A big 12 and big goose

[Pete Lester]

I took a whopper of a goose yesterday with a gun that hasn't got out much as it took a back seat to my Short Tens. Two hits with 1 1/4 bismuth #4 and the second shot was an honest 45 to 50 yards. Three frame VH 12, 9 pounds, 32" full and full, .036 in each barrel. Gun was built in 1900, brought back from the dead by DelGrego & Son in 2008.

[Garry L Gordon]

Looks like one dead goose…and one happy hunter. Congratulations! A 3 frame 12 is on my list…

[Stephen Hodges]

Pete, congrats!! That should count as two geese:)

[Pete Lester]

Pete, congrats!! That should count as two geese:)

Thanks, it was a bruiser for sure. Scott had to give the coup de gras from the front of the boat when we went to get it. Geese are tough birds.

[Pete Lester]

Looks like one dead goose…and one happy hunter. Congratulations! A 3 frame 12 is on my list…

Thanks, the long barrels and heavy weight helps to keep it swinging for sure.

[Chris Pope]

Must have made one heck of a splash!! Nice job!

[Pete Lester]

Must have made one heck of a splash!! Nice job!

It sure did but it wasn't quite enough to trigger tsunami sirens. :rotf:

[Destry L. Hoffard]

What did that beast of a goose weigh?

[Pete Lester]

What did that beast of a goose weigh?

This one was 12 pounds. I have shot some 13 pounders in years past.

[Destry L. Hoffard]

Years ago the old man and I killed one weighed 19 pounds on the state deer check station scales. Heaviest one I've ever seen in person.

[Daryl Corona]

Killed a 17 3/4lb honker while quail hunting the shoreline of Slaughter Creek in Dorchester county, MD one snowy afternoon. He was low and slow, no more than 20yds off the ground looking to get into a protected slough. My buddy worked for the DNR so we took it to the Taylors Island coast guard station across the creek as we knew it was a whopper of a goose and used the scale at the local store there.

[Pete Lester]

Well once upon a time I killed about 25 pounds of goose with a single shot from my SP-10, a Scotch triple (witnessed). I was shooting at the lone Snow and the pattern found another two birds. Oddly enough the Snow was crashing glider and the Canadas were stone dead.

[Daryl Corona]

Well once upon a time I killed about 25 pounds of goose with a single shot from my SP-10, a Scotch triple (witnessed). I was shooting at the lone Snow and the pattern found another two birds. Oddly enough the Snow was crashing glider and the Canadas were stone dead.

Looks like you are the winner Pete.:bowdown: Is that an Ithaca Mag10?

[Pete Lester]

Looks like you are the winner Pete.:bowdown: Is that an Ithaca Mag10?

Remington SP-10, I was getting too old to keep taking the beating from my BPS 10 pump gun.

[Gary Kephart]

congrats !

[Kevin McCormack]

One of our club members killed a huge honker out of one of our field pits in a snowstorm in the frigid winter of 1977 on our lease near Wye Island. When he brought it back to the clubhouse the fun began - everyone proclaimed in was this many / that many pounds, etc. One of us had to run into Easton for something so we ran it into the pickers, who had a good scale. It topped out at 14 pounds but looked like it weighed about 25 what with all the down and huge wingspread. Just goes to show you that "reality bites!"

For those that remember, that was the winter the Chesapeake completely froze over, from the Susquehanna Flats clear down to below Tangier Island VA. Stick-ups and silhouette decoys were useless, you couldn't get them in the ground, which froze like granite. We used then-legal full body taxidermy mounts which we did ourselves, and full-body shells if the wind wasn't too bad. We quit hunting the farm the second week in December; the bay never fully thawed until nearly Valentine's Day.

[Daryl Corona]

I do remember that winter Kevin. We were just talking about it over dinner tonight where geese were freezing in place throughout the bay region unable to free their legs from the ice.

[James L. Martin]

The winter of 1977 I remember seeing a Coast Guard Icebreaker going up the frozen Hudson River while grouse hunting. Now no frozen Hudson or grouse.

[Kevin McCormack]

By mid-December, the diehard watermen on Tilghman Island cut the roof off an old Simca and ran a chainbag dredge back and forth across the shallow bottom through long slots they cut in the ice with chainsaws. Their veiled warning to outsiders was: "Best not let them catch ya scrapin' on the tonger's grounds!" On the Western Shore, locals were caught taking a derelict car out on the ice hundreds of yards offshore; their idea was to get a lottery going taking bets on when the ice would thaw thin enough that it sank. Never a dull moment on the tidewater!

I vividly remember going down to St. Michaels to see the first-ever North American Iceboat racing championships held that far south. We watched them from a large Zodiac-type airboat in the middle of the Miles River. There were hundreds of people there, way offshore, some on snowmobiles, some on ATVs, some on foot. You could have easily driven an SUV or a pickup out there the ice was so thick, but the Coast Guard would not allow it and wisely patrolled the area heavily. Thanks to them there were no mishaps or emergencies on the ice that weekend. The Bay had only frozen over completely once in recorded history up until then, during WW1 in the winter of 1917.