A couple more anecdotes. A good dog can turn a "miss" into a great shot. I was at the end of a "death march" through a long swamp in the dead of winter. Every other step I'd fall through ice between swamp grass tufts. Must have taken 2 hrs to go not even half a mile. At the end, where the stream gets into the woods a single cock got up, a 50 yd L4 presentation. Both barrels done - see absolutely no sign of a hit. No twitch, no feathers. My female (Clown 2) starts chasing it - and would not return to command. It must have been 15 degrees, but I was sweating and pissed. I sat down on a stump with Clown 1 and ventilated...at his expense. 15 minutes later Clown 2 becomes visible a quarter mile distant. Soon after I can see she has a bird. There was one single hole in the center of that bird's heart.

On another occasion, in about the same place, my buddy and I were in deeper snow. The dogs took off and we couldn't keep up. Bird goes up maybe 125 yds off. Well, we had about had it, so emptied our guns, shooting directly into the sun. We clearly missed. But the bird was flying into the sun, too. Now about 250 yds away from us we watched in amazement as the bird flew head first into a dead tree. In seconds the dog pack was all over it. We looked at each other and simultaneously voiced: "dumbass". No pellets in the bird, of course.

Sam