If you are going to get one book on how to shoot sporting clays, Straight Shooting, by Anthony Matarese Jr. with Kerry Luft, is it. Matarese’s ability is without question. He has won the US Open, the US National Championship, the World FITASC and the World English along with many other titles in his 28-year competitive-shooting career. He also was the youngest inductee to the National Sporting Clays Association’s Hall of Fame. But more important, he is extremely analytic as to technique, and he has the ability to communicate this—in this case with the help of Kerry Luft, an award-winning writer and master-class sporting clays competitor.
Straight Shooting begins with the basics of clay target shotgunning, and then gets into the history of sporting clays, safety and etiquette. The chapter on guns is most interesting in that Matarese shot a Beretta semi-auto for his first 20 years and then switched to a Beretta DT-11 over/under. Gunfit also gets its due detailed consideration.
There is a good chapter on eye dominance and an even more detailed one on gun mount. Matarese, like many of the best shooters, uses hard, soft and low-gun pre-mounts, depending on the target. His discussion of planning the view point, hold point and break point is enlightening. He goes into detail on the tactics for going-away, crossing and rabbit targets as well as pairs, and there is an in-depth look at how to “see” the target correctly.
Almost half of the book is devoted to more challenging targets and tactics wherein Matarese goes into dozens of demanding presentations and how to deal with them. The more advanced shooter will find this most interesting.
The 320-page hardcover, complete with photos, illustrations and instructional drawings, sells for $90 from clayshootinginstruction.com. It is well worth it.
Buy This Issue!
Could not agree more. Quite likely the best book on shooting a shotgun ever.
Fine book, I’ve picked up several items to work on in just the first day’s read.