Left or Right? - Larry Weishuhn

I could hardly believe it. Finally!

I had been hunting morning and evening, at every opportunity since our Texas whitetail deer

season opened almost six weeks ago. Four days of the season remained and I finally get to see

a buck. He came from my extreme right. I shot right-handed. Try as I might I could not turn or

shift far enough to the right to take a shot with my dad’s .30-30. Totally frustrated, I watched

the 8-point walk into the brush. He was gone!

I was certain my inability to shoot from my left side had cost me the one chance I would have at

a whitetail buck that season. For a fifteen-year old who then as now, albeit considerably older,

lived and breathed hunting, that missed opportunity was devastating.

An hour after the buck disappeared I climbed from my perch high in the old oak and walked

home. I told my mother my tale of woe while exchanging Dad’s Model 94 for my single-shot

.22 rimfire which had belonged to my maternal grandfather. Before walking out the door I

grabbed a box of Long Rifle ammo and headed to our pond where the dam served as a

backstop when sighting-in rifles.

There, I proceeded to teach myself to shoot from the left side. Yes, I was right eye dominant,

unless it was closed! Thus, closing my right eye I taught myself how to shoot accurately from

the “opposite” side. Initially mounting the rifle to my left shoulder seemed awkward and “not

quite right”. But the more I did it and shot, the easier and more comfortable I felt doing so.

After a box of 50 rounds, shooting left-hand no long felt quite that strange. Hitting the target

precisely where I was holding the sights certainly helped and boosted my confidence. Two days

later I borrowed my Dad’s .30-30 Win lever action rifle, complete with a side-mounted Weaver

K-4 scope and headed to the woods. Wish I could tell you I came home with a deer, shot left-

handed. But that did not happen. Well at least not until two years later. Sitting in a cedar tree

on a 1-6-inch board nailed to a limb, a nice 7-point buck came in from behind me. Once again

there was no way to turn far enough to the right to shoot right-hand. And I could not see the

deer when I tried to look around the the left side of the tree in hopes of shooting him right-

handed. So I simply switched to shooting left-hand and dropped the buck in his tracks.

Since that fateful day I have shot nearly as many animals from my left side as my right side.

Being able to shoot from either side has paid off handsomely many times. Shooting either right

or left-handed is one of the reasons why I dearly love hunting with Ruger Number 1s. They can

be quickly mounted to the left or right shoulder. Number 1’s too, have a tang safety which is

accessible with either thumb. It is also easily reloaded left or right-hand.

One of the more notable times where being able to shoot from the left side paid off occurred

on my leopard hunt in Namibia with Japsie Blaauw’s Dzombo Safaris

(www.dzombosafaris.com). I had planned the hunt for three years.

To back up a bit…three years prior to my leopard hunt, I had cataract surgery on both eyes. The

results were nothing short of phenomenal. From being almost blind I went to 20:10 vision and

in the process no longer glasses for anything but reading. Prior to the leopard trip I spent time

on the FTW Ranch (www.ftwsaam.com) sighting in and shooting my Ruger M77 FTW/SAAM

Hunter in chambered in .300 Win Mag, topped with a Trijicon Accupoint scope and shooting

Hornady’s 200-grain ELD-X, Precision Hunter ammo. After several sessions shooting not just

from the bench, but also as I expected to do from a leopard blind, I was ready.

I was packed and ready, waked at 2 am to get to the airport by four, a little over two hours

before my flight left. All was set right? Well, not quite…. I noticed not being able to see as

acutely with my right eye as usual. By the time I reached my “gate”, it was as if I was looking

through a frosted window pane with my right eye. There I met Josh, one of my grandsons who

was to accompany me on the trip. I did not say anything to him, but thought seriously about

calling off the trip. After all, how well could a one-eyed hunter do in a leopard blind, worse

how would a one-eyed hunter do if “challenged” by a wounded leopard.

Then I thought about it more, I had waited nearly a lifetime for real chance at a leopard. After

all I shot left-handed as well as I did right-handed. I crawled on the plane.

By the time I cleared customs in Windhoek I was essentially blind in my right eye. I resigned

myself to the fact I would likely never be able to again see with my right eye.

The leopard hunt was a grueling one. Many long evenings, nights and early morning. We

headed to the blind at 3 pm, hunted till dark, but then stayed in the blind overnight so as to not

disturb the area and to be in position at first light next day. This meant virtually no movement

and no sleeping because of possibly snoring for many hours. At 10:30 am we left the blind,

headed to camp, took a shower, ate and slept for an hour before heading back to the blind

again that afternoon at 3 pm.

Friends who hunted with Japsie had often shot leopards on the second or third day. Not me,

the hunt dragged on and on. With barely one day left, mid-morning, near the Etosha Park the

landowner, Japsie and I were sitting in what was usually a bow hunting blind with relatively

narrow slits for windows. The landowner sat to my left. I was set up to shoot left handed to his

right. Japsie had just motioned the hunt was over and to start gathering gear. As he did the

landowner saw movement out the extreme right side of the narrow slit I peered through.

“Leopard!” said he in stage whisper. Immediate I swung my rifle pointing out of the window to

the extreme right, saw a monstrous leopard in my scope, flipped the Ruger’s safety to fire, and

with the crosshairs on the leopard’s vitals pulled the trigger. All happened in less than three

seconds.

At the shot the leopard disappeared into tall grass. I felt assured my shot had been on target.

Had I been set up to shoot right-handed as I normally would have, I would never have gotten a

shot at the leopard. I simply could not have swung the rifle far enough to the right to get a

shot.

A half hour later we picked up the leopard’s trail, after a cautious, terribly intense thirty or so

steps we found my leopard, dead. The 200-grain Hornady ELD-X bullet had taken out the top

half of cat’s heart. Thankfully I had the ability to shoot left-handed!

My right eye? Upon returning to home Texas I called Dr. Tim Doucett who had performed my

eye surgery. The following day I was in his office, describing what had happened with my right

eye. He smiled and said, “We’ll have you seeing again before hour’s end. Essentially you’ve

have scar tissue causing your problem a bit of precise laser work will take care of it.”

Indeed, a short time later I was back home, once again seeing 20:10 with both left and right

eye. I was once again ready to shoot either right or left-handed!