Surviving the high-speed chaos of an Argentine dove roost requires international wingshooters to completely maximize their peripheral vision and depth perception by mastering the technique of shooting with both eyes open.
The Liability of the Closed Eye
Many traditional rifle hunters and novice shotgunners naturally close their non-dominant eye when mounting a firearm to align the bead with the target. In a high-volume dove feedlot, closing one eye is a severe tactical liability. Closing an eye instantly eliminates 50% of your peripheral vision and completely destroys your natural binocular depth perception. When a dove is crossing at 40 mph at a distance of 35 yards, you cannot accurately calculate its speed or distance with one eye. Furthermore, Eared Doves fly in massive swarms. By keeping both eyes open, your peripheral vision is already acquiring the second and third bird in the flock while your primary focus shatters the first target.
| Visual Technique | Impact on Target Acquisition | Depth Perception |
|---|---|---|
| One Eye Closed (Rifle Style) | Tunnel vision; easily lose the target if it dips. | Destroyed; impossible to judge forward lead accurately. |
| Both Eyes Open (Hard Focus) | Massive peripheral awareness; fast target transitions. | Optimal; brain naturally calculates speed and distance. |
Conquering Eye Dominance
Shooting with both eyes open requires cross-dominance alignment. If you are a right-handed shooter, your right eye must be your dominant eye. If you are right-handed but left-eye dominant, keeping both eyes open will cause the barrel to appear horizontally misaligned, causing you to shoot two feet to the left of the bird. Elite instructors at operations like AWS Lodge often implement the "tape trick" for cross-dominant shooters. By placing a small, semi-transparent piece of scotch tape on the left lens of your shooting glasses, your brain is forced to rely on the right eye for hard focus, while the left eye remains open to preserve your wide peripheral field of view.
Tactical Field Note: Do not look at the bead of the shotgun. The bead is irrelevant in high-volume wingshooting. If you look at the barrel, the dove becomes blurry. You must hard-focus exclusively on the leading edge (the beak) of the bird, trusting your mount to naturally align the shotgun barrel in your lower peripheral vision.
Internal Connections
- See the protective gear you need in Best Shooting Glasses and Lens Colors for Argentina Dove Hunting.
- Understand how to track the bird in Mastering the Crossing Shot: Forward Lead in the Dove Roost.
- Practice this technique before leaving via Practicing Sporting Clays for High-Volume Dove Hunting.