you're going to have a lot of missing going on. So the book tries to keep it simple because, you know, we wrote it from the perspective that, look, someone, we want you to be able to read the book and have a remedy to what you're, what you're dealing with, you know, because some complicated cases. You know, you almost need help or you almost need a shooting instructor to really kind of guide you in the right direction. You know, the most basic sense, if you're right handed and you're right eye dominant, you should, you know, shoot with both eyes open if you can. And if you're truly right eye dominant, there's no reason that you can't except for experience doing it. If you're left handed, you should shoot left. If you're, if you're left eye dominant, you should shoot left handed if you can. In a simple sense, though, you know, if you started shooting at 40 years old or started hunting at 40 years old and you're right handed left eye dominant, might be very difficult to shoot on the left side. And it's not something that we recommend, unless you would have tons of opportunity to get out to the range. So we go through all this in the book and we could spend hours talking about eye dominance. But we write it from the perspective that it should help you should get you on the right track. And if you had a really complicated case, it's least going to give you enough information to make some simple decisions such as just if you're just shut your left eye. You're right handed, you're shut the left eye. And also, though, talks about if you're right handed and right eye dominant, how to get you shooting with both eyes open, because it is, it is an advantage. If you can chew with both eyes open, it's, it's a significant advantage. Is it, does it mean you're not going to kill birds? No, absolutely. The best shooter in the state of Pennsylvania, as a gentleman is right handed left eye dominant, and he shuts his left eye and he's this state champion five times so it can be done. And why does he do that? Because that's his best option. Okay. What do you shoot with two eyes given he's a competitive shooter? Absolutely would be an advantage. You know, he could see more. So we try to keep it as clear and simple as possible. But it's, it's not a simple, it's not a simple topic. You know, so we, I think we did a good job with outlining it and getting people in the right direction. Yeah, I would agree. I mean, it's important. So you addressed it in that way. But as you, as you said, you could, you could go out, go to the deep end and some of that stuff with certain cases and it is unique to everyone. Everybody can have a little bit different issue as well. So you can explain it in a, you know, if someone had guidance and there was a professional instructor there with them, you know, we can break it down and say, well, you're right handed in your center dominant you could shoot with both eyes open but you're going to have trouble. All that that's going to do for the average guy with no one there to help them except the book is get them really confused. Right. So we give you enough information to make some simple decisions if you thought you fell into one of those complicated cases. You probably, and you want to, you want to try two eyes and you don't think it's working and you think you have dominance as you really need a qualified instructor to get you through some of those complicated cases. In the, in the people that you work with Anthony, how common is central dominance and, and what's the, what's the basic resolution there because I think that's one of the, I think it's less common, more unusual. People are familiar with one eye versus the other, but talk about central eye dominance just a little bit. So we really learn more and more about it over time. There's a guy by the end of Dr. Cola, which I've kind of been his field guy, a large part of what he knows about eyes him and I've kind of worked on together in terms of he's an eye doctor, but he's had a lot of theories I've known him for the last 15 years. I actually give him instruction. And we understand more about it now than we ever have. And there's no black and white 100%. We can get you pretty close with what our understanding is. There's sometimes a little bit of case by case basis, but the best way to explain central dominance is your brain is using both your right eye and your left eye at the same time. Okay, so instead of alignment coming from the right eye or instead of alignment coming from the left eye, your brain is getting information from both of those at the same time. So the problem with that is the gun is under your right eye or your left eye, but the alignment is coming from some point in between your two eyes. Okay, it's a combination of those two working together. So we call it as a form of central dominance or center dominant. And it's really a scale. So in other words, you could be, you could be 100% right eye dominant, 100% left eye dominant, or somewhere in between where what I mean by that is, I say, you're like 80% right eye dominant. So what that means is your brain is really drawing a line somewhere off your nose or between your nose and your right eye, and it's drawing a line from there to the end of the gun, and that's where you think you're pointing. But the gun