What was your most memorable shot?

Mine happened during a grouse hunt in Indiana years ago.

Four of us were working line abreast, angling down a slope to the left, with about 10 yards between us. I was third from the right when a grouse flushed in front of us. He flew directly back towards my wife (second from the right), and then changed direction about 90 degrees to pass in front of me, no more than 5 yards away.

We all spotted him the instant he flushed, but neither Glenn nor Kate could react quickly enough to get off a shot.

I could -- and I shot when he was directly in front of me. He was dead at the shot (he just folded), but his momentum carried him on -- to lodge in the fork of a tree trunk, at shoulder height.

When I retrieved him, I found that the pellet column hadn't opened at all (not surprising), but it had removed his entire abdomen and all the guts clean as a whistle, leaving the rest of him unscathed.

The bottom line, I both killed and gutted the bird with the shot, and didn't even have to bend over to pick him up.

I know this is hard to believe, but it really happened.

Thanks for sharing, a welcome aboard. Honestly, I can't decide and/or choose a favorite. Killing a woodcock with one shot the first time I'd ever seen one? Tripling on three species a minute into shooting light with a dear friend, and have him giggle and say, 'nice shootin, TEX!' Calling in a pair of geese from a half mile away, and dumping them both when cupped with one shot?

It's all good, but want to hear others' stories!

Cheers,

KG

i was standing on a small boat and there was a mallad coming towars us at his best speed at low hight i shot him and he came in same momentum towards me i ducked it there was a man standing right behind me who was a boat man mallad hit him in his face and he fall down in the water with a broken teeth and blood on his face,regards

My first Mallard is a shot I will remember forever. I had flushed about 40 from the willows along a spring creek. I got excited and just shot the first barrel into the flock not even drawing a feather. I was really sick about not getting anything but then a Big Drake came up late and at the shot he just floated back down onto the gravel bar. That one shot made me a Duck Hunter for life. I used my Dad's Parker double that he had given me so it made the shot that much more special. I was still in Grade School so getting a Mallard Drake was big stuff.

Hawkeye47

Once in my life I was lucky. Hunting alone in a canoe I took three quick shots at a group of geese who were running across the water.Bunched up together I took 7 out of the 12 !!

Back in the days when lead was legal for waterfowl, I was jumping ponds in NW Oklahoma and killed my only banded duck (a mallard drake). That in itself makes the shot memorable, but it was also a "Hail Mary" 100 yard flying away shot. When I cleaned the duck, I found that one pellet had hit him in the head and killed him.

Four years ago when I got Ben, my 1st GSP. It was his 1st season and he was working like a pro. Last bird (pheasant) of the season he had the prettiest point you could ask for. I of course had one of those perfect shots from my Citori 525 12ga. Top it off with a great retreive. I'll never forget that day. That dog and I are inseparatable buds.

My most memorable bird shot is one of the most disgusting things I have ever done.

While in the Army I had a Ruger 22 pistol. One day while walking through some woods on the way to a place I knew to shoot rocks and trash with it a big bird unexpectedly flew over my head.

I had the pistol in my hand and instinct took over. I don't know how I hit that bird because I am not a good pistol shot.

It was a most beautiful owl. I don't know if it was a protected species.

I looked at it - dead on the ground - and wished I could take back that shot.

I often think of that moment. It is not good.

"Injuries are never forgotten in the presence of those who caused them" ....Aesop

Ten of us were on a pen-raised pheasant hunt near Katy, west of Houston in the early 80s. The pheasant were weak of wing and brain. The day was over and we were grouping by the cars disassembling our shotguns, when the last man coming from the field stepped through a fence on the edge of the bar-ditch. A cock flushed right towards us, low and slow. As it went over my head I grabbed the stock of my shotgun out of the case, shouldered it quickly and yelled, "BAM! BAM!. In mid-flight the cock turned and stared at me, and flew into the highline, nearly decapitating himself. He dropped on the highway. One of the guides ran out and wrung its neck. Thank God at least twelve people saw that "shot".

I once shot a sparrow at around 180 yards with a 22LR. I had a pie plate up practicing at that range a bird landed on it to eat some crumbs from the pie that had been in it. Got lucky and nailed it on the first shot, even though I was getting fairly large groups out there!

I once made a series of them and killed a limit of eight wild Missouri quail with seven shots. I missed once, and killed two birds with one shot twice. Never will that happen again.

