Posted on 09/02/2022 4:24:45 PM PDT by whyilovetexas111
Or they’re not going boating so much.😏
Since I’m typically late to threads, when I see a number off by a factor of 10, or similar, I usually scroll through the rest of the thread to see who caught it, or if the poster did. Simple courtesy. :-)
I do have a slightly OT comment and comment, tho’, esp. for the hunters. Game hunters, that is.
Yesterday I happened to go fishing for a couple hours at a pond on a local WMA (Wildlife Management Area). It was also the 1st day of dove season. Several dove fields are quite close to the pond. I have watched (and heard!) dove hunters around this pond on other Labor Day weekends in the recent past. But, yesterday not only was I surprised by how many hunters were about, I was even more surprised by the sheer volume of gunfire when birds were spotted. In the past, a bird would be flushed, and then a hunter would take a shot, maybe two. All shotguns, of course. Yesterday the majority of the firing seemed to be several shot semi-auto sequences. As if these guys could hardly hit anything and were trying to compensate by pulling the trigger as fast as they could. Sometimes 2 or 3 different sounding guns would open up almost simultaneously from (so far as I could tell) the same spot. All the firing was not far off, as the dove fields are all pretty close to this pond.
(IIRC, on 7 occasions in ~ 3 hours, shot rained down on “my side” of the pond. Twice a little caught the bank I was on, within a few feet away, tho’ none ever hit me. The splashes all looked to be from mostly vertical falls, but it was still a bit un-nerving.)
Now, I can easily understand why some homeowners would prefer semi-auto shotguns for home defense. We had a considerable discussion of the pro’s and con’s on FR, a little while back. But, is this the way hunting for smallish field birds is evolving? It seems like a lot of ammo expenditure for... doves.
“comment and question”, I mean... (eye-roll)
Yeah, spray and pray doesn’t work with shotguns, either. Hitting a moving target with a shotgun takes considerable, recurring practice for most of us. Starting with some instruction works best. They probably didn’t get many doves. Did some pass shooting for doves back in the ‘70s, and it was fairly easy for me compared to quail.
No need to worry about getting hit with bird shot, if it was bird shot. That is, if you’re wearing glasses. I once caught some bird shot in the ‘70s from a dummy from maybe 75 yards away, if I remember correctly. It stung a little but no injury. Yelled at him and let it go.
Hitting flushed birds seemed more difficult to me than pass shooting.
After Biden’s speech on Thursday, I am curious to see if there will be a spike in gun sales.
LOL Any guesses why? UFO’s huh.
Heh, yes, I considered a little “blue air” at those guys sending the birdshot into the pond. They were in a field that begins a bit over 100 yards away, with a wooded area lining a road between us, closer to them than me. So I wasn’t too worried about injury from birdshot coming back down at a steep angle (to clear the trees). But it was still a bit irksome, and, they were shooting in the general direction of the (much closer to them) road.
Funny thing is, early on, one of the enforcement guys drove on the dam right behind me on his way to one of the other fields. I was about to pull out my fishing license but he jut waved and went on and checked on that 2nd group of hunters. I suspect that if that 1st group had pinged some shot off his truck, they’d have received a visit too...
I have heard that stray bird shot mark called Texas Sunshine or Missouri Sun Burn.
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