is pointed directly from your right eye and your brain is drawing a line from a position say the center of your nose. So you can hit some stuff because you have a pattern. Okay, so if you're shooting a proof cylinder joke at 35 yards, you still kill an occasional bird here and there. If you have both eyes open killing occasional bird here there but you're not as proficient as you should be because you're using the fringes of your pattern. You're really not putting the gun. You're really not putting the center of the pattern where you think you are. So if you are some form of center dominant. If you're really watching the target and you shoot really instinctive, you can get away with that center dominance if you don't look too much at the end of the barrel because the more you look your center dominant the more you look for alignment and the more you aim the gun the worse you're going to do. If you if you shoot the shotgun and you're real instinctive and you think of it the same way as catching a ball throwing a ball and your center dominant you can get away with that a little bit. But the success can vary greatly and you can be very inconsistent. Okay so if someone says well I'm right. I'm center dominant and I shoot with both eyes open. It can be done. Generally those people have broad swings in their success and they have shooters. Yeah they have certain shots that are really problematic for them. If you're center dominant and you're shooting with both eyes open and you miss easy shots close shots stuff you think you should hit. That's because of your center dominance. Okay. Generally people center dominant will do okay shooting like some big crossing shots but they'll miss close slow stuff. Okay. The reason is because close slow stuff needs direct alignment. Okay of the gun right on it and they don't have direct alignment. If the pattern opens up at 40 yards and they're pretty instinctive with it they can get away with it a little bit on those. So your remedy is your most basic remedy is if you did that pointing test in the book and you kind of show up on your nose. Your most, your best remedy to eliminate the dominance is that you either shut your eye or use a dot. Okay on your glasses. We don't generally recommend a dot on your glasses for hunting. I think it's dangerous. And I think you have a too instructed of a view of what you're seeing on a clay range. You're only shooting in a safe position with no one's in front of you or around you and your gun's not loaded any other time. So a dot works well. So shooting with two eyes could be a possibility for those people, but it's very uncertain what's going to happen and it's a case by case basic if you wanted to get rid of the dominance issue. You keep the eyes open and then squint it at the last moment so that your alignment switch over to the to the eye that you have your shotgun on so what is the best answer. If the person is 50 50 dominance where they're truly getting alignment for both. If you shot a whole lot and you practiced a whole lot and you maybe had some guidance you potentially have success with two eyes. If you didn't shoot much. You're probably going to want to squint the eye to just shift that alignment over to the same side that your shotguns on. Well, when you sort of took a look at your shooting and started working with with coaches and educating yourself what were the things that helped you make the biggest strides and some of those realizations like wow I've been doing this wrong for all these years. Well, there's certain disciplines in sporting clays 40 clay being one, there's a lot of repetition so you may have four doubles at a station, exact same target. And as soon as you break it the first time you think okay I got this now I got to be careful or I'm going to screw it up as soon as you get careful, you're starting to pay attention to the barrel a little bit. You missed the next fair, or you missed one of the next fair so the task is a, it's an acronym for the Federation is now daylight chase which is the French invented it, and it mimics hunting and the gun is a low gun. A low gun is similar to the way we hook you can walk around in a field with the gun up you can't get a duck behind with your gun on your shoulder. You've got a mount. So learning the mount and learning what to do how to stand in the field or in a clay cage when you get ready to shoot a clay target. There are so many fundamentals that I wasn't doing correctly and learning to do those. And then learning that there are techniques, depending on the distance to speed and the angle of the target. What do I need to do? Do I need to use a pull away method where I mount on the bird or maybe behind the bird and stretch the lead and pull away from it. There's different ones that there's mounting to a maintained lead. I loved Anthony's instructions on feet test. Sometimes you don't have time that the target is so fast and you're at a certain angle. You don't have time to mount the gun from a feet test position and then mount it and stretch the lead. You got a mount to the lead or if you don't the target is going to be too far away. The lessons with him was incredible. He drilled him in. He's kind of like drinking out of a fire home. There's so much information. It's a little bit of intimidating. I mean, think about it. The guy, Anthony, have you shot over a million registered targets? Not registered targets. I've probably shot about 800,000 clay targets in my lifetime. Over 100,000 in competition. 