Although I have preached this rule before in my blog, today's match was a friendly reminder of just how critical it is to keep your head in the game. It is said, silhouette is not a match with 40 shots but instead it is 40 one shot matches put together. The only shot that matters is the next shot.
For reasons I do not fully understand, bullets were not going where I was breaking on the animal. Some testing of the upper and lower bounds finally gave me the answer I was looking for. I was high so break lower than usual. It took 6/10 chickens and 6/10 pigs to come to that final conclusion. I cleaned the last 4 pigs when I became confident of the final diagnosis. It should not have taken that long to figure out the problem but that is for another post.
Armed with this information I zeroed in on the turkey's leg. 12 out of 20 on the short line is typically terminal. But, I was not ready to give up and my new POA on the first turkey was a hit. I just kept doing the same thing. Good shots on the leg and they fell. 9 out of 10 fell. That gave me a small cause for hope. If I could get 9 turkeys certainly I could get 10 rams. Held on the armpit of the ram and they fell. 9 for 10 fell. What looked to be a disaster turned into a fair showing with 30 downed animals. I stared at the #10 ram wondering if I had another 9 in me having already missed #4 ram. By that point I was getting worked up. I knew I had already taken one sloppy shot on the rams and missed. Time was running out and I needed a perfect break. I reset even though time was short. To take a tired, sloppy shot was as good as not getting the shot off at all. I worked hard and told myself to FOCUS and use my time wisely. Thank goodness the 10th ram fell because I ended up tying with a 30. One less animal and I would have been first looser.
Lesson for the day, don't ever give up even when you feel like it is time for the showers. You just never know what lies ahead or whether others shooters could be having a bad day too!
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