“Form,” like “taste,” is a very definite thing to every one of us, but
probably no two persons have ever quite agreed about either. Shooting
“form” is just as definite: we know for ourselves what is, and what is
not, good form instantly; but again it is not an easy thing to agree
upon in the abstract, although in practice when two men discuss another
they will not be unlikely to agree that he is either “good form” or “bad
form.” There appears to be no half-way house—it is always either good or
bad. Form as it is generally understood has not much to do with success,
but is more a matter of appearance. If a shooter at a covert side
planted his gun at his shoulder when the drive began and so kept it
until a pheasant came over into line, and then he let off, his form
would not be either good or bad—it would be too uncommon for either; too
ridiculous to be seen, in fact; but it is precisely that which pigeon
shooters and clay bird men mostly adopt. It is outside the question of
game killing altogether.
No kind of shooting requires more sharpness of eye than grouse driving,
and when the gun is at the shoulder, engaged with one bird, we all know
how easy it is for others to slip by unobserved, and then we get just as
bad a reputation as if we had blazed away and missed.
Obviously, quickness of perception has much influence on success, but
whether it has anything to do with form is doubtful. It is curious that
what we all agree is the best possible style for the second barrel is
the worst possible for the first. The man who takes down his gun between
the double shot is a fumbler, unless he has to turn round; but the man
who keeps his gun at the shoulder for the first shot is worse. The
reason it is bad form in one case and good in another may not be quite
the same as why it leads to success in one case and not in the other.
Perhaps an appearance of ease has some near relationship to good form,
and ease itself has a nearer affinity to success with the gun. It would
tire out the arms to practise in game shooting the pigeon shooter’s
methods, on whose arms the strain in the “present” position lasts only
until he calls “pull.” The strain in game shooting would last long, and
it would certainly happen that when, at last, game did come within
range, the arms of the shooter would be too cramped to deal properly
with it. “Form,” therefore, appears in this instance to have some
relationship to success. But this is far from being always so. The
author remembers one case of a young man who did not kill much, but of
whom it was said it was more pleasant to see him miss than to see others
kill. This was in shooting over dogs, when good style greatly depended
upon “wind” and “stamina” to get over and shoot from any rough foothold.
There is “form” in walking also, and when stamina counts there can be no
good style in shooting without good easy walking. Look at the different
angles of body in which men go up and come down hills. In the ascent
some people bend their backs over their foremost toes, and progress,
truly, but they have to “right” themselves when the flush occurs, and
before they have done it the bird has flown 20 yards. Again, in going
down hill some men throw back their bodies, and if they have suddenly to
stop they again have to “right” themselves before they can shoot with
success.
But there is something worse than bad shooting style, there is bad
sporting form; and coming down hill often brings it obviously to the man
who is walking behind, and sees the leading man’s gun carried on the
shoulder, pointing dead at the pit of the follower’s stomach. That
cannot be avoided when the gun is carried on the shoulder in Indian
file; but it never ought to be so carried then, and in the writer’s
opinion, at least, is a deadly disregard of “good form.” In this case
probably there will be no disagreement by any who from this cause have
ever felt their “hearts in their mouths.” Guns can be jarred off, and
the rough ground on a moorland down-hill path often occasions very
sudden jars.
There are other shooters who always seem to be at the ready, whether
they are going up hill or down; whether they are jumping from peat hag
to peat hag; or, in the bogs, from one rush clump to another, to save
themselves from sinking in the intervening soft ground. Balance has a
great deal to do with it, and some there are who can shoot straight even
when the foothold is rotten and is giving way under them. It is clear
that good form requires that the performer should be able to shoot from
any position the rise happens to find him in. If he must get the left
foot forward and the weight of the body upon it, he will not be as quick
as others who can get off their guns no matter where their feet may
happen to be.
This seems to be all a matter of balance, and the nearer we imitate
cat-like equilibrium, and not only keep our heads uppermost, but keep
them cool in all circumstances, the more surely shall we get our guns
off at the right moment.
