doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Avoiding Two Birds with One Shot

My goal is to minimize collateral damage.

This bobwhite season my shooting student Joe Wood and I have on four occasions taken two birds with one shot and once taken three with one shot.

As we hunt the same grounds year after year and birds are scarcer than we would like this is undesirable. We don't even try to take two birds with two shots out of a covey rise. One bird per point is our practice. We take turns shooting. One watches or takes pictures, the other flushes and shoots.

Yesterday I went by myself (Joe said it was too cold - girlyman). I carried a Parker Reproduction 28 gauge choked 20thou and 40thou. I shot RSTs, #9s, 5/8oz. My thought was that with that choke the pattern would be much smaller than my open choked sixteen bird guns. The #9s would lose energy faster than larger shot (my sixteen load is an ounce of #8s). Using that combination I still inadvertently brought down two birds with one shot.

I generally pick a bird on the left or right trailing edge of the covey. Wood argues that I am shooting at birds in the middle of the covey but he is wrong.

Am I on the wrong track?

I'd say 'pattern board' Some small bores are notorious for producing open patterns even when overchoked.

Also, I'd try to achieve a tighter pattern of a bigger shot, as the smaller the pellet counts the lesser the chances of a pellet hitting something.

Dang Mike, I've always considered it a gift when I inadvertently get a 'Scotch' double on quail. A triple would be a Godsend! I couldn't tell you how to keep it from happening; maybe watch me shoot or something. I quite often hit nothing at all...Geo

I have patterned the gun at 23 yards and it is a frighteningly tight pattern. Most of these birds were taken at less than twenty yards, the two-for-one yesterday was at about fifteen yards.

George having paid big bucks (for me) for two leases for three seasons without enough birds to kill it is just a waste. Fortunately the triple was by me and on Joe's stomping grounds so it didn't affect me the way the double did yesterday.

In my early years of hunting by my self I found it some times was to my advantage to change my approach and maybe cause a flush that was an unnatural reaction. this tended to present more separation in the covey as you increase you probability to get a more oblique angle to shoot from. This I did only when hunting alone so as not to worry about safety.

Absolutely. About 90 percent of the adult bird population will perish whether they are hunted or not. For efficiency at bird slaying, you, your student, or the both of you together, come no where near that of a skunk, fox, or crow that happens upon a nest, pre-hatch. If avian predators in your neighborhood are doing what they are doing in mine, it won't be long before bird numbers are depressed even further. There is very little you can do about the avians, either.
If you were going to take two birds anyway, and you just happened to get them off the same point, just unload the gun and continue the walk.
Shooting birds at 15 yards with number 9 shot doesn't actually sound that appealing to the gourmet in me. And he is a pretty lame gourmet, at that.
There were birds on that property before you were born. Birds will fly there after you are dead. The notion that you will effect that outcome by taking two instead of one seems a bit far fetched to me. I understand you are both old farts, but, the weight of an extra bird in the bag is it's own pleasure, and shouldn't tax either of you too much. Simply enjoy the day for what it is.
For a good book on the same subject, might I suggest "For a Handful of Feathers", by Guy De La Valdene?
An enjoyable read.

Best,
Ted

Haven't you written here many times that Joe is your shooting student? he should be listening to teacher not arguing.

Ted I have a different model of bobwhite replenishment.

And as a young man I twice hunted coveys to extinction, shooting the last birds when I knew they were the last birds. I had hunted those coveys for years. Knew their habits. I assumed when I shot the last ones that they would come back. They didn't return in the six years before I lost the lease. If I only hunted my leases only five or six days per season then my impact would be negligible. But I hunt them much more often that. Several times I have seen hawks successfully or unsuccessfully prey on bobwhite.

In my experience, mostly in ranchland, bobwhite coveys are like tribes. They have a territory, they have rally points they go to, they go to one area of their territory during a rainy time, another during a drought. They interchange members with other abutting coveys I understand as they have been tracked with radio collars. My birds are flying low this season. I assume that is in reaction to raptor predation. I hunted bobs in the Abilene area last week and they tended to fly much higher than the birds on my lease. Only saw one Cooper hawk while I was in the Abilene area. Saw two yesterday afternoon on my lease.

Since it is my practice to just take two birds per covey on that hunt when I take them with one shot then there is less dog work. Obviously I am not subsistence hunting but hunting for the joy of it. I view it as a waste of a bird when I kill two with one shot.

I am looking for ideas on limiting collateral damage based on the belief (maybe incorrect) that the number of birds I kill out of a covey has an effect on the population and survivability of that covey.

You can lead a horse to water...