nice day out learning.

[darren watson 14]

eyup chaps, I finally got a bit of time off from the other half on a glorious day so went for a bit of a mooch about to see what i could see, which turned out to be not a lot! I had one shot at a long range (for me) pigeon that was pecking around at some fallen crab apples but missed as I was at the top of a hill and the wind was getting up a bit. with bugger all for cover to hide behind i knew they wouldn't be back so i went back down this hill to a patch of trees out of the wind that i have seen swarming with magpies, with the intention practising shooting at longer ranges than my zero and maybe bagging a maggie or two if the chance arose. the magpies seemed to be enjoying a tree that was in front of a small garden center so they were out of the question. onto some targets then. i found all sorts of crap lying around that would do for targets, bottle tops etc and set them out on sticks at 25m,(zero) 30m, 35m and 40m. Chairgun (and some of Zini's indispensible video advice) had been telling me that i needed to have my scope set on x6.5 to be able to use my mil-dots to hit targets at these distances so i set about shooting, from a prone position, on some nettles. first bottle top was a goner. the second one went with half a dot holdover. i missed the third one so i adjusted my position to be a bit comfier and take some weight off my chest (whilst trying to remember as much of Pianoman's thread on prone shooting as possible) and lo and behold away went the 35m bottle top. the 40m target was a small plastic bottle like the ones you get shampoo in in hotel rooms and after a few misses i managed to hit it with 2 dots holdover and went on to hit it another 4 times out of a magazine of 8 as i was still occasionally missing the 40m target i went back to practising the other targets until i could hit them every single time. whilst i was doing this I spotted pair of large birds flying together and swooping down to feed, they had a low to high pitched ascending call, had flat tips to their wings, which had white bands across their undersides and a thin white ring around their necks. feeling very satisfied with myself having extended my comfortable shooting range by 10-15 meters ,i packed up my now empty rifle and set off home. on the way back i noticed some more of these birds i didn't recognise out in a field so sticking to some dead ground i attempted to get closer to them for a better look. i got to the brow of this dead ground to find about 20 of them all sat around/feeding so I got out the hip flask of spiced rum, poured a shot and just sat there observing until some of the birds spotted me and flew into the air, circling me to check me out.

It was at this moment that I realised that just sat there, all alone having not even killed anything, filled with the self-satisfaction of bettering my skills and surrounded by the beauty of Sheffields countryside and with only a tenner to my name in the world, I was the happiest man alive.

 

edited to say: sorry about lack of pics but my phone had died, and i didn't miss it in the slightest.

Edited March 27, 2011 by darren watson

[19powell90 89]

Beautiful just beautiful

[secretagentmole 1,701]

Well done, if you take your time you will find your quarry comes to you ( :laugh: ), I had to stalk mine today to get the best bunny! But I managed it, got a good line on it to! No cash on me either, but watching stoats fight rabbits live was much better than any crap on the Sky box today!

[zini 1,939]

A lovely little write up there buddy.

 

Im glad that my chairgun demo assisted you well.

 

Si

[gurtwurz 792]

quality darren, thats what getting out theres all about mate.

 

really enjoyed the write up mate, nice one buddy

 

all the best, wurz

[fry 209]

top read

[Sweeney-Todd 208]

Hi Darren.

 

Very nice post mate,good to hear from a contented man, not all about the bag is it mate

 

 

Bill.