Mastering the Overhead Shot
Give This Shooting System a Try

This is what you’ve been waiting for all morning. A dozen big Canada geese are coming in at 12 o’clock, 40 yards up and full throttle. They’re going to pass straight overhead. What happens during the next few seconds will determine tonight’s menu–roast goose with wild rice stuffing or fried Spam and beans.

Hunters who have taken Tom Roster’s shooting class are already thinking about the right wine for the goose dinner.

Anyone who’s ever seen Roster shoot knows that today’s wide variety of nontoxic shot loads, including steel, are more than deadly enough to get the job done. Over the years the Klamath Falls, OR shooting/ballistics expert, has taught his simple-but-deadly system to over 18,000 shooters in the US, Canada and Europe. He conducts his clinics for the Cooperative North American Shotgunning Education Program (CONSEP).

The first step in shooting the overhead is to correctly define the shot. Roster says only birds coming straight at that shooter that are within 30 degrees either side of 12 o’clock–between 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock–qualify as overhead shots.

Keeping it an overhead shot requires staying concealed until the last possible second. Hunters who jump up too soon risk flaring the birds, which turns an overhead into a side or quartering away shot.

Roster suggests that whenever possible hunters should sit on a pail or stool, which allows them to rise and shoot quickly at the last possible moment. Hunters who are laying or kneeling must begin rising sooner because of the difficulty in getting up, and the extra commotion usually flares incoming birds.

The next step is to pick one bird and focus on that bird. Roster says it’s a mistake to pick the lead bird. “You want the lead bird to continue along its flight path pulling the other birds with it so that you have a very predictable overhead shot,” he says. “The key is to target a bird towards the back of the flock.”

Next, mount the gun quickly, maintaining focus on the target bird. Mounting the gun should be a smooth, automatic motion.

Once the gun is shouldered, continue to focus on the bird, not the barrel. The barrel should be a blur and should be started under (behind) the bird. “Not the sides, not the front of the bird and not on the bird.”

The next step is to track the bird with the blur (barrel) for a “couple of milliseconds” with the barrel moving at the same speed as the bird. Once the barrel is moving the same speed as the bird, accelerate the swing until the bird’s body disappears or is blotted out by the barrel blur.

Then, as Tom tells his students: “Blotfire.” That means the instant the barrel (blur) blots out the bird’s body, fire. “You must fire at the precise moment you can no longer see the bird. On this shot, if you see the bird you’ll miss the shot.”

And “fire” doesn’t mean pull the trigger, it means, “slam the trigger, crush the trigger, try to break the trigger off.” That’s how quickly the shooter must slap the trigger on the overhead to be successful.

At the same time–and Tom says this is critical–continue swinging the barrel. Stopping the barrel at this instant will result in a certain miss behind the bird.

The beauty of Tom’s system is that no apparent lead is required. It isn’t necessary for shooters to compute the distance and flight speed in their minds. When the bird’s body disappears from view, blotfire.

“It’s deceptive because there doesn’t appear to be any lead,” Roster says, “but as long as the barrel is accelerating at the moment the trigger is slapped, there is lead. You’ve gotten out in front of the bird even though at the moment of firing you can no longer see the distance between the bird and the barrel.”

Roster says the shot must be practiced diligently. “Every shooter has a slightly different timing point. This shot must be practiced with shells of the same metal type and with the same muzzle velocity–give or take 50 foot-seconds–as the hunting load you’ll be using.” Shot size is irrelevant, he says, “Just use a shot size small enough to develop a pattern dense enough to break clay targets.”

When the overhead is missed, the most common mistake, he says, is lifting the head. “Because it’s unnatural not to see the bird, shooters try to sneak a peak. You have to stay connected with the gun or you’ll miss,” he says. “When the shooter lifts his head from the stock, the gun is no longer pointing where the shooter is looking.”

Slowing the barrel at the moment of blotfire is another mistake that guarantees a miss, usually behind the target.

One more word of caution: Always try to execute the shot when the birds are no more than 30 degrees in front of straight overhead (between 10 and 11:30). If they are any further out they may see the commotion and flare. If they’re straight overhead, the shooter will “lock up” and stop the gun.

To order a copy of Tom Roster’s new 24-page reloading manual on buffered lead and bismuth shotshell loads, instructional shooting videos or 75-page manual on shotgun barrel alterations, contact Tom Roster at 1190 Lynnewood Blvd, Klamath Falls, OR, 97601, call 541-884-2974 or email Tom at troster@cdsnet.net.