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Clays can be figured out, on a calm day. You want to be humbled? Shoot decoying pigeons, in a feedlot or dairy. 1st shot will be near 100%......let me know how you do on shot #2, #3, #4 or #5. NOTHING moves like a pigeon, that wants to be somewhere else!

Andy3

Barnyard pigeons learn quick, for sure.

Winter flocks of starlings are a challenge too, very fast and smarter than doves I think. We used to hide in a field grown up in cedars and wait for them to fly by. Cheap #9s really smoked them.

anyone who feels clay birds are easy has not been shooting clay birds much, i have hunted with my share of bird hunters and the best clay bird shooters have always been the better wing shot when i was hunting and the guys who claim clay birds are easy compared to real birds have always been a poor wing shooter and trap shooter always.

We kill the hell out of starlings headed to my buds chicken coop and dog kennels.

The very best practice I have found for dove season.

Love shooting some city chickens.

We used to have a dairy farm we hunted and we killed several at times. Maybe 2-3 in with a limit of 15 doves per man.

Preferred 5s or 6s on them. Smashed the hell out of em.

Have tried neither, but Live Pigeon shooting and driven pheasants seem about as tough as it can get; juiced up, accelerating birds trying to stay alive.

Do they still even have the Live Pigeon shoots? Seem to recall there was some pressure to ban them, like all fun stuff.

I prefer to shoot live pigeons over dead pigeons.

Dead ones aren't as sporting.

Those little starlings are tough! Many, that you think you missed, fall dead 100 yards out! Takes a well centered hit, up close, to put feathers in the air!

Guys that think birds are easier than clays, have never shot pigeons much. I have a state champ trap shooter shoot them with me, regularly.....he flys in from out of state just to shoot pigeons with me.....says there is no challenge in the world like them, not even close. I even learned some new cuss words from him, and I learned from the best (a fighter pilot)!!!

Andy3

You should try moths buzzing around lights. You can bring a light puff of smoke.

Not all that hard…..

By invite….but helice (zz birds) is coming on strong.

Do wood bees with a 22 pistol and shotshells count?

Absolutely.

This is one
https://lsbauctions.com/8669/hatfie...-double-barrel-shotgun-case-mfd-ca-1988/

https://www.rockislandauction.com/detail/50/3440/hatfield-rifle-company-uplander-shotgun-2028-ga

Anyway I guess they were not in business long but I remember reading about them in Outdoor Life or Field & Stream and really wanting one bad. I'm more curious who wrote the article as it was well done and made me covet the gun badly.

Utterly beautiful, I also need one in 28 gauge !

This looks like a lot of fun, are the targets re-shootable ?

I’ve had a lot of days, and truth be known, Entire Seasons where I didn’t fire 10 shots ! Pathetic yes,
but that’s Ruffed Grouse hunting on the down years of their cycle.

Had I wanted to , I could’ve fired a thousand rounds at Canada geese in those same years.

I can’t imagine the drudgery of carrying an American Skeet gun for grouse hunting,
or similarily a Trap cannon on a goose hunting expedition.

They may be accurate, but they’re not all that interesting when hunting.

Sporting guns tend to mount and swing nice, but they also tend to be a little heavier than a true field version.

Weight soaks up the recoil of a few hundred target shots, lighter guns tend to go along when the miles exceed the shot count, Ha

I’ve impressed more than a couple of people shooting carpenter bees out of the air with a .22 pistol of course I never told them there were shotshells in the pistol😁!!

PennDog

PennDog,

Laughing here, both because of your story and a couple of similar ones.

One of my hunting mentors, in both wingshooting and big game, was the late Norm Strung, who was a hard-core hunter who grew up in New York City--back when you had to be 18 to get a driver's license. Consequently he hitch-hiked to the Catskills when he started deer hunting at age 16, with his Savage 99 in a soft case. Imagine trying that now.

Anyway, Norm left New York as soon as he graduated from high school, and moved to Montana to live in the country and become a hunting/fishing writer. He eventually bought 7 acres of land with a falling-down log cabin, and rebuilt the cabin while starting a side-career of being a fishing/hunting guide.

While rebuilding there were still a lot of mice in the place--but they not only put up the hunters in a tent next to the cabin, but fed them, his wife Sil doing the cooking. During meals a few mice ran around the "dining room," a small space including the wood cookstove she then cooked on. He kept Sil's Ruger Bearcat (the original, smaller model) on the dinner table, loaded with birdshot rounds. When a mouse showed up Norm would casually whack it with the Bearcat, which enhanced his reputation among clients!

When I was a little kid, used to stuff a short wad of Kleenex in my Daisy Red Ryder, then pour in a little sand, and another "wad." This proved very effective on flies out to about 10 feet.

BTDT😜

A couple of years ago, Charlie Jacoby of the Fieldsports Channel did a piece on his father’s struggle with cabbage whites in his garden. I got inspired and loaded up my .22 Air King using cleaning pellets as the wadding and #12 shot from some Rio shotshells, then sent him pics of the patterns. Don’t know if he tried it himself, but I got a nice email response. Never tried them on the butterflies myself as we gave up on growing broccoli.