Anyone ever taught themself to shoot a bird left handed? Found out today that my rotator cuff and pretty much everything around it is shredded. Trying to get surgery scheduled within the next week or two with a estimated 4-6 month recovery..now im not the person to miss any hunting unless I absolutely have to... I can shoot a clay with the O/U lefty but a bird is going to be a whole other challenge. 4-6 months is probably going to be cutting it to close for shooting a shotgun so I guess I'm going to have to learn how to shoot lefty this year. Was wondering if anyone here has done it and any suggestions on learning it? Thanks

Yep. I'm not strong left handed shooting but we have right hand drive cars so shooting left handed is the most comfortable way to shoot out the drivers window.
If you can shoot clays on your left you are mostly there cos that's how I lernt. And shot heaps of .22 cases practice is the only trick.

Good luck with the surgery Quack hope you have a quick recovery! Any physical therapy going to be involved? Over a spand of a few years my stepdad ended up having 3 in his right and 2 in his left and had to get his bicep dropped. All because the doctor didn't know what he was doing. It was a year before he could shoot a gun as small as a 20 gauge.
January he had a triple bypass and in June the 3 lowest disks in his back are being taken out.


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Appreciate Bernie. Yeah I hope they get it right the first time..itll be done at the Texas orthopedics hospital here in Houston. And there a physical therapy place down the street from me just don't know how often I'll need to be going. This happend years ago playing baseball and they always told me I wasn't warming up enough and it was just sore but I finally convinced them to do a mri and whatdaya know. It was not only tore but a 1.6cm wide tear along with the other tendons around it tore as well..

Looks like I'll be spending my summer practiceing shooting left handed lol. Im not even worried about the ducks really I think I can do decent enough with the shotgun I'm just more pissef off about the deer. My family bought some property loaded with deer and I was pumped up about being able to bow hunt again..now I got to learn to shoot a rifle left handed to.

The rifle is easy to learn, feels a little awkward at first but I actually shoot better left handed. I don't know if it's because I take more time and think about the basics since it's not my natural reaction or if my left eye is that much better. I can shoot a shotgun left handed but not very good and almost never can get back on target for a follow up shot. You just have to make the call if one duck season is worth the risk of messing your shoulder up for the rest of your life. If it was me I would be sitting in a deer stand this year

I consider myself fairly ambidextrous. I started shooting a rifle left handed about 12 years old. I have shot a bow left handed after I took my pop's over around the same time. I have been wing shooting for a couple years now and it is a little more difficult than the rifle/bow. I would say 50% of it is in your head. The next big issue you are going to have is your eyes. If you can train yourself to be either eye dominant than you are a good ways there. Start small, low brass 20 gauge still targets. Move to snap shooting still targets from rest. Once you look like a natural born left handed weirdo move to the straight away easy clays. Start slow and keep at it. Weirdest part about it for me was getting used to the shells ejecting and the crap that flies in your face.

I can shoot the clays flying away no problem if I just sit back and focus on it I just know ducks are going to be way different. If I have it done within this month it'll be cutting season close but I may just sit back and enjoy the show and water swat one every now and then. Just have to go along with it and see how everything plays out. I will be shooting deer though. I haven't killed a deer in years.

Maybe I'll invest in a good camera this year. I've always been fascinated by some of the crazy pics of ducks in the air and working in

I shoot lefty (but I am left handed) I am able to shoot right handed but eye dominance is an issue. Cast of the gun does not seem to be a problem. Mucknaked had the same surgery right before season a couple years ago. He shot a lighter gauge gun and shot lefty for a little bit I think. He finally just sucked it up a shot right handed and dealt with the pain, but then again he is tougher than most people I know. Not many people can impale their spleen on a Myrtle stob while hog hunting, sleep it off in the truck, make it to the hospital several hours later, and be released in a couple of hours with just antibiotics because the body was already repairing the damage.

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A few I took this year.
It was a slow year for me so it was even harder to put down the gun.

Those are some great pictures. I get just as much satisfaction seeing my girlfriend or my little brother shoot them. Yeah I love pulling up on a gadwall 20 yards over the decoys but seeing a bunch of amazing pictures is just as good. My grandparents are bird watching freaks with probably close to 50k invested in photography... Maybe they got an old camera laying around somewhere lol

Those are some great pictures. I get just as much satisfaction seeing my girlfriend or my little brother shoot them. Yeah I love pulling up on a gadwall 20 yards over the decoys but seeing a bunch of amazing pictures is just as good. My grandparents are bird watching freaks with probably close to 50k invested in photography... Maybe they got an old camera laying around somewhere lol

I can shoot left or right handed but I am right eye dominate so it is much easier to shoot right handed. I have found that as long as I at least partially close my right eye my left eye will take over and I can shoot just fine. I have shot a fair amount of ducks lefty, especially out of the layout boats! Good luck with your shoulder

I killed many ducks and doves when I was little with a single shot 28ga. We got this nice franchi auto 28 gauge at work I might try and snag by season. If I can get away with shooting that every once in awhile I'll be happy.

