A Quick Cure for a Common Problem

A Quick Cure for a Common Problem

by Tim Herald

My son Will is right-handed but was always left-eye dominant. When he was a small child, it was really difficult for him to shoot a scoped rifle as he always wanted to lean his head over the stock and look with his left eye. I started having him shoot with an eye patch over his left eye (got it in a costume store for dressing up like a pirate), and after a couple of years, he was able to overcome the problem. 

Back in 2019 we were on a family trip to South Africa after my twin sons graduated from high school. My wife Alka has always enjoyed shooting, but she was never into hunting. Toward the end of our trip, our outfitter told her if she would go out and hunt an impala, he would not charge her anything, and we could take all of the meat and give it to a local orphanage that we had visited a few days before. Well of course, she couldn’t resist this with all of us prodding her to do it, so we went hunting. 

Our PH Peter got us on a herd of impala, but whenever he got her on the shooting sticks, she couldn’t see through the scope of his rifle. I had forgotten that she was also left-eye dominant, and we always struggled with it at the range. 

This cost her 2-3 opportunities at an impala ram, and when she finally told Peter she could see through the scope, the ram was across a draw at 310 yards. I didn’t think she had a prayer of hitting him as her previous shooting experience had all been short range, maybe up to 100 yards. To my surprise, on the report of the rifle, the impala ram dropped in his tracks with a perfect shoulder shot.

We were all surprised and elated, and she jokingly said, “what’s the big deal, you put the + on the spot and squeeze the trigger!” I reminded her that it took her quite a long time to even be able to see the + in the scope, and that had almost cost her the hunt. 

I kept calling about every 15 minutes, not expecting anything much to happen, but about 6:00, I looked up and saw a gobbler emerge from the tree line about 85 yards away a couple minutes after I had called. I showed him to Alka, made another soft call, and he began walking straight to us. He blew up into strut, and his colors were just incredible as the afternoon sun bounced off his iridescent feathers. 

Alka got my shotgun up on the shooting sticks, and I saw her laying her head across the stock in a very awkward position. I had forgotten all about her left-eye dominance and became concerned as the gobbler was approaching quickly. I asked her if she could see the red dot in my Trijicon SRO sight, and she told me yes, and she had it on the turkey’s neck. 
Wheew!!!

When he got to about 35 yards, I called to stop him, Alka made the shot and had her first turkey. The kicker was that this bird was huge. I have taken or called in over 350 turkeys that have been harvested over the past 35 years, and this was the best overall bird I have ever seen. He weighed 28.88 pounds, had a super wide 11” beard, and sported 1.5” super-sharp spurs. He was the boss of bosses, and her first gobbler. 

Alka Herald and her 28.8 pound KY Gobbler taken using a Trijicon SRO
 

Just like in Africa, she looked at me and said, “No big deal, you just put the red dot on his neck and squeeze the trigger. It’s all about the red dot.”

She didn’t know how true that really is. With that SRO sight, no matter what angle your head/eye is to the sight, as long as you can see the dot and put it on your target, it doesn’t matter, the shot will hit its mark. I have been in some weird angles shooting turkeys with my red dot RMR and SRO, and this truly makes a huge difference when things aren’t picture perfect. It was a total cure for her left-eye dominance issue, and it got me thinking. 

My son Will needed shoulder surgery on his right shoulder, and he wasn’t going to be able to take the recoil of a shotgun and had planned to miss turkey season. I got him to look through the Trijicon MRO sight that is mounted on his turkey shotgun while holding the gun on shooting sticks and mounting it left-handed. Within 2 seconds, he told me he was good as he could actually see the dot fine with both eyes open, and he felt confident he could shoot a bird like that. 

He was able to go and shoot left-handed, and that MRO literally saved his turkey season. Now, I am not saying that people with “wrong” eye dominance shouldn’t work to overcome their problem shooting, but I am saying that whether on a turkey shotgun, a pistol, AR or whatever, a Trijicon red dot type sight can make things much easier for those who have this problem, but still love to hunt and shoot.