800,000 probably in my lifetime of practice. I mean, that's my point earlier when you asked about someone learning to go out and their dad or their grandpa or their uncle took them out or a friend, whatever. There's no possible way that that person can give you all of the correct information just because they don't have the experience. They've had all the best intent, et cetera. There's a lot of information and I'm still learning. I've been teaching shooting for over 20 years. Over 25 years I've been teaching shooting. I've been hunting since I was a little kid. I've been shooting competitively since I was 10. It's a lot of information. If you want to reach your potential, that information is important. You can leave it out. That's what I always tell people. I got two options. I can tell you some things that you need to know. I can not tell you some things that you need to know or I can give it all to you and you can start working on it. You know, would you rather not have some of it? We can give it to you slowly, but if a guy like Will, he was going to be there with me for two days and we're going to shoot. We're doing instruction over two days and he wants to learn as much as he can. I don't want to not tell him things. There is, to his point, we overload him a little bit. We wrote this book from the perspective of you're a hunter and we want you to become better and you want to get a little bit better in the field or you want to get a lot better in the field. It's all there. You can take as much of it or as little if you want. There might be someone who reads the book and says, "Most important thing I learned was a tip they had about duck hunting." If that's the most important thing that you got, then that's great. There are so many important things like I used to. I love upland hunting. That's what I love to do. I love to walk and I love to see the dogs. When I'd walk up there, I'd see where the dog was focused and I'm going, "I wonder is that cubby or that bird? Is it right here?" Or, "I'd be looking on the ground." That's the wrong place to look. Your eyes come back into focus so much faster than they go out into focus. Looking a little bit above and look a little bit beyond where you think the birds might be held up. Little tips like that, but back to your question. I learned so much about fundamentals. I'm obsessed with this sporty clay shooting. I love to hunt and I'm obsessed with that too. I'm determined to get better. I do a whole lot better in practice than I do in competition. In competition, I get nervous, I get tight, and I start trying to be careful and I just don't work. I've just learned so much about the fundamentals of how to stay in, how to mount the gun. I started every day I would make myself for 10 minutes and mount my gun in a mirror. I can't remember who it was. I think it was Anthony. I said, "I got a dot on my mirror and I'm mounting my gun to that dot." Let's get rid of the dot. You don't want the dot. Look at your eye and mount to your eye. Then learning how to mount the gun and not use too much of your backhand. When you use too much of your backhand, your gun dips and now you've made another movement which just slows you down to get onto the quail or onto the sharp tail grouse that's getting out of dodge. Those fundamentals were just critical, but now it's so much fun when I'm practicing shooting with my... I have four guys that I normally shoot with around here and we'll walk up there and there'll be an 80 yard crosser. They'll go, "Oh, good. We'll let you miss that." I just laugh because I've learned that crosser and that's a far shot and sometimes they're fast. And I'm pretty good at them. I'm not good at them in competition, but I'm good at them in practice. I'm going to get good in competition, Anthony. I'm going to make you proud. I love it. I love it. The backhand, that trick was... I came across that at some point with some instruction and amazing how much... Too much control, too much activity with that backhand. You get that muzzle dip and I transitioned to more of a lead hand shooter. I pretty much went with side-by-side and double guns and that lead hand made a huge difference for me. And that in practicing my gun mount which leads me to my next question is Anthony. Where do you think... Where are the biggest strides for average Joe Hunter to make in their shooting? Is it simply something like practicing their gun mount more? Where do you see people make those big strides and improvements? Gun mount and foot position are huge because they're simple and you can also do them at the house without... You can do them depending on how determined you are to be better. You can put in a lot of work. You might only be able to get play range on occasion or if there's nothing close by, maybe not at all. But you can mount the gun at your house. We detail that in the book. You want the hands moving together. Your front hand is going towards the target. Your front hand is your leader. The backhand follows the front hand and the muzzle then goes to the direction that you intend to point in. If