I had done a lot of duck & goose hunting and considered myself to be a fairly good shotgunner. We were hunting a small pond in Katy TX and getting a few flyovers. When all of a sudden I see something I'd never seen in our area - a canvasback! I'd always wanted one. It was a nice cool sunny day and I could see it's markings vividly. Very mature and flying straight and slow. I let him get really close, raised my shotgun and fired. I knew I'd hit him. Even lowered my shotgun. To my amazement he kept flying. Raised my shotgun again, put him squarely in my sights and bam! He picked up speed, now that he saw me, and kept on flying. Of course I gave him one more 'good bye' shot but knew he was gone. The only time I've seen one with a shotgun in my hand. Just wasn't meant to be.

quote:

Originally posted by bluefin:
I had done a lot of duck & goose hunting and considered myself to be a fairly good shotgunner. We were hunting a small pond in Katy TX and getting a few flyovers. When all of a sudden I see something I'd never seen in our area - a canvasback! I'd always wanted one. It was a nice cool sunny day and I could see it's markings vividly. Very mature and flying straight and slow. I let him get really close, raised my shotgun and fired. I knew I'd hit him. Even lowered my shotgun. To my amazement he kept flying. Raised my shotgun again, put him squarely in my sights and bam! He picked up speed, now that he saw me, and kept on flying. Of course I gave him one more 'good bye' shot but knew he was gone. The only time I've seen one with a shotgun in my hand. Just wasn't meant to be.

Nice image, BF. Made me grin. But then, when you finally do knock down a bull can', you'll savor it all the more, I'm sure.

One more: I was in a place by myself, hoping to mug a duck or two, and at some point here comes a bird flying high, but right at me. I probably should have held, but cut loose anyway. I watched as the bird was rocked by the pellets, and in a few seconds, gathered himself up and regained composure. You all know what I mean; you stagger a bird, and he looks like he's coming out of the sky, but all of a sudden gets back with the program and keeps flying as you look on. You find yourself watching intently amd chanting "I know I hit you, now die damn it, you rotten sonofa...!" Most times (with me, anyway) I see this they keep going (as the shooter shakes his head and maybe cries a wee bit), but as I watched this bird staggered, and then dies mid-air, just like goes to sleep mid wingbeat. I whoop, and watch as the trajectory takes the bird down, but away from me a bit. I mark where I think it's going to wind up, and slog over. Look, look and look some more, I could *not* find that bird, even though I knew he was dead in the air and had to be around somewhere. Some time later, I look up and see something stuck in a tall tree. I find that it's my duck, skewered through the chest and out the other side by a sharp, broken branch about 25 feet up that tree. You have any idea how hard it is to shimmy up a tree with waders on...? Anyway, let it be known that I ate duck that night.

Cheers,

KG

Once 30 years ago now, I snuck up on some duck down in the cove. But when I got there and ready, I was behind a blow down's root mass. I knew the ducks would be fairly close so I opened my poly choke to cycliner....then stood up, the ducks were about 10 yards from me and the whole flock jumped. On the first shot I got 4 birds and then two more on successive shots. One of my most memorable.

A left and right, with my late father's 20 bore, on a cock and hen pair of widgeon over my own pond some years before I sold the property.

I have them stuffed and displayed in a glass case in my home to this day. It was also my first ever true left and right! So much better on two truly wild birds then on any reared pheasant.

Two series of shots stick in my mind.

The first was the very firsttime I was hunting. My Dad although he never hunted when I was old enough to remember, had bought a 12 guage Stevens pump for my brother and I. After some considerable begging he agree to take me a few miles from our farm to try for some hungarian partridge. One spot was an aspen ringed hay slough and when I walked in to the center a flock of huns took flight. I shot twice. Dad, being a very economical guy said I had done well to get a bird on my first shot, but then proceeded to admonish me for wating a second shot. I took great pleasure in walking a few more feet and picking up the other bird.

The second series of shots also involved huns but with very different results. One very windy day a couple years ago I was on the windward side of a shelter belt and a buddy was walking the other side. the wind was about 35 mph and coming from the side and behind me. A couple more friends were sitting in a car watching us. Five different ,times a hun came out my side and I took a good bead , swinging through to establish the proper lead, shooting when everything seemed perfect. All five birds broke hard left just a split second before the gun fired. Each time I shot where the bird should have been , not where it was. I just couldn't seem to hold fire even though I knew they were going to cut. Man those little devils can move when they catch the wind.

Any dove I manage to hit is memorial, but I once shot one that was coming directly towards me. I managed to jump up and catch it with my hat as it was falling over my head. Too bad my dad and another guy that was close were both looking the other way and didnt see me do it.

