A couple weeks ago I traveled down to Searcy Arkansas to visit with some pals of mine and partake in a dragonfly shoot. For a long time I thought this was some kind of a scam, a snipe hunt for the Yankee. But, it was completely legit and we had a ball. Using smoothbore .22's and old-fashioned .22 birdshot we had warm barrel action on the various dragonflies in the area.

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I learned a lot. There are a variety of dragonflies. The crimp style .22 birdshot has a practical range of 10-18 feet. I used a Winchester Model 69 rescued from a garage sale (the wood had been "antique" painted) and gunsmith Clyde Moore of D&D guns (Troy, Michigan) smoothbored it for me. My counterparts in Arkansas (mostly retired military officers) used Romanian .22 trainers that got smoothbored.

Other lessons learned are that the plastic capsule birdshot is almost useless. The newer birdshot loads aren't nearly as powerful as the old stuff. All of it is very dirty.

It was not unusual to shoot 200 rounds a day. In addition to dragonflies, we also shot beetles and dangerous game (wasps and hornets).

Shotshells, well thats about cheating. Just kidding. We would go on grasshopper safari with 22lr. and what a blast it was. Shot at a bunch of dragonflies but never hit any. Should have stuffed a couple of hoppers for the wall.

Which one tastes better, grasshopper legs or dragonfly wings? Got any good recepies. I enjoy spotting for people at silhouette matches during the summer. When the bullet hits the steel target you don't even have to hit that close to the flies or grasshoppers and they go for a ride.

Funny thing is years ago if you will remmber thay made the BB Annihilator it ran on Freon gas
full auto The first true dragon fly killer

that was about 73 or 74 ? I think ...And a shotgun is just cheating

I got one on the wing with my Ruger Super Redhawk in .44 mag. I was in an old gravel pit that had a pond in it, and several DFs kept flying past at about 5 yards. I said to my buddy, "Hey I wonder if I can hit one?" BOOM! and the DF was floating in the water with a half circle cut through the body.
First and last one hit.

I lived in a house once that was infested with wood bees, these look like all black bummble bees and they chew into anything wood. .22 birdshot knocks them right down, we called it Bumbble Bee skeet.

I've done similar with a .177 air rifle loaded with granulated sugar around the house when I was a kid. Pattern was about 6" at 2 yards, and it was effective for wingshooting houseflies without even marking wallpaper a couple yards further off.

Be careful what you shoot !! They have declared a type of fly in Hawaii as an endangered species !!!!

Good to hear I'm not alone...wife thinks I'm crazy for shooting carpenter bees on the wing with a Daisy Red Rider. Great fun and good instinctive shooting practice. My average is 12 shots per bee which probably won't get me into the Nationals..but it's fun!!

just remember dragon flies eat moskitos so if you start having a skeeter boom might want to place a bad limit on the d-flies!

And I thought I was the only whack job! When we were kids, we shot them around a lake shore. We used 22's, shorts and long rifles, no shot.