One of my most memorable shots at a ringneck pheasant happened when I was a senior in high school. I was hunting with a bunch of my friends, and we were walking across a field of corn stubble on a very windy late season day. We were spread out about 20 yards apart, and I was at the extreme east end of the line of 7 hunters. The guy at the other end had a ringneck flush far ahead of him, and the bird caught the stiff tailwind and very quickly sailed across the line.
I was carrying my very tightly choked single shot Stevens model 220 20 gauge, and everyone else had repeaters including pumps, semi's, and one old L.C. Smith double. One by one, everyone emptied their guns without touching a feather, firing a total of 17 shots. By the time the bird got over to my end of the field, he was far out and riding the jet stream at high speed. I hesitated, but my teenage mind decided to fling a Hail Mary shot. I swung far ahead of him and pulled the trigger. Everyone was surprised when the pheasant tumbled to the ground. I counted paces over to where he dropped, and it was over 70 yards. The bird was still very much alive when I got to him, and I had to wring his neck to finish him. When I cleaned him, I found only two pellets had hit him. One broke a wing, and the other broke the opposite leg, so he couldn't fly or run. I'd consider a shot at that range to be pretty unethical today, but I think about it whenever someone says a 20 gauge is too small to hunt pheasants. I've never had a gun that threw tighter patterns than that 20 ga. Model 220.
