TrapperReady
Member
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2003
- Messages
- 2,732
First of all, I want to offer up a big time apology, especially to re1973...
We ended up not shooting any quail.
After warming up with a few rounds of skeet, we had some lunch and waited for our field to open up. While at lunch, my friend talked with the kid who was going to plant our birds. As it turned out, the quail that he'd planted for a couple of morning hunts just weren't flying, they would just hunker down and sit really, really tight.
Knowing the nature of the dog we had, we realized that the dog would probably end up killing more quail than we would, so we went with the kid's recommendation and had him put out chukars instead.
When we went out to the field, we'd been walking maybe 10 minutes, and a large rooster pheasant flushed about 35 yards in front of us, going right to left. I was loaded with the 7/8oz of #7.5, and missed in front with the first barrel, but folded him with the second. The way that the bird cartwheeled down, I thought it would be DRT, but the dog retrieved one wounded, but very much alive bird.
The next 3 birds we flushed were all pheasants, and my friend had better shots and better ammo (using high velocity 1 1/4oz of 6s). He bagged all of them. We then got into a few chukars, all of which flushed at medium range, but were moving fast. With the light loads, I was getting feathers flying off, but was needing backup to actually get them to drop.
We worked our way back to the truck, got some water for the dog and dropped off our birds. I was not at all happy with my performance using these loads. I switched to a box of 1 1/8 oz #6s moving around 1450fps. We then went back into the field, and with the exception of one blatant miss, chukars and pheasants were dropping consistently and normally very much dead. The action was pretty heavy, and after another hour or so, the dog was getting tired.
Again, we returned to the truck to tend to the dog and drop off birds. By this time, I was running low on the #6s, so I decided to try the light loads for the first shot, with the heavier #6 as backup. On our last trip into the fields, we got into several birds we had missed on previous passes. Most were 30-40 yard shots (paced off) and the first shot would send feathers flying, while the second would put the bird down hard.
When we were done, we ended up with 12 chukars and 8 pheasants. Evidently, the folks who had the field before us had put out something like 20 pheasants, and only came back with 5 of them. I'm just glad we were able to help them out.
So, at least when chukars and pheasant are likely game, I'm going to be using the hand-rolled 1 1/8oz fast-moving loads. The recoil isn't too bad, and they work very, very effectively. The 7/8oz loads work well on targets and I will try them on quail in the future, but I'm so far less than impressed with their effectiveness.
BTW, the pheasants went into my friend's freezer, but we ate the chukar for lunch on Sunday. They were breasted out, pounded to an even thickness and covered in pesto sauce. Lightly pan seared and served over pasta, it was quite tasty. Not exactly quail medallions with biscuits, but nice nonetheless.
Also, as a life-lesson for any pheasants out there. If a couple of hunters and a dog walk right past you... it's not the best idea to cackle loudly as you fly away behind them.
I figure this just gives me more time to find the right 28ga before my next quail opportunity.
We ended up not shooting any quail.
After warming up with a few rounds of skeet, we had some lunch and waited for our field to open up. While at lunch, my friend talked with the kid who was going to plant our birds. As it turned out, the quail that he'd planted for a couple of morning hunts just weren't flying, they would just hunker down and sit really, really tight.
Knowing the nature of the dog we had, we realized that the dog would probably end up killing more quail than we would, so we went with the kid's recommendation and had him put out chukars instead.
When we went out to the field, we'd been walking maybe 10 minutes, and a large rooster pheasant flushed about 35 yards in front of us, going right to left. I was loaded with the 7/8oz of #7.5, and missed in front with the first barrel, but folded him with the second. The way that the bird cartwheeled down, I thought it would be DRT, but the dog retrieved one wounded, but very much alive bird.
The next 3 birds we flushed were all pheasants, and my friend had better shots and better ammo (using high velocity 1 1/4oz of 6s). He bagged all of them. We then got into a few chukars, all of which flushed at medium range, but were moving fast. With the light loads, I was getting feathers flying off, but was needing backup to actually get them to drop.
We worked our way back to the truck, got some water for the dog and dropped off our birds. I was not at all happy with my performance using these loads. I switched to a box of 1 1/8 oz #6s moving around 1450fps. We then went back into the field, and with the exception of one blatant miss, chukars and pheasants were dropping consistently and normally very much dead. The action was pretty heavy, and after another hour or so, the dog was getting tired.
Again, we returned to the truck to tend to the dog and drop off birds. By this time, I was running low on the #6s, so I decided to try the light loads for the first shot, with the heavier #6 as backup. On our last trip into the fields, we got into several birds we had missed on previous passes. Most were 30-40 yard shots (paced off) and the first shot would send feathers flying, while the second would put the bird down hard.
When we were done, we ended up with 12 chukars and 8 pheasants. Evidently, the folks who had the field before us had put out something like 20 pheasants, and only came back with 5 of them. I'm just glad we were able to help them out.
So, at least when chukars and pheasant are likely game, I'm going to be using the hand-rolled 1 1/8oz fast-moving loads. The recoil isn't too bad, and they work very, very effectively. The 7/8oz loads work well on targets and I will try them on quail in the future, but I'm so far less than impressed with their effectiveness.
BTW, the pheasants went into my friend's freezer, but we ate the chukar for lunch on Sunday. They were breasted out, pounded to an even thickness and covered in pesto sauce. Lightly pan seared and served over pasta, it was quite tasty. Not exactly quail medallions with biscuits, but nice nonetheless.
Also, as a life-lesson for any pheasants out there. If a couple of hunters and a dog walk right past you... it's not the best idea to cackle loudly as you fly away behind them.
I figure this just gives me more time to find the right 28ga before my next quail opportunity.
