MOURNING DOVES Teach novices before hunting

The time is now to get the young guns zeroed in.
By Ray Sasser
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
If, like most hunters, you're carefully watching a calendar, you realize that only two months remain until the opening of dove season. That's plenty of time, unless you have responsibility for a youth hunter ready to enter the bird-hunting ranks. If there's a novice in the mix, there's plenty of work to accomplish -- and you'd better get started.
A dove field, even a good one loaded with birds, is a terrible place for a kid to learn how to shoot a shotgun. A novice should learn by shooting clay targets, which are much less challenging.
You can shoot clay targets at a skeet or a sporting-clays range, but it's really better for a youth if you use a spring-loaded trap to throw targets in a private setting. Depending on the kid, it can be unsettling to watch an accomplished shooter break one target after another when the young one can't seem to hit anything.
Slow the targets
By lightening the spring on a portable trap, you can slow the clay targets and make them easier to hit. Confidence is a huge part of shotgun success, and you want your young shooter to quickly be successful instead of thinking shooting is too hard.
Though you seldom see this shot in a dove field, start by throwing targets directly away from the shooter. That shot more closely resembles a flushing quail than a passing dove, but it's the easiest to make and is a confidence builder.
Try to make the trap throw the target on the same flight line each time. Once the young shooter gets the feel of properly shouldering the gun and consistently breaks the straight-away target, you can change angles and try passing and crossing shots.
Watch closely as he shoots, and call a rest period at the first sign of fatigue. I've watched Boy Scouts shooting for shotgun merit badges. Some younger scouts get tired after 10 to 15 rounds. Others can shoot 50 rounds without tiring.
Mistakes possible
A tired shooter makes mental and physical mistakes and shoots poorly, which causes frustration and leads to more misses and more frustration.
This time of the year, I always get a few e-mails from parents and grandparents about what shotgun to buy a beginning dove hunter. One such e-mail was from a granddad leaning toward a single-shot 20- or 12-gauge.
Lots of people favor the single shot as a youth gun because it's lightweight, only holds one shell and inexpensive. The light weight inherent to a single-barrel breech loader magnifies the gun's recoil, however, and youngsters can be particularly recoil-sensitive. I believe you're better off equipping a youngster with an autoloading 20-gauge shotgun that has a gas recoil system to reduce perceived recoil by as much as 40 percent.
Pleasant to shoot
The gas autos are pleasant to shoot. If you're concerned about safety, only allow the youngster to load one shell at a time. Until he's at least 12 and passes a hunter-safety course, he can't hunt by himself, anyway.
Several manufacturers make excellent autoloaders that dampen recoil. I've had experience with Remington, Beretta, Winchester and Browning. The Remington LT-20 is one of the smoothest autoloaders I've fired. None of these guns are inexpensive. They cost $600 to $750, but they'll serve a youngster well his entire life. A single-barrel breech loader will wind up collecting dust in a closet.
One more thing to consider -- make sure your young shooting student wears ear plugs or other hearing protection. Ear plugs for shooters are like seat belts for cars --everybody should use them. The kid is more likely to conform if he sees the adult instructor protecting his own ears.