I spent a wonderful Friday morning at the OSP Shooting School at the American Shooting Center in Houston Texas, with Gil Ash.

I was there to be fitted for a 28 Ga. drop lock double that Bailey Bradshaw is making for me. In the process of seeing how I mount the gun and being fitted I got a shooting lesson.

Gil Ash is a wonderful instructor! Such a joy to be tutored by one of the best!

The most surprising thing? It's amazing how simple it is to hit the target when you know how!

If you haven't made time to get some instruction. . .you need to make time!

+1 on lessons. I was a fairly average shot on the skeet fields until I took a 2-day package with 4 others from Todd Bender.

He found an easily fixed flaw in my movement toward the target - I went from a weak B-class to winning the HOA and 2 gun championships at my next registered shoot breaking ny first two 100-straights. As I recall it was $450 + the cost of targets but easily the biggest bank for a buck since I paid for a marriage license.

Ditto on the value of lessons.

Those are definitely big names in shotgun instructing. Anyone looking for lessons for either sporting clays or hunting should keep Marty Fischer in mind also. He's amazing. His rates are very reasonable and he can work wonders for shooters at any level. No flash, fancy slogans or hype, just positive instruction and incredible knowledge. I went from a mediocre B-class sporting shooter to master class and a couple State championships after a few lessons and a couple years of hard work on what he taught me.

I'm also a certified instructor, but consider myself really bad at teaching compared to most of the guys who make a living at it. It takes a certain personality and I think the best instructors don't try to tear you down and teach you THEIR method, but rather find YOUR strengths and improve and expand them. That is Marty's best quality, he might get three different shooters breaking the same bird three different ways because he can see what they're naturally good at and improve on it. Being that skilled as an instructor seems like magic to me.

To get the full value from the lesson you MUST practice what you're taught. Work on what they told you and then go back for another lesson when you discover your next weaknesses or for a tune-up once in a while. A quality instructor is the best money spent for getting better with a shotgun. The most good can be done for the average shooter. I've seen "middle of the pack" shooters pick up 10 to 20 birds per 100 after some work with an instructor. Even people at the National or World championship level go for a lesson now and then. They may only pick up a couple birds per 100, but that can make all the difference in an event.

I'll get students that come for a lesson once or twice a year without shooting in between and expect to see improvement. Infrequent lessons without practice do no good at all. You have to work on what you've learned. The average shooter probably has no idea how many rounds the better shooters fire to get to their skill level, but a box or two here or there will never get you to the next level.

Get lessons and then practice what you've learned.

Bill, I have never had a skeet lesson from Todd Bender but would like to. It is hard to find him travelling in the northwest. When did you get the lesson from him? I watched him shoot in several shootoffs at the World Shoot in San Antonio this fall. BTW, I liked your comment about the marriage license. You wife reading this site?

I have attended 2 of his weekend shooting schools. They were excellent.

Chic - I took my 1st lesson from Todd back in 1995. A short story about the lesson. There were 5 of us, as I remember, and he watched us shoot a round of skeet. I mangaged 25x25 but it wasn't pretty - I was getting beat by a couple of birds and over-lead some and then had to make another move to break them - it was ugly. His first comment was did I want my money back since I broke all the targets. Then he said "get some ammo I"ll fix you first'.

We walked to Station 1 and he ask me what the biggest bill in my wallet and when I told him a $100 he told me to give it to him. Not sure of what was going on I did. He told me to mount the gun and go to my hold point. WHen I did he said pick up your head and when I did he put the $100 on the comb. He told me I was going to shoot a full round and if at anytime during the round he could pull than $100 bill off the comb he was going to keep it. At the end of the round I still had the $100 and had never hit targets that hard before in my whole life.

A great way to teach someone to keep his head on the stock.

Sequel - The following year I visited my son in Louisville while he was in Law School and just happened to go to the BlueGrass Classic. I missed Hi 5 in the last box for a 99 and got into a shoot-off with 4 others including Todd. After the 2nd round it was just Todd and I and he finally missed low 5 coming back. One of the real highpoints of my competitive shooting career.

The next best thing to an in-person class is his latest video - great camera work and a real value.