Mickey, great story!

I always reckon that the rifle check at the start of the hunt is some of the hardest shooting of the entire hunt, and I always sympathise with the client st this time. No-one likes to shoot with an audience....especially when it's an audience of strangers.

Very occasionally I get a client who simply can't shoot for shit when they arrive. When this happens, I simply make sure that we spend a few hours on the range before we go out. Let's face it, rifle shooting isn't rocket science and with a bit of good coaching most people improve very rapidly, and I've never had to spend more than 2 or 3 hours doing this. Then when we do go out hunting, I simply make sure that the client has a few real easy (and close) shots to start with. Part of being professional is never asking a client to take a shot you don't think he's capable of....... and I never do.

Very occasionally a client might ask me to shoot on report with the first animal, just to bolster their confidence.... this mostly happens when it's the son of a father & son combo, and in these cases we're often shooting the 1st animal for meat. When I do this (and it's very rare) I can do it so quickly that the shooter only hears one gunshot.... give it a try at the range with a buddy.

Zeroing: We all have our own way of doing this, but my personal way, rightly or wrongly is to bore sight the rifle at 20 yards or so first. Then take 2 shots from the same range. If it needs correcting, I make the alterations and take another shot and then repeat the process if necessary. At 20 yards you can get it shooting straight real quick. Then I just move back to 100 yards and try it again.... it's normally pretty much bang on. I find that by doing it this way, most rifles can be zeroed with between 6 and at the very most 10 shots in all. Zeroing a rifle from scratch at 100 (ish) yards just strikes me as a waste of bullets.... it can easily take 10 shots just to get it on the paper.

I had a client last year in the Selous, who had only shot this particular rifle from a benchrest, and he really battled with shooting it any other way. We spent a couple of hours at the range on the afternoon of arrival and after that he was OK. Once he got his confidence right he shot brilliantly....... Every animal he shot at he killed and the longest shot was well over 200 yards at a monster Eland which took about 3 steps after the shot and collapsed... you can't ask better than that.

Memorable lousy shots from clients would include the one who shot the horn off of a great Kudu and another who managed to shoot another Kudu in the ass from less than 20 yards

.......... I'm pleased to say that we didn't lose either animal