Shooting Instinctively to Take More Doves with Barry Kelly of the Willows Sporting Clays in Tunica, Mississippi
Day 4: Barry Kelly of The Willows Explains the Biggest Problem Dove Hunters Have
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’s the biggest problem dove hunters have when trying to take doves?
Kelly: They try to look at two things at once – the dove and the barrel of the gun. Instead, they only should look at the dove. When they’re looking at the barrel and the dove, they’re trying to focus on two-different objects in motion at the same time, which is difficult for the brain to handle.
 Question: Then, how do you only focus on the dove and get your gun in the right position?
Kelly: Let me make it easy for you, and maybe help you and other dove hunters understand better. When you’re driving down the road in your automobile, you’re not looking at the front end of your automobile and the road. You’re only looking at the road. When you look at the road, your body makes the needed adjustments to steer the car in the direction you want to go. Let’s move this up one step higher. When a race car driver is running his car over 100 miles an hour, he’s looking at the place he wants to go at that speed, and he’s driving instinctively. He’s not trying to tell the different parts of his body what to do to make the car go where he wants it to go. His brain operates all the parts of his body instinctively, based on what he sees and the body mechanics he’s learned from practice. The driver isn’t slouched down in the seat; he’s sitting in the same position he sits in every time he drives that race car. Shooting correctly and accurately operates the same way. Most dove hunters try to overthink the shot and haven’t learned to trust their instincts to shoot accurately. If you learn the right form and practice the correct way, you consistently can shoot accurately and instinctively. Good fundamentals result in accurate shooting.
 Questions: What are some good fundamentals, Barry?
Kelly: Don’t be afraid to move your feet to get your body in the position to take an accurate shot. If your body’s not in the right position, there’s no way you can shoot accurately. Move the gun with your torso, not with your arms. If you watch a baseball player swing the bat, he doesn’t swing the bat with his arms.  His entire body moves to get the bat to the right place, at the right time, to connect with the ball. When you’re shooting doves, your entire torso has to move to get the gun barrel to the place it needs to be to shoot accurately. You have to move your shoulders as well as your hands and arms. The main aspect of shooting accurately is to hard-focus on the target, whether it’s a quail, a dove or a clay target. Look at that target as hard as you can to see as much of that target as possible, as long as you can. If I throw a baseball to you, you won’t be looking at the glove, you’ll be looking at the ball and then move the glove to intercept the ball.
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: Lessons on Dove Hunting from Shooting Instructor Barry Kelly of Mississippi’s The Willows
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