Teaching to Shoot?

I am not sure that I’m a qualified shooting instructor, but my Daughter is almost 10 and she’s been handling the BB gun with precision.  She has proven to be safe with the BB gun and was encouraged to start learning the shot gun.

This has to be one of the most exciting times; the time of passing on the skills, knowledge, and joy to the next generation.  My father taught me, and my best childhood memories are of hunting and fishing with my dad.  Even if we came home with few, or sometime no birds, it was fun.  Hopefully, I can do the same with my children.

Johnny has a single shot 20 gauge.  With the exchange between families (His father knows my father well), we all learned on this gun.  Johnny’s dad bought it when Johnny was 10, and Johnny learned on it.  Then Johnny’s brother learned on it, then my brother, then me, and then my younger brother.  So the gun has some tradition between the two families.

The problem is that the gun is a beast.  It’s almost as heavy as my gun designed for duck hunting.  It’s also one of those with a hammer, so once the hammer is cocked, it is not safe until you either shoot or un-cock the hammer.  This happens to be hard for small young hands.

But, what the heck?  It was good enough for Johnny’s family and my family, so why wouldn’t it be good enough for my daughter?  A couple of months ago, Johnny brought the gun to camp and let Sydnie take a shot.  With anticipation, Sydnie took the gun and we showed her the stance to use.  “Get your head down, legs apart, one foot forward, hold the gun tight to your shoulder, ……”  She must have been confused by all the instruction we were giving.

Then we asked her to open the gun and insert a shell.  “Now cock it.  OK, I’ll cock it and hand it to you.  Hold it tight to your shoulder, wider stance, put one foot forward, ok, well go ahead and shoot.”  By the second shot she was on target, and we took the gun home for her to practice cocking, un-cocking, and opening the chamber.

Recently, Sydnie carried the gun on a Quail hunt and sat under a tree for squirrels.  No luck with either, but it sure was fun to watch.