Why You Should Shoot Your Rifle As Much As Possible
How many of us pull the rifle out two days before the annual deer hunt starts? Yeah, I raised my hand too, I’m just as guilty as you. I’ve been known to do that a few times. However I always try to shoot my rifle as much as possible especially when the snow melts. I’m not much of a fan of the snow. I know snows provides some great hunting but I can’t stand it. As soon as the snow melts though, I try to pull my rifle out of it’s hiding place and head to the local desert for a day of shooting fun.
Last year I wasn’t able to shoot my rifle until September due to a leg surgery. It’d been since my 2009 elk hunt since I’d even pulled the trigger on a rifle. Let me just say how rusty I was and sad it was. I usually pride myself on being a decent shot but for the life of me I couldn’t shoot the broad side of a barn that day. I only had my target out about 200 yards and it was a fairly good sized target at that too. I was coming within 6 or so inches but I just couldn’t drop that target. It was very frustrating to say the least. I was very disappointed in myself.
I’ve been hunting with some type of a rifle since I was 7 years old. Way back when I got my first BB gun. So I’d learned about breath control and how to judge distances from a young age. This day though, you’d think it was my first time shooting any type of a rifle. As I was sitting there with my Remington 30.06 in hand looking through my Leupold 3X9 scope, I though for a moment. It then hit me that I was way out of practice. It’d been almost a year since I’d shot anything. It was at that moment that I truly learned how important it is to practice shooting your rifle as much as possible during the off season.
Luckily for me I didn’t get the opportunity to take a shot at any elk or deer last year or who knows I might have missed. And missing an elk or deer makes me even more angry and disappointed with myself than missing a simple target at 200 yards.
My advice for everyone is to go shooting as much as you can during the off season. Practice really does make perfect. If you have young kids who love to hunt, take them out as much as you can also. If not for the practice then just to spend quality time with them. Some of the best memories from when I was kid was going out with my dad hunting and just simply out shooting at nothing. Although shooting the carp at the local lake was seriously fun. Nothing like popping a few carp to help the local native species.
Get out your rifle, go have fun and shoot something. You’ll be glad you did.