The latest phase of shooting is to make it as easy as possible to
accomplish the difficult. Paradoxically, we have our boarded floor in
our grouse butts, racks to keep the guns off the peat, and shelves upon
which to distribute our cartridges, and we place our grouse butts to
favour the guns. Then, having made everything as easy as possible for
the sportsman, we now attempt to make the birds as hard to kill as wings
and the wind can make them. We send over the pheasants as far out of
reach as we can make them fly; we take particular care to send the
grouse down wind if we can; and when we have got our guns swinging yards
in front of the streaks of brown lightning, then we are especially
pleased if we can bring off an up-wind drive in which the birds can
just, and only just, beat up against the gale, and so defeat the guns
again by the new variation of flight; one in which any sort of lead on
the birds, any kind of swing, will have no other effect than shooting
yards in front of the game, and perhaps in turning it back to fly over
the drivers’ heads and miles down wind beyond.
Some of the most killing shooters are those who need ample time; those
who get on their game 100 yards away, come with it as it approaches,
then jerk forward and pull trigger at the instant, and never require to
look round to see if their bird is dead—they know it is. The critic may
think this terrible slow business; and so it is. What, he will ask,
would happen if four came abreast and the gunner wants all that time for
one bird? The critic’s opinion would be just if he watched and saw that
the slow and sure performer did not, in fact, have time to deal with,
let us say, two pheasants abreast without turning round. But to assume
that a shooter cannot be quick because he is slow when quickness is not
required, assumes too much. The “bang-bang,” in spite of expectations,
may be so quick, from the apparently slow and sure man, that both birds,
coming together, turn over and race each other through the air to the
ground not 10 yards apart.
But it is not good style, this poking and following; it may be very
admirable bag-making, and is so when the quick second barrel just
described is added, but not when each barrel seems to require equally
long to get off. But it is not pretty; it cannot by any stretch of
imagination, even in the best built and most graceful of men or women
performers, be regarded as good style. The gun that goes up to the spot
and is off the instant it touches the shoulder represents the best of
good style. But the author doubts whether it always means the most
success in killing. At any rate, the highest exponents of the art do not
invariably adopt this plan; probably when the top man is at the top of
his form he can shoot in this way, with as great success as he can in
any other: but that is the point. Who is invariably at the top of his
form? The writer would back a great shot to disguise the lack of it from
everyone but himself at any time,—him he cannot deceive,—he knows in his
heart that sometimes he is a fumbler, but nevertheless one who has such
mastery over the many manners of shooting, that if he cannot shoot to
the right spot in one way he will assuredly be able to do it in another,
provided he has a bit more time. At the top of his form he will be aware
that he can rise to any occasion; and the less time he has, the more
brilliant will be his work, the less time he will require. He will be
able to bring tall pheasants down, even those that only show 6 feet
through the gaps in the fir trees, with as much certainty as if he had
them outside and began his aim 100 yards away. But that represents his
very best; he cannot do it every day, whoever he may be, and whatever
reputation he may have to sustain him and to be sustained.
At covert side it is difficult to be always quite awake; the first few
birds may be slovenly taken, and so the shooter may go on until a
difficulty rouses him to exertion, and he becomes fully awake without
recognising the process of arousing. In grouse shooting over dogs the
same differences of form are seen, and others also. One shooter puts up
his gun at the bird fluttering at his feet, waits until it gets 30 yards
away, and kills it dead, and he may be quick enough with the second
barrel. Another waits with his gun down until the birds are a proper
distance away, then his “crack—crack” takes the farther off bird with
the first barrel and the nearer next, and they tumble on top of each
other. The one is “form,” the other is equally good bag-filling; but
then these are _not_ the days of pot-hunting, and the difference between
the two methods is as great as between the flint and steel and the
modern single trigger.
There are more differences than the mere art of killing, and the manner
of its doing. In walking up to a dog’s point, for instance, the
sportsman and the mere gunner proclaim their different “forms” as wide
as the poles apart. The one walks like the crack man across country
rides, wide of the “dogs,” perhaps one will be 25 to 35 yards to one
side or other; another man may walk right at the dog and level with his
head as he draws on, until perhaps he consequently loses the scent; or
turns and rodes the birds right between the gunner’s legs, or would if
he opened them and failed to get out of the way. In such circumstances
the dog needs no help in pointing out bad form in sportsmanship,
although he will not pass an opinion on gunning. The dogs that turned
tail and went home, because of the frequent missing, existed, it is
said, in the early part of last century. But in those days they had not
instituted spring field trials, in which dogs do their work as well as
in the shooting season, and in the total absence of the gun and the
slaying of game.
[Illustration:
WARTER PRIORY. LORD DALHOUSIE.
]