the backhand comes up quickly, the front of the gun goes down. And there's not many birds that are wherever they are flying down. They're flying up and away. So you want that hands moving together. You want the gun to be position properly in your shoulder with your shooting eye in line with the muzzle. So that you can then do that and do those things without even thinking about it. We have a diagram in the book showing foot position. So you set your foot position correct as you're doing that practice with your gun mount. Learn what it's like to be able to swing the gun and rotate the gun with your whole body, not just your hands and your arm. So you can practice the foot position. You can practice the rotation of your body and that correct balance point. You can practice getting into the pocket of the shoulder, practice with pictures showing you where your head should be on the stock. You can make significant improvement right there at the house without even getting to the range if you don't have the opportunity. If you can do that automatically without thinking about it and even put your hunting code on, et cetera, and practice with what you're going to be wearing. You've got one part of the equation completed that causes a lot of misses because a couple of things happen with the gun mount. If you don't get your head on the gun properly, your eye is not in line with the gun. If your eye is not in line with the gun, your point of impact is not correct. So you will miss even if you make a good shot because your point of impact is not where you think it is because your eye is not in line with the muzzle. The other thing is that if you get hung up and snagged and your hands aren't moving together, you miss an opportunity. I'm a firm believer in the lack of success of most hunters as they miss opportunities they have, so they miss that moment. So what I mean by that is upland birds, duck hunting, two great examples where the person's feet are in the wrong direction. They can't rotate to the left or the right, or if they do, their head comes off the stock because their feet are out of position. They essentially miss the opportunity where they made a bad shot. Waterfowl hunting, I've done a lot of waterfowl hunting, I've done a lot of waterfowl hunting with people that aren't that experienced as well that have brought along. And they can't get their gun mounted properly or quickly enough unless the bird is presenting itself in the perfect fashion, right? Not every day, the ducks are going to decoy right in perfectly, not every day, it's going to be the perfect win where they come directly in front of you. They're going to come off the sides where your foot position matters better. They're going to flare sometimes, can be late in the season and they're smart. So the better your gun mount is and the better your body movement and your stances, it allows you to take that out of the equation so that if I say, "All right, now take them," your gun better be there and ready to fire instantly because if that bird's not wasting any time getting out of there, you're going to miss that opportunity. Then what the people do is they shoot on the, what I like to call the backside of the window. You got a window of opportunity and you're on the very backside of that window, maybe where you shouldn't even be taking the shot, but people shoot at it because they've been out there all day and haven't had any chances, right? But if your gun mount's good, your stance is good, you're going to maximize those opportunities and you're going to take the bird at the right moment in the right spot. So that's definitely the part that you can get the best at, quickest and doesn't cost a dime of your travel time to the range and it doesn't cost any money for ammo or clay targets. This episode is brought to you by Gun Dog Grind, small batch coffee for passionate gun dog owners. With quality sourced, premium coffee beans, freshly roasted after you place your order, every bag of gun dog grind coffee is fresh and shipped direct to you. With the subscribe and save option, you can save 10% on your favorite gun dog brew. Head over to gundoggrind.com to check out their complete selection, including conservation of roasts and other collaborations, follow them on social media at Gun Dog Grind. When you're hearing up for your next road trip or just getting back to the truck and we'll walk through the uplands, make your next cup of tailgate coffee with Gun Dog Grind. Kind of in that same vein talk about, I know it was brought up in the book, a lot, one very common mistake and this is something that I've gotten better at it, but missing and shooting too quickly. The thrill and the excitement of the Flushing Bird kind of almost rushes you through that process and you feel like that bird's going to be screaming out of there, not recognizing in that moment that a slower, smoother gun mount, while it might feel slower, you have time in those scenarios and you can make a lot of mistakes by just rushing. If your gun mount is correct, you don't have to feel like you're in such a big hurry because it's more efficient. Instead of mounting it to the wrong spot and your head's not on the stock and the barrel went down first and then you've got to fix all that, if you make a good mount, you