Trap and skeet shooters: 

There has been an effort made to rope you into the game of sporting clays by allowing you to shoot sporting with a pre-mounted gun. If you do so, and don’t ever learn to shoot with a low gun ready position, you are doing yourself a disservice. You are not doing much for your bird shooting skills, and you are missing out on feeling the primal grace and power of a naturally-made shot. You are also missing out on learning some things that can improve your scores in trap and skeet.

It’s true, there are some shots in sporting clays which are easier to make from a pre-mounted ready position. If there is a tournament placing on the line, and the presentation is one that hugely favors a pre-mounted ready position, I’m not going to quarrel with one of my shooters taking it with a pre-mounted gun. In fact, I teach all of my clients that are interested in being all-around good shotgunners how to shoot from both a low gun and pre-mounted ready position. 

Sometimes I hear guys who shoot strictly low gun say they can’t shoot pre-mounted, or they can’t shoot trap--it’s like a phobia. We slay that dragon--I don’t want any of my competitive shooters having a chink in their armor--thinking that there is something they just can’t do. We slay it by teaching them to apply the same principles that make them good sporting shooters, or able to feed themselves, or drive a car. They may choose to shoot low gun all the time, but it is not a choice made out of fear.

You can use those same universal principles to learn to shoot low gun well, and go back and forth from low gun to pre-mounted seamlessly.

Are you interested?

If you are, you need to pick up a copy of my DVD, A Shotgunning Philosophy, or get together with me for live instruction. You aren’t going to get the same pure message from somebody else, even if they teach a low gun ready position, because the enormous majority of people shooting and teaching low gun really practice it in a compromised, less than natural form. It doesn’t work the same way, and it doesn’t feel the same way.

This DVD will teach you my approach to low gun sporting and bird hunting in detail. You will learn a whole different way of moving and mounting the gun, and how to use your vision... it can have a positive impact on your pre-mounted trap and skeet as well.

If you want to ask questions about how it relates to your trap and skeet shooting, visit and join my blog, The Shotgunners’ Notebook. If your question is not addressed, you may be able to ask one there (if it is working as I’ve hoped) or email me the question. I’ll start a topic for it in the blog, or answer it personally.

In the future, I have plans to produce a DVD which will build on this first DVD, and address applying the principles I believe in to pre-mounted shotgunning. It will illustrate how to go back and forth from a low gun to pre-mounted ready position without having to compromise these principles or change gears to a whole new set of habits and rules.

To order A Shotgunning Philosophy in the DVD format, just click here, and follow the simple directions to order through our Clear Creek Outdoors’ PayPal site.

To order it in the VHS version, click here to purchase through our Clear Creek Outdoors’ PayPal site.

PayPal is quick, easy, and secure! You don’t have to have a PayPal account to use the service; credit and debit cards are accepted. A few minutes of your time, and your video will be on its way! Orders shipped the same day, or the next day, depending on the time of receipt.

If you prefer, you may order by mail. Please send your check, for $84.95 ($74.95 + 10.00 shipping) to the address below. MN residents will need to add sales tax of $5.84, for a total of $90.79.

If you would like to read more about the DVD, click here.

For more information about receiving instruction, just browse the website through the menu above, and you’ll find information about rates and locations and arrangements...

I hope to meet you soon! 

Patrick LaBoone