Not many kids today can learn to shoot like I did and lots of kids did when I was a kid. I didn’t learn with a .22 or a centerfire. I learned flinging BBs at the local songbirds nearly every day for ten years or so. A couple hundred thousand BBs provided a pretty good foundation. The shots were almost entirely from field positions and under some time pressure. I later graduated to squirrels and such.
I have no use for prone position. It’s pretty much useless in my area for hunting because of vegetation. If there is a tree or a post handy, I’ll use it. My favorite thing and one for which there is almost always time is to drop to a seated position. That’s a great rest and deer do not quite know what to make of it. If a deer sees a standing human, he is taking off. It takes him a few seconds to figure out a seated human and that is where you make your shot. I can shoot offhand and do pretty frequently but it is never my first choice when hunting.
I’ve shot deer resting on blinds, tractor tires, tractor steering wheels, sticks, trees, truck doors, truck beds, fence posts, boat trailers, logs, skidder tires, and half a dozen other things I can’t remember. I also shot quite few seated and offhand.
I guess I’d be pretty useless past 400 yards. It’s not really useful where I hunt and it would be a pain to even find a place to practice it. But I guess I’m a Luddite anyway. I do hunt with receiver sights quite a bit and have killed most of my deer over the last few years with a receiver sighted 45-70 or longbow.
