I GREW up in hills. As a kid with a pea rifle it was rare for a fox or rabbit to be more than the width of a footy field away when I'd take aim.
More like a cricket pitch for most, where I could just about shoot from the hip.
But as legs wearied faster and calibres got bigger, flatter lands became more accommodating and ranges increased.
These days I'll let confidently fly with my .338 at large hoofed ferals - brumbies, donkeys and camels - out to the limits of my rangefinder - 600 yards.
I'll sometimes take shots approaching that distance whenever back in the hills. There's not much choice with dogs, the hardest of the lot when it comes to sneaking up. Goats and foxes aren't as alert. A downwind walk through masking ground or timber has the rewards of a bigger sight picture.
Trouble was, I was missing more times than I'd like to admit. I thought it was me. In the manner of a good tradesman, I was reluctant to blame the guns but started to fiddle with sights.
Back on the black soil plains, I paid the price for those bouts of tinkering. I was flummoxed.
I took the problem up with mates, the internet and anyone I figured might be of help. More questions were raised than answered. They ranged from simple-to-grasp concepts to algebraic stuff beyond my comprehension. Mathematics reached a pinnacle for me with long division sums.
Someone cited altitude and air resistance. Things go faster as they get higher.
The new F18 Super Hornets can get close to twice the speed of sound at 10,000 metres but need full afterburners to make a sonic boom at sea level.
So using that logic, he concluded that a bullet must therefore travel faster while going uphill, and visa-versa downhill.
That one didn't grab me.
It wasn't until I ran into my mate Phil Bevan that the penny dropped.
Phil has had several deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and is experienced in what I was on about.
It seems that good old gravity can take most of the blame.
Like the wind, gravity is a force of nature shooters have to live with. But while there are lulls between gusts, gravity is a constant ... so we think.
What shooters fail to realise - me anyway, until put straight - was that gravity acts perpendicularly on flying objects. A constant, yes, over flat ground, but across hill and dale, gravity alters the bullet trajectory.
Although a non-issue at short ranges, as distances to targets widen, gravity becomes a compounding factor. A degree of deviation can mean the difference between a clean kill and a complete miss.
Whether uphill or downhill, aiming a little low works for me.
