Stan,
I seem to have riled up a Pre-Mounting advocate.
Never said that the game should be limited to "casual bird-hunting sporting clays shooters". I'd simply much prefer a game that requires that all of the shooting mechanics had to be mastered, including the gun mount.
Yes. the choice of Pre-Mounting or not, "has nothing to do with what the game of sporting now is". That's the issue. It has simplified the game and made it such that people can now break more targets with less skill.
I agree with this. I think the arguments about what sells and therefore drives participation are critical, but I also agree that it would be more fun for me if there were some sort of formalized "low-gun" class or whatnot to ENCOURAGE mastery of one more element of shooting. I have no problem with needing to appeal to people and with making it fun for people to pick up the sport...but I don't like the fact that those who would choose to incorporate the full meal deal in their shooting (I.e. adding the mount) are penalized and therefore discouraged. I enjoy sporting because it is as close to mastery of total shotgun shooting as I can get...as opposed to skeet and trap, which are great fun but to me are really more about learning the game than learning to shoot. I thoroughly believe in "if you build it they will come", the corollary being "if you don't build it, they won't come". If you have a class for it, people will try it and they can compete or test themselves (which I think is healthy even in an informal, fun way) against others who wish to add this component of shooting to their repertoire...but if there is no venue for it, then it encourages those who might otherwise aim high
ER to seek the lowest common denominator, i.e. do what everyone else is doing and mount the gun before calling for the bird. End of the day my gun mount is to me an integral part of shotgunning, and I wish it were a bigger part of the games I played with my shotgunning--it's not a question of easier or harder, just a question of missing it. (and I second Mike's delayed-pull lament)