have more time. Okay, so if you learn your gun mount and improve that, then you automatically got more time because you're more efficient. The biggest common I can make about rushing the shot is the gun and the bird should get together in terms of moving together before you fire, so you don't want to just bring the gun up and fire without the gun and the bird traveling together for a moment in time. So you need that for the synchronization of the gun speed and the bird speed. Once that happens, the correct time to pull the trigger is when you've seen the object or the target that you're shooting at, whether it's a clay target or the pheasant or the grouse or whatever it might be, when you see it clearly. Okay, if you can't remember seeing a color on it or seeing it, you know, the color on its wing or seeing its bill or speed or something, then you shot too soon. You didn't have any visual focus, so I think we can answer your question with efficient gun mount buys you time. And then once you will use the work moving with the target that you're shooting at, you need to look at it and let that thing clear up so you can see the detail of what it is that you're shooting at such as the color or the white on its neck, et cetera. And Nick, when I was up there shooting with Anthony, it was a certain target that was pretty fast, and I was having trouble. I said, Anthony, you shoot it. I handed him my gun. I said, you shoot it. Let me watch your shoot. And I stood back and watched him shoot it. And it looked like he went into slow motion. I mean, he was, it was so efficient. And he's shooting a gun he's never shot before. And he doesn't shoot my gun at all. You know, he broke them both and it was just like in slow motion. All because all the fundamentals were there. He's done it so many times. And he was looking at the target. He wasn't paying any attention to anything else. He was just focused on that target. Yeah, I mean, I think, I think if we take what Will just said there with fundamentals, et cetera, and it's a part that we would, you know, we would strive to kind of be an overwhelming theme in the book, you know, and we say it well in there. I always say, look, anything that you're going to do, you might as well put in a little effort to do it correctly and do it right, you know, and whether that's just making more efficient and ethical shot on a bird, or go home with a couple more. You know, there's a way to shoot a shotgun. And it can get very complicated if you want to make it complicated in clay targets. But for hunting, we've simplified it. We've covered all the fundamentals. There's a way to do it, right? And you can be a lot better and you can take home more birds and have more fun and capitalize on the opportunities if they happen to be limited. And it starts with those fundamentals and it's, it's no different. The best analogy that I try to just relate to people every single day that I'm out on the range teaching people is they're in any profession. Okay, there's an expert that has a way to do it that even other people within that same profession learn from and mimic and make their, make their business better or make become a better lawyer or better doctor or better carpenter or better plumber. It's always evolving, right? There's, you know, they don't, they don't do things in construction and carpentry the same way today as they did 40 years ago. They have different ways and different, some things are the same. The fundamentals don't change, but certain things adapt. So, you know, the advice I give people to open their mind a little bit in terms of, you know, if you're listening to this and you go, oh, I'm a good hunter. Okay, I kill my birds. Well, you know, I'm going to, I'll agree with you that you're a good hunter if you kill your birds, but I'm not going to agree with you that you know everything about shotgun shooting. So the, you know, use the analogy of, you know, there's a way to do everything. And if you can learn a better way to do it, you're going to have a little bit more fun. And when Will says it looks like Anthony's in slow motion, that's just because there's about 10 things that are correct that slows the game down and it doesn't feel, you know, as difficult. You know, if I'm, you know, and when you do those things correctly and you get a little bit of practice and things come together, you build skill, you know, it's a skill set, like, like any other discipline, you know, if I'm an amateur carpenter. Okay, I can't drive nails in like a guy that drives nails in every day. Why? Because I don't do it as much. Okay, so if you can get out and practice a little bit, you practice your gun mount at your house. You're going to take your gun mount from a level that it is to a higher skill set through some repetition. So, what's been said is that the shooting needs to be somewhat subconscious, or really subconscious is sporting claims, but when you're even mounting on a, you're getting rid of the dogs ported. You don't know if it's a woodcock or a grass is fixing to flush. And you got those fundamentals so down pat that you don't think about them. You don't think about mounting the gun you don't think the bird flushes so you go, okay, mount the gun finger on the trigger you don't do any of that. It's subconscious and