I don't believe you'd ever read much Brister or McIntosh--or Brown, for that matter--without coming across statements advocating more practice with a shotgun. However, reality is reality. I've spent most of my life in Iowa, and I was fortunate enough to live there when, more years than not, it was the #1 pheasant state in the nation. On the other hand, to my knowledge, the entire state has one club that throws registered skeet targets. There are a few other clubs with skeet (although not all that many), and a lot of small clubs where they shoot trap on a single field. But which would have been far more likely, given those circumstances . . . a resident of Iowa who hunted pheasants or a resident of Iowa who shot skeet?? Where I now live, in northern Wisconsin--a less densely populated area than the one I moved from in Iowa--there are significantly more opportunities to shoot skeet, 5 stand, and sporting clays. Which makes practice, at games other than trap, a whole lot easier here than it was down there.
I think we're also encountering a couple different approaches here when it comes to hunting. For many hunters, myself included, bird hunting isn't only about the difficulty of the species being pursued as a target. Rather, it's about the challenges the bird in question presents to the hunter. Actually, to two hunters--one human and the other canine. If I were to poll the readers of Pointing Dog Journal, the magazine for which I write a regular column, I have absolutely no doubt that I'd find most of them telling me that they could leave the gun home and still spend a fine day afield, just with their dog, watching it handle birds. Most of us with dogs do a lot of our shooting for our canine partner. If Spot handles the bird well--solid point or hard flush, hup to flush or maybe steady to wing--then we look on it as our half of the task to reward Spot with a retrieve. Makes no difference if the shot is hard or easy. And, per the doctrine of fair chase, we also understand that it's our responsibility to kill as quickly and cleanly as possible. That means we don't intentionally seek out the most challenging shots, because--by definition--those will potentially result in more crippled and perhaps lost birds. Rather, we hold our fire for those opportunities where, based on our experience and ability, we have the greatest chance of making a clean kill. As Brister points out, a more open choke is just another way of reducing the possibility of missing. If I'm a baseball player and have more trouble hitting a slider than a fast ball . . . well sure, I should work on hitting sliders. But if the game's on the line and I can wait for a fast ball, why not do that? On another board, a poster who shots lots of pheasants--like I have--works as hard as I do at trying to convince people that if you're in good pheasant country with a decent dog, you really don't need to be able to kill roosters reliably at 40 yards (something that relatively few hunters can do). You will get sufficient closer opportunities, although it may mean you have to hunt a bit longer. Right now, Iowa pheasant numbers are way down. Yet my hunting partner and I, alternating a couple experienced pheasant dogs, put 6 roosters in the air in under 2 hours, all inside of 25 yards--in the middle of December, when conventional wisdom holds (with some accuracy) that late season birds will be far more challenging. So while some might look at using a more open choke as a crutch, I look at it as using the right tool for the task at hand, given the kind of shots I've experienced over a very long career chasing roosters. And I can turn that statement on its head, and say that spending a lot of time learning to make 40 yard shots might better be spent learning to be a better hunter or training a dog better or giving it more experience on the birds in question, at which point you're far less likely to need to take 40 yard shots.
I am not one who agreed with the late Mr. McIntosh that choke is obsolete. But given the shooting inabilities of the average hunter, I'll stick with my belief that the average hunter is likely better off with less choke than he's shooting, and maybe no choke at all--depending on what and where he's hunting. Where I live now, where I can chase grouse and woodcock literally right out my door (as opposed to the pheasants I used to chase right out my door, in Iowa), it's even easier for the local resident to find good public land on which to hunt grouse and woodcock than it is to find a place to shoot targets. And learning to shoot well requires an investment of time and effort that some people really can't make, and others choose not to make. So while I'll encourage them to practice more, I'll also suggest that they'll do better on grouse and woodcock with no choke at all than whatever they're shooting now. The fact is, both that advice AND practice will result in reduced misses afield.
