About Brad Varney

My name is Brad Varney. I am the owner and founder of Varney’s Clay Sports, the home of “Have Gun Will Teach Shooting School” and I have been hunting and shooting all my life. I’m 79 years of age and have won many, many championships and bagged out on hunt after hunt after hunt. I offer a simple and effective solution. Come to my shooting school, enroll as one of my students, and you will become a better shooter.

I was born near the great Scarborough marsh of Maine and was one of 10 children. My Dad was a commercial clam digger and I followed in his footsteps but with my natural love for the outdoors, hunting and fishing was what I really wanted to do – first with homemade slingshots and bows and arrows-eventually with a BB gun I received for Christmas. My older brother, Albert had guns and hound dogs and I tagged along whenever possible. At 15 Albert gave me my first shotgun, a Stevens Model 94, single barrel 28 gauge. From that point on, my life revolved around guns, hunting and shooting. I also become an avid reader of hunting and shooting literature, especially the “how to” variety. Hunting dogs were and continue to be a very important part of my life.

In 1964 I was introduced to skeet shooting and, as one might expect, I took to it like a duck to water. I have won numerous competitions at skeet and sporting clays. Along the way, I have won at trap, rifle and running deer shoots.

Above all else, I am a wing shooter. There are lots of good clay target shooters out there. Many of them have never killed a single bird nor spent one day in the field! I pride myself on being a wing shooter first and foremost and have spent a LIFETIME in the field hunting game birds. It’s my first love. So, if you are a bird hunter – geese, ducks, grouse, woodcock, pheasant, crows, quail, dove, snipe, you name it – then let me share with you my unbridled passion for wing shooting. I guarantee you your game bag will be heftier after you have taken a few lessons from me. I know wing shooting because I have been doing it all my life.

I have over 55 years of instructing experience and I’ve taught hundreds of shooters to shoot better. My style is easy-going and patient. I will walk you through everything you need to do to shoot BETTER. I take credit for all the misses and you take credit for all the hits. When you miss, I’ll tell you what you did wrong. When you hit the target, I’ll tell you what you did right. I’ll be at your side as you shoot, providing instant feedback. One-on-one instruction is what I do best. When not hunting or shooting, I’m either thinking or reading about the more technical aspects of shooting moving targets and I am one of the few men who have been able to turn a love of shooting moving targets into a successful occupation. My shooting skills are well known throughout the northeast and I take great pride in knowing that they have been surpassed by my teaching skills.