I'll use the analogy, the analogy of the hood of the car when you're driving is great. Another analogy is typing. I don't know how many listers out there, how many of y'all type, I type. And I don't type terribly fast, but I'm a type two or three pages and I never, I never look at the keys. And I never had my toe my finger, go to the A, go to the B, go to the C. It's subconscious because I've done it so much. The brain, the muscle memory, the brain, the hands, they know what to do and know where the keys are. Same thing, that's what Anthony is so good at. He is the most incredible competitor and shooting and he puts everything on subconscious and all the fundamentals are there. So the Joker is hard to beat. It's all there is to it. And if you hunt with him, you better unload his gun because of these shoots you ain't going to be shooting at what he was shooting at. It's dead. Anthony, when you, if you're on an upland hunt and you say we got a dog on point and you're walking in. Is there anything going through? Do you have any kind of mantra or anything? Are you really just soft focus walking in and joining? I mean, it goes back to Will said, I mean, for me, I've done it, you know, for so long, the, you know, the part that I'm going to be doing in the field is just trying to study where the area where I think the bird might be coming from and then use us like a type of vision that you can see movement and the gun mount part and the stance part, you know, there's a big, there's an upland hunting. You can get in a lot of trouble having your feet pointed in the wrong direction. Right. So I might still be a little bit aware of that, you know, making sure that I can turn and step, you know, one direction or the other direction. But it goes back to if we can get you studying these ideas that you need to do and then put them into use over time, they're going to get more and more second nature. And you're really going to reach your full potential when they gotten, you know, some of that consciousness to what to tell yourself what to do behind you. But when you're learning these things and you're a hunter that's kind of adopt some of these fundamentals that we're going to teach you, you're going to have to think about them a little bit. And you could miss a shot or two that you used to hit thinking about what you're supposed to do, but over time, they're going to come together and it's going to pay off. And that's one of the reasons why we recommend if you can get out on a clay target range. No doubt, get any because that's where you build that subconscious. That's where you build that skill set. I mean, if you want to get better at hitting flushers, get out on a clay range and see if the manager of the clay range will set the trap up for you in the woods where there's several trees and you've got to focus on the target and ignore the trees and practice that, you know, rise and going away from practice that shot. It's amazing what you could learn shooting sporting clays. It'll make you a lot better hunter, a lot better shot in the woods. Yeah, that's a place to work through some of that stuff and practice because, like you said, Anthony, in the field, every presentation is unique and different than you can't hit replay and you can't throw another target so you can get lost in that stuff. But for the bird hunters, what do you that want to practice and go to the clay course? Do you have a favorite? Is it go to the ski range, go to the sporting clays course, shoot the targets you want to shoot? What do you tell people that want to get to be a better bird shot? I mean, the first thing is whatever you have as an option around you that is accessible to you is probably your best option, right? You know, so anything's better than nothing, right? So sporting clays give you the most variety and it also gives you the most, you know, difference between basic shots, challenging shots, going away shots, incoming shots, crossing shots, and the difficulty level varies. So if you say, man, I normally hit all the stuff that's inside 25 yards, but I need to practice, you know, a 35 yard duck crossing outside my decoys or a 35 yard crossing dove, you can probably find one of those on the clay range or ask them management there. And they'll say, yeah, go over to this station. We got a crossing tower shot and you can work on that. So that's a good option. This sporting clays gives us a lot of variety. Ski field gives you all the different angles, right? So it teaches you the going away birds on stations one, two, six, and seven. You don't have to lead very much. You get in the middle of station four on the ski field, you learn you have to get the gun in front of the target to hit it. Trap field is mostly going away. I'm not going to do you a lot of good practice on a trap range if you're getting ready for for dove season, but it would be better than nothing right you're pulling the trigger you're moving the gun you can work on your stance, et cetera. You know, if you're shooting upland birds and you're on the 16 yard line and trap and you had the gun down, be great practice, you know, shooting pheasants in the field or quail, you know, any type of partridge or grouse, et cetera. So the trap field could be great, but it's not going to be a good example of a, you