What's one thing you started doing to help your shooting?

[RayPDA]

Be it the clays sports, 3-gun, hunting, etc., what have you done to improve your shotgun shooting skills?

[HappyCamper781]

Shooting more often.

[SonofWWIIDI]

More shooting, more dry fire drills, and lots and lots and lots of ammo! When available, at a reasonable price!

[WASR10]

I studied grip and trigger technique, aiming, stance, draw and sighting, etc... then apply my reading to my practices; shoot as much as I can, with different loads.

What I would really like to try is simulated stress shooting.

[Thefeeder]

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Practicing smoothness and working on better focus

Started shooting a lot of 410ga just to fustrate myself into shooting better.

[five.five-six]

NPA

[savannah]

Follow through. My biggest mistake and I do the best when I correct it.

[prc77]

lots of reloading drills, reloading the shotgun 10x's more than I shoot. Faster splits, finding the softest shooting load, that the shotgun can run 100% reliably.

[razr]

shoot more.

[OIF0708]

Started squirrel hunting at age eight with a single barrel break over 4/10. The rest just seemed to fall in line.

[hermosabeach]

I was shooting the middle of the pack with a local group so 13th-16th place

I took a 4 day hand gun class and I ended up shooting in the 3-5th spot.

Formal training and then practicing what I learned in the classes.

Then more classes.

[Jet Setter]

Studying better techniques and trying to shoot more. I have been involving friends to make it more fun.

[Bad Voodoo]

Formal training.

"Perfect practice makes perfect." ~Mike Lamb

[epic1856]

Clicked on this sticky link on the top of the shotgun subforum.

http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=329160

[kdruff2]

All the above, but of those, the below is what I perceive as having been the biggest benefit for me (for breaking clays but probably also true for other disciplines - in no particular order):
1. Formal training
2. Repetition
3. Cross discipline shooting
4. Registered/Match shoots (where score is kept (i.e.,competition))

For example, I found my sporting clay scores improved when I took up skeet (#3). When I decided to take up skeet, I decided to take lessons/be trained formally. Having gone through training, I now don't aim but point the shotgun and am close to consistently shooting w both eyes open (#1). I still need to improve on shooting w a lead (skeet stations 3-6) and improvising and analyzing shots for sporting clay...frankly, I'm still a newb but do see encouraging signs of improvement.

Additionally, (#3) It seems that shooting with both eyes open is now starting to creep into my pistol shooting as well (involuntary/not conscious), but probably still < 33% of the time.

But I feel all of this "practice" must be put to the test via registered shoots (be it fun shoots or sanctioned events). I find competition focuses the mind that much more and speeds up the learning curve (#4).

On the flip-side, whatever plan you may be following to improve yourself, many of us face two hurdles that scan slow or impede progress: time and money.

If I could only shoot everyday and all day. But since I can't, and speaking w the older guys that shoot in Class A or higher, it seems they shoot at least twice a week (don't know how many clays per session, but on the average, I'm going w 100-200 shells a week for myself. I'll probably shoot 300 clays this week and another 300 next week, but the week before, I didn't get a chance to shoot at all.).

Where was I? Oh yeah, the plan vs. time and money.

....I hope my kids don't expect Daddy to pay for their college

And those guys that shoot 2x a week and make this game look easy, they're all retired and on pensions!