Stan, Yes, hanging on your first shot is a problem that I have tussled with for years. Even when I was professionally coaching and telling my clients to get their first shot off earlier, I still hung on my own shots!
The last two years I have made a conscious effort to get that first barrel off as quick as safety and aim allows and use my tight choke first. The effects have been impressive with my shots to kill ration getting to 3:2 by the end of this season just finished. Furthermore, a vast majority of my birds were killed with that first barrel, very few runners and no smashed birds ('feather pillow jobs' as we call them!). Sadly the opportunities for Right & Left's are rare on my modest shooting days.
The frustrating thing is that I know in my mind that I can kill the incomer much farther than I do. The shot is hitting most vulnerable parts of the bird .......... the head, neck, the front portion of the body, and the main wing bones. You know that, Toby, as well as I do. So, why is it so hard to overcome the urge to wait just a second or two longer? In Cordoba I could eventually make myself shoot the first so far out that when I killed the second it fell in front of me. That's a pretty long shot on the first, if you think about it, because the doves are probably cruising at about 50 mph, maybe more, and they fall a good long distance from where they're hit.
It is the biggest quandary I face in wingshooting. If killing a double on incomers wasn't so attractive to me I wouldn't care where the first bird was shot. But, there is nothing as satisfying, in the kinds of wingshooting I have done, as taking a true double on incoming birds and having the second fall in front of you.
SRH