I talked to my Grandmaw earlier and she gave me one of her older cannon cameras she doesn't use anymore I just need to get a different lens for it. It takes super awesome up close pics but its just a no zoom 50mm lens on it..lens for these things are not priced very friendly

I'm surprised they haven't forced us to use crappy steel shot for everything yet.

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Adam Brown did it. He lost almost all of his vision in his right eye and had his fingers all but severed and reattached. So he decided he had to shoot left handed in hopes of making green team (Seal team 6). He went on to sniper school and graduated and passed selection for team 6 with one eye and shooting lefty. So it's possible. Depends really on how bad ya want it. If you enjoy reading his story is amazing.

Fearless by Eric Blehm

Yes, I am a right handed shooter but over the years I've taught to myself to shoot left handed and can do it as well as right handed now. I first started doing it because I was on the "other end" of the blind, but now I just do it with whichever hand makes sense. I'd guess I'm shooting 60% right handed and 40% left. I'm a consistent 23-24 trap shooter right handed and 20-21 left handed, so I don't shoot lefty as well.

The place where it has come in most handy is in Argentina dove hunting when 3,000 rounds per day starts wearing on your shoulder... then I switch it up and shoot the next day left handed.

It can be done as long as you shoot with both eyes open. If nothing else it's a challenge.

Watched a friend teach himself to shoot lefty, by wearing shooting glasses with the right lens smeared upto the point you could barely make anything out. He had always shot both eyes open from the right side. He said smearing the lens on the right made his left eye more dominet and he wouldn't have to close or squint his right eye. His worst problem was teaching himself to quickly mount gun to his left shoulder. And putting a left cast in his shotguns stock to get his left eye over the rib quickly, and keeping his left cheek down on the stock.

Yep, was in the same boat as you except I had surgery in mid october. Got myself a cheap stoeger o/u (so shells wouldn't eject in my face) and duck hunted all season. Hardest part was shouldering it properly on the go. Good luck with the surgery, I don't wish shoulder surgery on anyone. If I ever had to have another done, I'd deal with the pain. The truck I had at the time was a 5 speed. Driving it was a pain but I figured it out. Biggest challenge for me besides having to sleep on my back sitting up for the first month, was learning to wipe my ass left handed. Back to front was easier than front to back. Good luck

Lol I didn't think about the wipeing situation..

I got a call from the Dr today and now he's saying he looked at the MRI and nothing is tore...the report from the radiologist said I had 100% full thickness tear with a 1.9 cm wide gap. And the 3 tendons around the cuff were tore as well. One of them us going to be really wrong here. So now I got to go back tomorrow to a different Dr and get another MRI for a second opinion on it...

Well great news. When I originally had the MRI done the radiologist had written the report with a full thickness tear of the cuff and the tendons. 1st Dr at texas orthopedicd said there was no tear at all surgery not necessary. Went to 2nd Dr today at utmb and he saw minor tears but still said no surgery necessary but recommend lots of PT.

What would y'all think of this? I've had 3 complete different opinions on this. I dont know if I should see one more Dr or just roll with it and be glad I was told no surgery?

Radiologist always read these scans wrong, they could be sitting on a beach some where reading this. I think it would be best to go through with PT and see how it works out from there.


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I shoot left handed . Switched during boot camp. Discovered I was left eye dominant. Dry fire repetition. Mechanics are the same . Shoot as much skeet as possible . I grew up shooting right handed and switched at 19 years of age. That was 28 years ago. Still shooting left handed.


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Well I had my shoulder done going on 3 years ago and it is rough. I'm a lefty and have a few lefty guns. I can help you out and we can talk about it on Wednesday afternoon

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Appreciate it man. I saw a different Dr and was told surgery is going to be a last resort as of right now and I start physical therapy on the 1st to try and get back into good physical condition so that shooting isn't to miserable all season. I can still shoot right handed now but after so many shells it hurts. Hopefully the PT will help out like I've heard it does. If not I'll have to learn lefty anyways so I don't end up screwing my self.

Like I said before, I can shoot a standard flying away clay target left handed almost as easy as I can right. But hitting a bird that doesn't fly straight lines I know is a whole new challenge.

My dad and a couple friends had trouble with their dominant eyes not being so dominant. Caused hell on them with the left eye taking over while shooting right handed. My dad just muscled through it, smeared Chapstick on his left lense until he had cataract surgery and shot pretty well. My friend gave up, started shooting left handed. Hated it, and frankly wasn't shooting very good, but kept grinding at it and eventually broke muscle memory and was shooting decent. Went and got his eyes checked and they gave him a Prescription and lo and behold after 4 months of wearing glasses it made his dominance come back to his right eye. He's tried to go back to right handed shooting but lost the muscle memory and is seeing a shooting coach because he's got some issues that need to be broken.

The point of it all is, it's pretty deeply engrained muscle memory that most of us have been using since we were small. It might be convenient to switch, but I wouldn't unless you're planning on making it permanent. My dad had that wisdom through 30-some-odd years off competitive shooting and my friend didn't. It'll probably come back but not worth the 3 seasons of hassle my friend has gone through.

Not to mention it would be really tough to switch if your eyes didn't cooperate.