know, a decoying duck. So try to find a shot that simulates, you know, what you think you'd be hunting, you know, that season or coming up. And then if you don't have a lot of options, you know, whatever, whatever you have is better than nothing, you know, a hand trap at your buddy's farm throwing some clays out, pulling the trigger and learning to watch the clay and mount your gun and is going to be very useful. Good deal. Will you're going to sneak up to the grouse woods this year? No, I'm not going to make it to the grouse woods. I'm going to Arizona in December. I got several things going on that kept me from making right plans. So I love the grouse woods. I'm telling you, I'm going to tell you the name of the town, but there's some good, there's some good hunting up there. I might cut it out if you said it anyways, Will. Alright, I got to ask you, Anthony, what's your favorite, if you're going up on hunting tomorrow, what gun are you taking? I would take a 28 gauge Beretta silver pigeon. Beautiful. Will, how about you? I'm probably going to take a 20 gauge Fox. I love to shoot my daddy 16 gauge Fox. He bought it for $10 when he got home from World War II. I cherish that gun. I had it fit for me, had the stocks redone, the stock in the form, redone for me. And it's a little more gun than I like to shoot, but there's something about it. I feel close today when I carry it. That's awesome. Guys, well, this has been a blast. I really appreciate getting a chance to read the book and obviously talk to both of you guys and get some insights and some background on on how the whole thing came together. Where should we send listeners to go buy the book? It's probably on Amazon. I don't know if you got a website that you want people to go to, Will. Anthony's got that for set up. Yeah, so we have two options. The book is available on Amazon type in straight shooting for hunters or my name, Anthony Matarice, Will's name on Amazon. It'll pop right up straight shooting for hunters. And the audio books there too. Right. If you can buy it right there. We have a limited edition hardback book. Real nice like coffee book with a case slamming hardcover. That is on my website. The paperback is on Amazon. On my website is clayshootinginstruction.com. Clayshootinginstruction.com. We've got the case slamming it limited edition book on there. And then you can also, if someone happens to be a, you know, a retailer that wanted to carry the book. You know, on their online store, carry it in a shop or hunting, you know, hunting lodge or a shooting range. You can buy those wholesale. You can buy all the books, the paperback and the case laminate. It's on my website clayshootinginstruction.com. And the case laminates come in a case of 30 and the paperback's come in a case of 42. So you might have some listeners that are, you know, highly involved in the shooting and hunting community and they have the opportunity to make a few bucks themselves selling them. Absolutely. Yep. Good deal. And Anthony, you've got, you have, you have a video course too, don't you? On your website? It's right on there. Yep. So you can watch the course. It's a, you can get it a DVD or a Blu-ray, but it's also on online streaming platform that you just log in and watch on any device. And I'm going to tell you, Anthony sits in front of the camera and talks about certain shots. And then he goes and some of them he'll actually shoot it sometimes at night. So you have really good visuals of what he's talking about. But Anthony is extremely articulate. And if you will listen to what he says and just maybe back it up and listen to it again, he gives you, he gives you all this knowledge that he has acquired and figured out over 30 years of shooting sport and clays. And it is amazing to hear him put it in those words. Oh, now I understand what he's talking about. Now I understand how to do that. So there's a lot, there's a lot to it. But all of it helps you in the field. I promise you. Absolutely. Well, like I said, I appreciate it. I will include links to everything these guys laid out in the show notes. So listeners can find it all there. And I just want to say thanks again to both of you guys. Two of the greats in your areas of expertise. It was my pleasure and my honor to have you both on the birdshot podcast. Thank you for doing it. Thank you for writing the book. And I wish you guys the best of luck the rest of the fall. Thank you Nick. You're awesome. Thank you. Thank you guys. You bet guys. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the birdshot podcast presented by Onyx Hunt final rise and up and gun company. Don't forget to rate, review, subscribe and share. And if you really love the show and want to contribute above and beyond what you already do by listening, you can sign up at patreon.com/birdshot. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you on the next episode of the birdshot podcast. When it comes to maximizing time in the uplands, without fail, Onyx Hunt is my most valuable tool. 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We've got professional retriever trainers and upland bird dog trainers from across the country and world sharing their tips and tricks and great stories to help you and your dog get ready for the season. We'll see you there.