What do you do with your eyes?

I am a 1-eyed shooter, unfortunately, and for the last couple years I have been struggling with the apparent reality that I can not soft focus on "nothing" like many really good trapshooters recommend. At least not consistently. I will get into a zone at a certain club for a week or a month and think I've finally learned how to gaze softly in front of the trap and pick up the bird quickly but then I go to a club with a dramatically different background and shoot 5-7 birds below my average. So, at least for now, I have relegated myself to focusing on something specific off in the distance chosen carefully to put my line of sight where I need it to be. I lock onto this spot before mounting my gun and keep looking at it until the bird catches my eye. This requires a very disciplined gun mount of course because you aren't checking bead alignment before calling. This method is a little unorthodox but at least it keeps my eyes consistently still and seems to reduce the wild variations in my scores. Even if my chosen spot happens to be 80 yards away my quiet eye picks up the bird reasonably fast and my focus snaps back quickly to see it. It has occurred to me that the reason this works for me may simply be that it prevents me from inadvertently bead-checking. Or maybe it's something else.

Do any of you "spot focus" like I do? If not, how do you stay consistent while softly focusing on nothing? Don't changes in lighting conditions and backgrounds hinder your ability to consistently do this?

-Gary

 

That is how I was taught to shoot. I'm also a one eye shooter and when I was taking lessons from Chuck Dryke he had me hard focus on something just above my barrel. When I don't do it I don't do well at all, when I do it as instructed everything works well.

I have been told by more than one Big Dog Shooter that it is the wrong way to do things but I have won our state's HAA and Handicap trophies , so I must have been doing something right on those days.

 

I have known some good shooters who look out to the horizon like you are describing.
It is not my preferred method but confess to having used it when all else fails.

Storm

 

I'm a one eyed shooter. I don't find the soft focus thing works for me as I tend to drift off into the far distance. I find the most effective thing for me is to focus on the area of the trap house where I will see the target emerge. When I manage to keep doing this, the targets look bigger and slower than when I allow my focus to drift. Now, if I could just keep my head on the stock ...

 

Beretta687EELL: Not sure I understand. I mean, what's the difference between "the soft focus thing" and "focus on the area of the trap house where I will see the target emerge." Are you saying you actually look at the roof of the house? Or above it? I look above it but need to focus on a clump of grass, a tree branch or a dandelion -- something.

-Gary

 

Sorry, Gary, I knew what I meant (LOL). I need to look at something or my focus drifts far away. I look at the far edge of the trap house roof.

 

I am a 2 eyed shooter and I do it completely different, I look at the ground about 30 feet in front of me at an old wad strictly for concentration, I am self taught on this, for your eyes to be on infinity/distant focused, that is all the further I need to see where my eyes are not needing to adjust to infinity, that's me personally as a 2 eyed shooter. In the 60s it kept me from attempting to read the targets, and I still do it today 55 years later.
Dr.longshot

 

30 feet is 10 yards. So you're looking at the ground BEHIND the traphouse? That's pretty funny.

-Gary

 

I just mount the gun and look out there for the bird. It will show up. Then smoke it.

 

Well I guess there is something to be said for simplicity.

For me though, some sort of mental routine is necessary. Otherwise I start "thinking" which invariably leads to missing.

-Gary

 

I think there are more one eye shooters than we know about. I have watched shooters on the like and some that say they are 2 eye shooters actually close one eye just when they call for the target. I am a 1 eye shooter as I am left eye dominate and shoot right handed and too old to work on the stuff they have out there to help. I enjoy the game the way it is so why not.

 

Yeah, lots of people talk about "teaching yourself" to shoot 2-eyed but many proponents of that concept have no clue about how severe the visual cross-dominance problem can be for some people, or how it recurs at the worst possible moments under pressure -- sometimes without the shooter even realizing they are shooting six feet left of the target (for a righty). It would be totally wonderful to hold high and peripherally see beneath my barrel to catch the target coming out but one good talk with Nora after a week of wildly fluctuating scores educated me that this is not necessarily a requirement to shoot good scores. Trap is greatly a 2-dimensional game, so the need for depth perception is reduced. If you can shoot 2-eyed and reliably keep it working under pressure and fatigue, that it undoubtedly ideal. But don't let somebody with no grasp of the wide range of potential crossfiring severity tell you anyone can "will" themselves into shooting 2-eyed. In many cases, especially for women, that notion is BS and trying to fight reality is a total waste of time and money.

