End of Season Duck Hunt
 

Frank Cronin and I got out for the last few days of water fowling. We where glad we did as the weather was great for this time of year in NH. I didn't take many pictures as we where usually busy adjusting decoys and the boat as we have 6-7' foot tides. When not messing with the spread we got a good amount of mostly pass shooting in as these birds have been educated over the season. We did get geese to set in a few times which is a great site. Frank hunted with his 5 frame 10 D grade Hammer Saturday and his beautiful LC ten on Sunday, I hunted with a 3 1/2" 32" Beretta Silver Pigeon SXS both days. Just have this one picture from Saturday.

looks like you boys had a good day...nothing like being out there at the end of the season....im usall sad that the season is closing out but sometimes im glad too from being wore out from hunting..ha charlie

Congrats on a nice mixed bag to close it out!

Charlie is right. Sometimes that last hunt is met with sore legs, cold feet, and a worn out alarm clock. Nice birds and good picture of the gun and birds.

Two honkers, a bufflehead, drake mallard, and a black duck? I know black ducks look like hen mallards, so mine was just a guess on that last one.

A bufflehead?? Nope. It's a diver but larger than a buffie. Buffie's fly low, these fly high. We hear lots of them in the late season, see them fairly frequent but seldom in gun range. It's a nice looking drake Goldeneye. A trophy bird in these parts,nice shooting.

It looks like a golden eye based on what I can see in the picture. Looks like a great day indeed. Curious, what ammo did you shoot in that fine looking D grade?

I got this from Pete Lester who is compiling load data for the short 10. The load I used was a Federal hull; Fed 209 primer, 33.3 grains of Longshot; SP10 wad; 16 gauge 1/8" cork wad and a 1/8" felt wad in the shot cup to raise the shot column for a nice crimp; 1 3/8" oz of Nice Shot; star crimped. 1330 velocity - 8780 psi.

At the end of the hunt going back to the boat ramp was the NH Fish and Game warden. What was going to be a routine license and stamp check turned out to be a long discussion on Parkers, LC Smiths, and Damascus barrels. I had my LC that day and Bob had his Parker lifter in the truck to show and he was just so impressed with the size and weight of the LC and the craftmanship of the under lifter to the Parker. This warden was so inquisitive about SxS that I wouldn't be surprised he went to KTP to check out the double gun rack. He was a really nice guy.

I can only remember one NRO that wasn't... and no, he and I never met.

That load recipe is in my Short Ten reloading spreadsheet. It came from here:

http://randywakeman.com/Nice_Shot_Re...a_10_Gauge.htm

Thanks for posting this. My "short" 10s and I thank you and Pete!:)

Curious, what size nice shot did you load with?

Keith a couple of years ago I literally threw together a short video on how to reload for the Short 10 on Youtube. If you go to that website and video you will also see a link to the Short Ten reloading data have compiled. Both links are below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owXs4Eg__BE

http://www.fileden.com/files/2012/4/...ds5.2.2012.pdf

I used #2 ordered from Precision Reloading. BB's are out of stock have have been for a while. When asked when it would become available she couldn't say. I guess they changed manufacturers and the new company is working out the kinks.

Ok.. I used #2 nice shot as well in my loads as I could not get BB either. I loaded with BP this and last year. Lots of fun but want to try something else.

Here is a pic of that nice lifter 10 ga. of Bob's, What a nice gun Bob!!

Ok what Frank and Bob did not tell you was that Bud and I were hunting up river from them, and those two “scoundrels” stayed until we came down and pushed the last honker to them. Glad to be of help guys. :crying:

No, nice lifter George. :rotf:

Here another picture of the early ten lifter, the picture was taken by previous owner, I belive it must have been one of his best day shooting.:)

Brian I first thought it was a bufflehead also, I don't shoot divers very often and don't know all the different species we have.

But we missed terribly! :banghead:

Frank, i don't get it, you didn't miss any crows when we went out!!:shock::whistle::rotf: scott