Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Do you pick up your spent shotgun shells when hunting?

I’ve been surprised by the number of guys who leave them where they lay, which can add up to a pile when dove hunting.

Of course, when you do find an old shell in the woods, it tells a story of someone having a good day out there once.

Dove?

Always.

Upland?

No.

Exactly...

Every time, every place.

Same.

Ducks? Maybe - if they float away, no.

Oh my does anyone remember thr smell of a paper shell???

Oh my so nice, my grandpa …blah blah blah fuggin blah



Shells?

I leave the birds too 😃

Yes

Yes. And after owning our farm for 37 years, I may have all the old shotshells my predecessors left laying around picked up.

Always do.
No dove hunting here in NJ (they're classified as songbirds, LOL!). Closed season for quail and ruffed grouse, as well, so only upland birds hunting is for pheasant. So nothing that you'd call high volume shooting, but yeah, I pick them up.

I remember years ago, finding just the brass bases in the dirt, proof that they'd been lying there so long the paper hulls had disintegrated. Now the brass plated bases will rust away, leaving the plastic there forever.

Try to. Autos make it tough.

My club has a nice 5-Stand setup. The shooters all help police the area when done shooting. The wads on the field are another matter. Regrettably, the nice paper hulls and fiber-wad shells that are common, and often required in places like Britain are tough to come by here. I’d buy them if they were available.

Some of our shooters reload, and go through the pick-ups for good hulls like AAs. Those guys are felling the primer crunch too, and shot prices are tough on them too.

Been planting the same sunflower field with dove loads for 30 years and they still won't grow.

I pick it all up.

I load everything I shoot so I keep all my hulls, plus I try not to litter.

Always - all

Yes. Well I shoot an over/under when upland hunting so my shells never hit the ground.

True, but it’s interesting if you can read the shot size and load, high brass/low brass, brand/gauge. Single shells don’t bother me much.

I would expect the plastic would degrade to fragments before the brass is gone.

Incidentally they say every piece of plastic ever made still exists, somewhere.

Rifle shells always, but then I’m a handloader.
Shot shells I do if I’m using one of my 16s. I’ve got a Mec, and 16s are hard to find, and expensive when you do.
But 12s and 20s, no.
7mm

^^^ This

Sitting on a bucket next to a pond shooting doves you’d be a lazy ass to not pick up the pile of empties lying on the dirt.

Walking 3 foot high CRP grass for pheasants you’d be a dumbass to root around in the grass for one or two empties while your partners wait on you to continue the push and the birds keep getting further ahead of you.

Yes, which is why I like extractors in my double.

I pick mine up if I can find them and any others I come across.

Trash is trash, no matter the source.

Pisses ranchers off when cattle eat the plastic hulls.

Seen some cattle die from it.

Doesn't make for very good hunter/rancher land relations.