Phil Kiner, as many of you know, is among the world's preeminent experts on cross visual cross-dominance. He is also one of the most accessible and willing-to-help Big Dogs you will ever encounter. A genuine good guy and selfless ambassador of the sport.

-Gary

 

Although I have to adjust my hold points for wind, background and ambient light, this method is taking my scores up.

http://www.xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/threads/hold-points-and-focal-points.223920/

 

What he is saying in video with the exception of the hold points is straight out of Frank Little's book. This is what both Little and Dryke said for one eyed shooters. Not much new other then very creative plagiarism

 

New on this site, old and gone from that other site. I tried one eyed shooting and shot a 25 first time out but as time went by it got worse so I went back to two eyed and the target looked like pie plates and I shot well for a while and slowly went back to OK. I think a lot of it for me is concentration or the lack of it after a while.

 

" Just look REEEALLY HARD at the target!"

 

I am a one eye shooter and agree with Beretta 687EELL and like to focus on the area just above where the target leaves the house. If I can do this consistently it works fine. Still working on it though. Keeping my head on the stock is my other issue.

 

Gary, if I rolled out a ribbon down the walkway, over the trap and on out into the field, it would be a true straight away if the target followed that line? Looking down an imaginary line will keep the gremlins off your shoulder in keeping the mind occupied! Look at any spot along the line and keep the guns barrel/receiver from blocking your pointing eye from seeing the target leave the roofline FIRST! Don't allow your off eye to get the first look at it!

The imaginary ribbon trick works on posts 2,3 and 4. 1 and 5 use the center of the target flight triangle as your eye hold yet be able to see the target leave with your pointing eye first. Gun hold doesn't matter much as you have lots of time to catch any target

HAP

 

I started out as a one eyed shooter and switched to two at the end of my second year.now 20years later if I try 1 it looks like I am looking down a tunnel. I use a form of soft focus I look down my gun to make sure my sight picture is right and thin switch to soft focus and look for the target.

 

From what I understand is your eyes will focus faster in then out so with that I try to focus beyond the trap.

 

Ditto

 

Two eyed shooter here. Soft focus out over the house. If there's a strong breeze in my face my hold point goes up a bit. Just the reverse if the breeze is over my back.

 

one-eyed shooter here.

I focus straight above the gun near where the target becomes a clear and whole target instead of a streak. My hold is just below the top lip of the trap house but will adjust for wind as PatMiles stated in the above post.

 

Brad's the man on this subject!

I just look in the right area. Mount the gun. Don't move ur eyes. Call for the target.

One eyed shooters do the same thing but the gun is on the roof.

Some guys bring the barrel up from the bottom after there eyes are in the right spot! A foot above the trap house wide vision so they can see all the trap house. Kinda like a 9 box ring.

 

I do the EXACT same thing and am a one eyed shooter. I focus just above the lid a foot maybe. During a Nora Ross clinic she advised her class as a one eyed shooter..."one eyed shooters need to see the target ASAP, if you are to high above the house you have let that target go that much further before picking it up"

 

Gary,
I started shooting in 1975, one eyed. For 20 years I shot off and on, all one eyed. Then one of my hunting friends notice I was shooting one eyed and he told me how much more fun and conformable I would be if I shot with both eyes opened. When I went clay shooting, they all said they shoot with both eyes open. So I did some real soul searching. Then I had to quite shooting because of real bad back problems, then a operation. When I came back 5 years later, I said I was going to shoot with both eyes opened no mater how many birds I missed. Any by golly after about 6 months later I was back shooting real good scores. I just had to make sure my gun was mounted properly. Now it's just natural, high or low mount. Now I get to see the scenery and birds a lot earlier and clearer and my field of view is much more. I can't believe I went that long shooting one eyed. To each his own. Good Luck