It’s not too early to shoot a few practice rounds of skeet. Dove Day tune up will always pay off.

Now that we are less than two months away from the 2014 Dove Day it is time to start thinking about getting your shotgun out and shooting a few practice rounds. I like to shoot skeet because that is where I finally improved my wing shooting but any shotgun sport will help. We know that actually shooting doves can best be done with number 7 1/2 or 8 shot but your skeet shooting can be done with number 8 or 9 and open chokes.

If you have a skeet field to yourself or with a shooting buddy you can use most of your shots choosing passing shots from positions 3, 4 and 5 and then practice incoming shots from stations 1 and 7. Unlike quail and pheasant you won’t be getting too many rising shots like station 7 low house but you will have a few overhead like station 1 high house.

Where I shoot at the Bandera gun range I buy tokens that I use for 26 skeet and with a little help from a puller I can design my own plan to optimize and practice shots that I tend to miss more than others. I am going to try to shoot a case of ten boxes between now and Dove Day and make up for some years when I neglected to practice and spent about half my shots at birds getting back into the groove.