The role of the spotter/coach

[ajj]

I am very interested in thoughts about the relationship between the shooter and the spotter. I want to improve in both roles. I'll start by revealing the vastness of my ignorance.
I communicate bullet strike to the shooter by pointing at the animal on the back of a clipboard. I set up behind and slightly to the right of a right-handed shooter. I don't talk much, except to answer questions. I don't ask for a lot of chatter from the spotter and don't respond well to general encouragement (it's distracting.) I try to remember to remind the shooter of the range ("Do you have your turkey setting?") before the "ready." I usually say "Shoot number four" if he missed three. I say "ten" with ten seconds left. So, how do the good teams make the spotter the "coach?"
I'm sure that, ideally, the team shoots together frequently and have sat down and talked all this out beforehand.
I'm all ears. Thanks in advance.

[dave imas]

okay...  just my perspective...     everybody is different...

when i shoot with Dennis Dadian i can coach from the car.   he doesn't give a spoon of hooey what i have to say.  he figures that a center break is good for a whole lot of wind.  he is right.  he is also extremely capable of putting them right in the center.  with Dennis i just shut up and keep score.  it always surprises me and catches me off guard when he asks me something.  when dennis coaches for me i don't ask anymore than what is for lunch.  

When i coached for bob he wanted me to talk to him.  tell him jokes, calm him abit.  distract him so he wouldn't get his panties in a bunch.

back in the day, the boys used to flat wear out Robert Massey.  the man could read the wind.  if there were conditions, he was priceless.

when william coached for me i was EXTREMELY demanding.  i wanted william to read the wind, know what my rifle does with the present conditions and then pick a spot on the target for me to shoot.   he also needed to keep real close track of time because i was into the count down 50% or more of the time.  the whole 3...2...1... bit.  i wanted a 10 second count down from him...  of course,  he was to be tracking the wind at the same time....   with a good 10 second count down, i have about a 90% hit rate.  

i've had the pleasure of shooting beside Cathy and Chris on a number of ocassions...  it is a beautiful thing i tell ya.  it is tough enough that cathy is such an incredible shot, having her dad working behind her makes them
an almost unbeatable team.  damn them!!!!

dan has coached me to a number of championships...  i can truly say that, on most of those ocassions, he deserved the award more than i did.  in douglas, az. on my last animal in smallbore hunter i needed 10 rams for the win.  we had a wind that was gusting from 0 to 4 minutes.  he calmly read it and told me where to break the shot.  no coach, no chance.
he talked me into 3 highpower chickens in my last 12 seconds at another match.

now...  i grew up shooting in california and arizona.  desert, high plateau, plains...  wind.  not always, but enough that having a consistent spotter was important.  up here in washington most folks shoot smallbore without a coach because the conditions allow it.  we are just lucky.

The shooter has to call his shots...  it is feedback to the coach so he will know if he has to adjust his targeting.

The shooter is ALWAYS right.  during the firing period anyway.  there can be no arguments on the firing line about who screwed up what.

it is the coaches responsibility to keep things as quiet as possible around the shooter.  if a few folks around the line forget themselves for a moment, the coach has to make things right.   i love the fact that we shoot in a "picnic" atmosphere but, at times, we have to calm the most rambunctious among us.

if a target is shot away from the shooter, or if wind blows a target off, the coach should immediately pick another target for the shooter.  don't make the shooter think about which one next.  make the choice for him.  let the shooter concentrate on breaking a good shot.

while on the line, any communication with the line judge or the match director should be done by the coach.  again...  let the shooter concentrate on what he is there for.  the coach should handle everything else.

the shooter has got to know and accept that the coach is going to screw on up every now and again.   often, getting the right read on the conditions is a whole lot harder than breaking the shot.   you have got to respect your coach.  there are a couple of folks that i won't coach for.  have seen them poop all over their coaches.  no thank you.

the beauty of the whole thing is that this is one of the few sports where you are typically competing against your coach.  you see friends all the time working so hard for eachother and competing at the same time.  it is such a wonderful thing.  talk about trust.

a tip for the less experienced coaches out there...   if you shoot your rifle  right eyed, look through the spotting scope with your left.  no point in wearing out your right eye all day long.  

and yes...  it helps if you shoot together alot.  alot meaning for years.

wow.  what a random mess.  sorry.  
dave

[nomad]

Down here, we determine who spots for Massey by drawing lots -- loser spots and everyone else goes off to celebrate the reprieve.

[ajj]

This is helpful and thought-provoking, thanks. Also gives me some new topics for which to grovel for information like how does one read a wind gusting from 1 to 4 minutes? The time factor is certainly part of what makes the sport so challenging. No other offhand discipline is nearly as quick. I recall Carl Bernosky posting about shooting standing ATC Highpower and saying something like: "Of course, it's not possible to fire 20 perfect shots standing, outside, in just 20 minutes." All the books say to "refuse to take the bad shot" and take the gun down and start over when the shot isn't there. That's all well and good but you don't get to do that too often with 30 seconds per shot. Was that how you wound up with 12 seconds to shoot three animals? Wish I'd seen that one! Thanks, again.

[dave imas]

one of the things we don't always talk about is being mentally prepared to take a shot.  we often hear shooters complain about sitting in the middle of the target perfectly still and not being able to break the trigger.   so we add a challenge...  not only are working hard to make sure we set up a good shot, we then have to be mentally prepared to take it when it presents itself.   my problem is that i do the first part pretty well, i work very hard to set up a good shot, i also am very good about only taking the good shot...  i also am great at daydreaming about chores or work or listening for the punch line of the joke being told behind me at the stove.  to help work through this i set up specific goals to work on at local matches.  at some i work on taking the first shot that presents itself.  perfect or not.  to facilitate this process i also take 10 shots in 2.5 minutes.  you have to keep things moving if you plan on taking 10 quality shots in that time.   i've found that my scores don't change that much when i do and it helps me get the shots off.  remembering that, as long as you are in the white, it doesn't matter where you break the shot.  you just have to follow thru.   i tried 15 shots in 2.5 minutes but that was a chinese fire drill.  having to change magazines twice slowed things down.  it was counter productive at that level...  but exciting!

so yes.  set yourself up for quality shots, only take quality shots, but make sure you are mentally prepared to take them when the arrive.  if you aren't prepared you will have be hearing 3...2...1 alot.
dave

[ajj]

This is exactly the "challenge" (there is no such thing as a "problem," right?) I've been trying to work on. Perhaps it is "the" challenge, always. I tell myself to look at the center and put the dot on the target promptly. (I sometimes find myself waiting for it to drift in on it's own and I'm trying to stop that.) Then, instead of trying to consciously break the shot at any particular time, I just try to put pressure on the trigger when the dot's in the white. That is, I don't think "Now, break the shot." I just try to load the trigger some when the dot is doing a small wobble in the white. If this is done fairly confidently with a light trigger, the shot goes. The idea is to lose the flinch. Am I on the right track?