Left and/or right?
Wildlife biologist and outdoor writer Larry Weishuhn discusses how being ambidextrous when it comes to shooting has really stood him well over his lifetime and how he went about achieving this skill.
There simply was no way as a right-hand shooter I could bring my dad’s 30–30 Winchester around far enough to the right to get a shot at the eight-point buck. Moments earlier I had heard what I suspected might be a squirrel scurrying through the crunchy white oak leaves littering the ground on my extreme right. I cast a glance fully expecting a fox squirrel, but saw an eight-point buck, the whitetail of my dreams!
I attempted to turn to my extreme left but there was no way to see around the three-feet wide oak trunk I sat next to 20 feet above the ground. I tried, but being right-handed I simply could not get a shot. Even though I was only 14-years-old at the time, I had dreamed of taking a buck with eight-points for longer than I could remember. I nearly cried when that buck walked away.
Before crawling to the ground, I resolved never again would I fail to get a shot at a dream buck because I only shot right-handed. Back home, I put my dad’s rifle in our gun cabinet, grabbed my single-shot 22, a box of 22 Long ammo, four empty tin cans and headed to the back side of our stock tank to use the dam as a backstop.
I set up the tin cans, moved back 20 steps, loaded the single-shot, put the rifle to my left shoulder, placed my left index finger on the trigger, cocked the rifle, closed my right eye forcing me to use my left eye and lined up the front bead with the back notched, rear sight. When all was lined up I pulled the trigger. The empty can flipped into the air. Success! I hit a target shooting from the left, as opposed to my usual right. I repeated the same procedure numerous times and hit my intended target. I mentally kicked myself for not having learned how to left-handed before now. Had I done so, I could have been dragging home an eight-point buck.
I learned several things that morning. Even though I was right eye dominant, when my right eye was closed and my left eye open, I became left eye dominant, as well as learning how to comfortably hold a rifle on my left side. Before heading back home I continued mounting my rifle to my left shoulder several times, bringing my left hand and finger to the trigger guard and trigger, until doing so felt natural.
After finishing my chores, I headed back to the woods. Squirrel season was open. I wanted to shoot at least one squirrel from the left side to prove to myself I could do so. Twenty minutes later I spotted a fox squirrel 40 feet up, near the top of a tall, leafless oak. I mounted the rifle on the left side, took careful aim, using my left eye, with right eye closed, I lined up the 22’s open sights, pulled the trigger, then watched the squirrel fall to the ground. It was hit exactly where I had been holding. Now if only that coveted eight-point buck would come back by. I would be ready, whichever direction he came from.
That night we enjoyed fried squirrel; the results of my being able to now shoot left-handed as well as right-handed.
That bit of training has, over the years, served me extremely well, hunting here at home in North America, as well as in New Zealand, Australia, Europe and Africa, whether shooting a rifle, shotgun and even handgun.
I suspect one of the several reasons I love shooting Ruger №1 rifles is because of the tang safety, so it makes no difference whether I mount the rifle left or right-handed. Pushing safety to fire does not require reaching around the action, or doing so with the hand that should be holding the stock’s forend.
One of the hunts where being able to shoot both left or right handed occurred a few years ago on a leopard hunt in Namibia with Japsie Blaauw and his Dzumbo Safaris near the famed Etosha area.
The morning I stepped on the plane bound for Africa, I was having trouble seeing clearly with my right eye. I contemplated not going, but knew Japsie would be waiting and prepared. I was also taking one of my grandsons, Josh Gonzalez, with me to shoot leopard bait, his first trip to Africa. Too, I knew I shot equally well left or right-handed. By the time we arrived in Windhoek, Namibia, vision in my right eye was extremely clouded. Little did I know it was caused by scar tissue built-up from cataract surgery, but once I returned home it was easily and quickly repaired, restoring excellent eyesight.
The hunt was a long one, essentially 14 days of sitting in a leopard blind for many, many hours a day.
It came down to the last morning of the hunt. The primary reason we stayed in the blind was because some huge kudu bulls were reportedly using the waterhole we watched. I was set up to shoot left-handed out of a narrow vertical window. Japsie and the landowner on whose property we hunted watched through other narrow slits. I heard Japsie stir. He motioned it was time to call the hunt. Just then the landowner said “leopard” and pointed to the extreme right. In one motion I stood up, pointed the gun to the extreme right, spotted a monstrous leopard, saw it was a male, flipped off the safety on the 300 Win Mag loaded with Hornady 200 gr. ELD-X Precision Hunter, got the Trijicon AccuPoint crosshairs on target, then squeezed the trigger. All that took a whole lot less time than it takes to talk about it; likely less than three seconds passed from the time I spotted the leopard and pulled the trigger.
I knew I had hit the big tom well and hard. I also knew, if I had been set up to shoot right-handed, I would never have been able to get far enough to the left to shoot to extreme right.
How about you, can you shoot either left or right-handed? It certainly could make a difference in terms of success.