Another memorial shot I witnessed but did not make was while hunting wood ducks in flooded timber. A buddy shot one and crippled it but it kept flying. About 50 yards past him it smacked into the side of a tree and fell dead. I dont think we were able to shoot any more ducks that morning for laughing so hard.

Some 60 years ago, I was at Cruger's Point on the Hudson River in NY State. I shot at a Canada flying down the Hudson and going hell for leather with a tail wind to help. I swung, god knows how far to lead him. Range about 40 yards,12 ga,#4s. He hit the water so hard, I swear he practically skipped. I never forgot that shot and I was a teenager at the time.

GREAT THREAD!

I'm grinning and laughing to myself as I type this Gentlemen, so the stories are good!

Got a couple actually....

In Scotland on a Driven Day started the day off with a magnificent Woodcock - one of those blindingly fast, corkscrew shots where you just sorta react as it screams by.

Cleanly whacked the next 28 pheasants with one shot each, actually appearing as I really knew what I was doing - it was just one of those days......the last bird for the day was another Woodcock. The Day's tally 30 shots - 30 dead Birds, Whow!

The long & short of it - since a Pump shotgun isn't listed under German law you can get away with laoding with 5 shells. Semi-Autos being specifically covered by the standard "three" rule and of course breechloaders are one/two.

On the Dutch/German border shooting Wood Pigeons (LARGE Pigeons) that were returning from raiding the Dutch Truck Farms. Posted on the edge of a stand of Oaks over looking a huge wheat field. A large swarn of Wood Pigeons flew by and I started at the rear - Yup, you guessed it - had 5 dead Pigeons in the air at one time; shucked the whole tube dry just as slick as Wille and never missed a lick.

Then I heard a voice behind me say "Whow!, I've never seen anything like that before!" It was our Host who was cruising the wood with a wicker basket full of Wine & Schnapps to dispense for his "Guns" in gratitude for their efforts in assisting him with his Wood Pigeon plague. To this day he continues to relate this story to everyone we meet about this string of 5 shots/5 dead Pigeons. He actually thinks I shoot like that all the time - I just haven't bothered to tell him any different.

Keep up the great stories......

I have managed to empty a fully stuffed M12 on a rise and had 7 dead birds when it was over, I have killed two triples on grouse and a number of doubles, but the most amazing thing I ever saw was my father with that same Model 12. We were on our way out to do some pheasant hunting back in the fifties. He spotted a rooster running into a large brush pile in a field so he stopped and loaded up. When he kicked the brush pile it erupted with birds going in all directions. The gun went off like one long roar. Running birds died, flying birds died and when he told me go get 'em I went out and picked up seven dead roosters. No hens got shot even accidentally. It took maybe a second. We only had two left to fill out our limit for the three of us and we hadn't even made it to the farm yet.

When I shot seven on a rise they all went the same way and I had a lot more time. What he did was just awe inspiring to a kid, and to this day I still remember my amazement at how unbelievably fast that gun could shoot and how he just turned into a perfectly frightening machine, and that was more than fifty years ago.

The best shooting I have ever done was a certain double on woodcock. I was hunting with a my long time partner over two horseback field trial dogs when I got a perfect point and back. Something told me that I had two birds on the ground and I knew exactly where they'd both go. Tom was in no position to even swing much less get a shot off when they flushed. I took the bird going right with the bottom barrel and the one going left with the top barrel and then turned back to mark the fall on the first bird. I marked the first one down within inches and Tom marked the second one nearly as accurately. Both dogs were excellent at hunting dead and had remained steady to wing and shot and had marked the falls themselves well. We hunted dead for well over an hour and never found either one. These were dogs I used for banding woodcock chicks, dogs supremely good at finding birds with virtually no scent. Dogs that would turn the woods inside out if they knew the bird was there. They didn't quit. They didn't try to go off hunting elsewhere. They KNEW the birds were there. We never found either bird! Both birds were just crushed when I hit them. To this day I have not taken another double on woodcock, and that was more than twenty years past. I still can see the birds hitting the ground and marking the brush they hit near, and I cannot for the life of me make sense of it. Had Tom not been there I would have to doubt if I had really done it.

Back in the 70's the Quail were abundant on my place of 40 acres and had Quail feeders out.

One after noon I decided to go and shoot me some. I was walking slowly through the Palmetto patches without the dogs and 5 lifted about 15yds straight from me and flew bunched together, I pointed and pulled the trigger on the hunp back and killed all 5....I was thankful that my father was right behind me to witness the shot that afternoon.

