by Wade Bourne

North American sportsmen have always greatly admired skill with a shotgun, and most hunters aspire to improve their ability to make clean kills. And improve you can, but not without deliberate effort. Only through good instruction and practice can you expect to improve your percentage of hits to misses on waterfowl. It's just that simple.

The instructor

Scott Robertson of Elm Fork Shooting Sports in Dallas is eminently qualified to coach such an effort. A professional sporting clays and exhibition shooter, Robertson has a long list of competitive accomplishments, including winning the national sporting clays championship eight times and the world sporting clays championship twice. He has been an exhibition shooter for Beretta for 16 years.

Robertson is also a lifelong waterfowl hunter, having bagged his first duck when he was eight years old. Today he hunts mainly in west Texas and at his family's duck club in California.

The steps

"How many times have you shot at a duck and everything felt right — good mount, sight picture and lead — but the duck didn't fall? You're left wondering why you missed," Robertson says.

"I coach a four-step process that teaches shooters why they miss and how they can correct their problems," Robertson says. "Good shooting is all about confidence. The more confidence you have in your equipment and technique, the more birds you will hit. And you build confidence through mastering a short list of shooting fundamentals and then practicing enough to make these fundamentals second nature."