Shooting Instinctively to Take More Doves with Barry Kelly of the Willows Sporting Clays in Tunica, Mississippi
Editor’s Note: Barry Kelly is a master class shooter and the manager of The Willows Sporting Clays and Hunting Center in Tunica, Mississippi, the site of the 2010 U.S. Open Sporting Clays Championship and the 2010 Mississippi State Sporting Clays Championship. Kelly can help you shoot better – especially with dove season starting.
 Question: Barry, what shotshell do you recommend for shooting doves?
Kelly: Let’s go back to the professional quarterback who has to depend on that football to reach the receiver, when he throws it. This quarterback won’t buy a rubber football or the cheapest football he can find to use in Sunday’s game. He’ll pick the best football - one he has the most confidence in and that has a proven track record of performance. The same is true when you’re considering shotshells for dove hunting. Accuracy with a shotshell is accomplished by the pattern the shotshell delivers. The best way to get the most-uniform pattern is to shoot a shell with a uniform wad.  When you’re taking live game, you want to have as dense a shot pattern as you can and still have the knock-down power you need to effectively bring the game down. So, your high-powered target loads designed for delivering those types of patterns to clay targets will be much-more effective than the hunting dove loads you can buy, and a quality brand of target loads will cost about the same as a box of discounted dove loads.
Question: Which shells do you recommend, and why?
Kelly: If you’re shooting an over-and-under or a side-by-side shotgun, I recommend 3-1/4-drams of powder and 1-1/8-ounces of shot. The recoil from the automatic shotgun will take some of the recoil out of the shell. If you’re shooting a 12-gauge automatic, I recommend 3/4-ounce of shot.
 Question: What size shells do you recommend for doves?
Kelly: I prefer a No. 7.5, because it has more knock-down power than a No. 8.
Question: In other words, Barry, you probably can pay about the same amount of money for a box of quality target loads as you’ll pay for a box of inexpensive dove loads, and you’ll get a better shell that will pattern better and help you take more doves than if you’d buy the dove loads, right?
 Kelly: That’s right. The target loads constructed for clay-target shooters are built better, deliver better patterns and enable hunters to take more doves than the inexpensive loads that have the picture of the dove on the box that everyone usually purchases when they go dove hunting.
To learn more about The Willows Sporting Clays and Hunting Center, click here, call Barry Kelly at (662) 357-3154, or email him at bkelly3@harrahs.com.
Tomorrow: Barry Kelly of The Willows Explains How You Can Learn to Shoot Doves Better
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