Preparing for your hunt with shooting practice

This article was first published in my email newsletter in May of 2025. I've added it to my website, because I think the information is useful in general, not just for the month it was published. If you'd like to keep up with the latest hunting information, including my open dates and available hunts, you can subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of this page.

I’ve written before about preparing for your hunt. In those earlier emails, I’ve focused on getting fit and getting your equipment ready.

It’s also important that you’ve prepared to shoot.

Most of my hunters are experienced, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve been hunting during the past six months or even the past year. It doesn’t mean that they’ve been hunting with the same gear they'll be carrying when they show up here at the ranch.

In fact, I’d say that a majority of my hunters aren’t completely prepared to take their shots when we get out in the field. It shows up in a few ways. Of course, there’s the obvious one — missing a shot — but there are some less obvious things that I can’t help but notice. Sometimes I can see that they’re uncomfortable setting up their shot, maybe because they’re not used to shooting off of shooting sticks or because they’re shooting with new and unfamiliar gear. Other times, I can see that they’re having some trouble steadying themselves, maybe because they’re excited, maybe because they’ve just hiked up a big hill; either way, their heart is pumping a lot faster than normal.

The key thing to eliminating those problems is to practice, and to do your practicing close to the hunt and while trying your best to replicate a real-world hunting experience; that is, with the same gear you’ll be using on the hunt, the same posture you’ll be shooting from, and the same heart rate you’ll be experiencing when you’re in the field, putting your cross-hairs on a trophy.

If you can do that in advance, you’ll be a lot better prepared in the field. Your muscle memory will kick in and you’ll do things right without having to think about them.

THE BASICS

A couple of mechanical things to start:

First, zero your rifle. I recommend that you zero your rifle at 200 yards. If you do that, you’ll ‘own’ the space from your muzzle out to 300 yards. That will cover you for the hunts we’re doing.

Second, keep in mind what you’re trying to do. There’s a difference between target shooting and hunting. When you’re target shooting you want to be accurate, but you also want to be precise — you want to tightly group your shots. When you’re hunting, you’ve got more leeway. You’ll be aiming for a vital area — a target area on the animal that pretty much guarantees a clean kill. On the big game we’re hunting, that area is eight inches or more in diameter, so you need to be accurate, but you don’t need to be precise. If you put your shot in that vital area, you’ve done your job.

OK, with that background, let’s talk about how you ought to practice.

MAKE YOUR PRACTICE PRACTICAL

The single biggest thing you should do is to make your practice as close as possible to what you're going to experience in the field. 

First, practice shooting off of shooting sticks. For most of my hunts, which are spot-and-stalk, you’ll be standing. You won’t be sitting at a bench. The one exception is aoudad, where there’s a good chance you’ll be shooting from a prone position. In either case, try to do your shooting from the position you’ll be using in the field. Of course, if that’s not possible at your range — if shooting from a bench is your only option — then that’s what you should do. Any practice is good practice. It doesn’t have to be perfect.

Second, practice shooting when your heart rate is elevated and you’re breathing a bit faster than normal. That’s how you’ll be shooting in the field, partly because — by the time you get your shot — we’ll have been hiking for a while, maybe up some hills — and partly because you’re going to be excited. Unless you hunt every day, like I do, you can’t help but be excited when you’re about to bring down that trophy you’ve been dreaming about. Your heart rate will be elevated and your breathing will be faster than normal.

So ‘inoculate’ yourself by practicing in that mode. Before you shoot, do some quick pushups and burpees. Or take a run around the block. And then take your shot immediately. Don’t relax first. Take your shot within twenty or thirty seconds, while you’re still puffing.

By the way, you don’t have to make your gun go ‘bang’ every time. You can dry fire. In that case, just make sure you’re keeping your crosshairs within the target when you pull the trigger. In fact, you can do this at home — even in the house — with an unloaded rifle. Put a small target on the wall at the end of a long hallway, do your pushups and burpees, lift your rifle and see if you can keep the scope on your target while you pull the trigger.

And when you go to the range, you don’t need to shoot an entire box of ammo. You need to take enough shots to know you’re really hitting the target, and you need to shoot enough so you’re not surprised by the recoil, but, face it, you’re not going to get ten or twenty shots at your animal in the field, so you don’t need to take ten or twenty shots in a session at the range.

ANY PRACTICE IS GOOD PRACTICE!

And let me say this again: any practice is good practice. If you can’t shoot off of sticks at the range, then shoot from the bench. If you can’t get enough time at a range, do some dry firing at home. The real point is: When you get a shot opportunity during a real hunt, you want muscle memory to kick in. So build that muscle memory in advance by practicing in whatever way you can.