So many come to mind, but one in particular was on my first duck hunt. I was 16 and one of my high school buddies came into class one Monday morning and mentioned seeing so many ducks on the lake the past weekend. "Ducks?" I asked. "Yeah, there must have been a thousand of them flying all over the place" he replied. After telling a few more pals, 4 of us decided we'd give duck hunting a try the next weekend. I asked my Father about it and he told me about hunting regulations and I needed a duck stamp. I went to the Post Office and bought a duck stamp and picked up a copy of the Federal regs. "Damn!" I thought; "You have to be a Lawyer to understand all of this." Again I went to my Father for advice. He basically gave me the important rules: shooting times, plugged gun, and limit on ducks for that year. It turns out that the next Saturday was opening day.
I met my friends the next Saturday morning about an hour before daylight. We had no camo clothing (what was that anyway), decoys, duck calls, just a thermos and sandwich and a burning desire to shoot ducks. After building a massive fort out on the end of a long point with Cedars and brush, we began to see flocks of birds in the early morning light. Zigging and zagging here and there. Finally, a group of birds dropped into our little cove and began to follow the shoreline only 30 yards high. As they swung over our point, all four of us unloaded our guns. Two ducks fell out of the group of about 50. Things began to heat up as more flocks of these black and white twisting missiles came around and over our point. After an hour we'd only had six birds in hand but that many lay out on the water. I remember seeing one large duck in particular with a red head and neck (Canvasback drake) I would later learn. By 10 in the morning, two of my friends were out of shells and cold. They left taking six "Bluebills" with them. An hour later with little in the air, I turned to gaze out towards the main channel. "Wow" I told my remaining Pard, "Look at all those Blackbirds" I exclaimed. Huge masses of twisting, turning flocks of birds at high altitude began to swing into the large cove we were hunting in. I quickly realized these were no Blackbirds; they were ducks, and there must have been five thousand of them. What I witnessed still remains vivid in my head today: my first main migration of waterfowl. As far as I could see out on the main lake they came, wads, lines, V's and groups. Literally thousands of tired and weary ducks looking for a suitable place to land and rest. On they came, and within minutes my friend and I had target after target to shoot at. For thirty minutes it was all we could do to keep our shotguns loaded. Finally it subsided and the skies were empty again. My buddy was down to 4 shells (he had 4 boxes of 16 ga., that morning and I brought 6 boxes of 12 gauge) and I had about one box left. We were going to have to walk to the other side of the cove to get our ducks which would involve a total of about 4 miles round trip, so we began to gather our empties up when I spotted a single duck headed our way. "Get down" I whispered to my bud. "Where?" he replied. "Your side, behind you" I said. "That ducks a mile high" he responded. "Well at least get down" was my answer. My friend eased down and when the little speedster was about to be overhead, I raised up and led the guided missile by about 10 feet and squeezed the trigger. "Holy *hit" my friend yelled. "That duck was a mile high!" In reality, yes, the bird was mighty high, even with a magnum load of #4's. Lead was powerful shot back in the day, and I crushed the little Ring-neck drake. His inertia continued his still form forward for about 30 yards; he hit the ground with a thud. "Stone dead" was my only comment. I remember that shot as if it were yesterday. About that time two men came into the cove in a big flat bottom, high speed boat. They had been hunting out on the main lake and had their limit. I flagged them down and they were kind enough to pick our birds up for us. "You boys did real good" one replied as he handed our mixed bag of Scaup(lesser and greater) "Sawbill's" (what the hell was a sawbill I wondered. Found out that night we'd shot Common Merganser females). Didn't get the Canvasback. I know I saw them pick him up, I guess that was our payment for their help.
LDK

There are two, neither of which I made -

1. Pheasant hunt in Texas with my dad. Cock flushed, everyone (4 shooters) missed. The bird doubled back over our heads and flew behind us. I continued to watch the bird as it sailed while everyone else was looking ahead for the next bird. The escaping pheasant was turning its head to look off to the side or back at us when it flew directly into a telephone pole and collapsed to the base. I marked the pole and hunted on. When we walked out the field, I came back to the pole and there was the pheasant sitting, alive but very confused. I picked it up, put it in my game bag. Back at the truck, I pulled it out and told everyone that I did not need shotgun anymore as I can catch them by hand.

2. My daughter, a new hunter, in Africa was shooting at francolin with a .22. She missed a 15 yard sitting shot on a "bull" francolin. It took off running in the brush and we encouraged her to try again. The bird ran a distance, turned and ran back at us. She made a perfect frontal brain shot on that charging francolin at about 20 paces with a .22. Right between the eyes!!!