Hi Folks!
I was super-lucky this year when my two girls came up and asked if maybe, just maybe, I might like to go to the clay range, both for a YouTube-episode-making-session and some duck-hunting practice. Hmmm...I'm gonna have to think about that for a bit....NOT! So out came the .410 and the .20 gauge and off to the local clay range we went for a GREAT day that I'll remember for a long long time:
https://youtu.be/OT-4uHtfltE
The two girls are disturbingly competitive with each other and my youngest has a deep fear of "looking stupid" by comparison to the relatively higher skill and experience of her older sister. My approach to this was multi-pronged...I worked hard to fan their imaginations in the duck hunting department, I set up their course to favour closer curling type birds, and I sandbagged my oldest daughter by secretly putting in her full choke.
I think I was somewhat lucky with respect to the outcome - my oldest was at first surprised then somewhat frustrated with her "lacklustre performance", but in the end bore down pretty good and brought herself up a notch. My youngest was buoyed up a bit by watching her sister struggle more than normal, and as a result put in a much stronger and more positive effort than she has in the past. Have to say I was pretty proud that, shooting her little .410, she was holding her own against her sister with that cannon-esque 20ga!
And then when editing our video segments in slow-mo: I was shocked to see that quite often my oldest shucks her gun so fast the the empty hull is out of the gun before the shot makes it to the clay....kinda blown away by that!
I tried to coach as little as possible, and only helped out when they asked for it (which was a couple of times...YAY! I am still useful). The outcome was fantastic - they were within a bird or two of each other and left with lots of excited & supportive trash talk.
Best days of my life.
Thanks for watching,
Jason