I hunt ruffed grouse and woodcock with a Franchi AL48 28ga. I do this because it's the shotgun I shoot the best in "woods" hunting conditions. MN doesn't require a plug for upland so long ago I did pull the plug, so, it holds 5 rounds, but, I can't think of any time I've shot them all.
In open ground for pheasants, Huns, or Sharptails I use a 20ga Beretta. 302, 303, 391, or often a SxS 626. In ND, we're limited to 3-shots for all bird hunting so it's either 2 or 3 shots no matter what. Once in a great while if I know I'm hunting exclusively cattails late in the season I'll switch to a semi-auto 12 to reduce the chance of a cripple. Wild late season crippled pheasants in cattails can be a real bugger to find so deader is better.
