All this talk of real bird hunting with .410s conjurs up a hunt I made years ago with a former neighbor/hunting companion of mine who harbored great disdain for anything smaller than a 16 gauge gun on birds. He called me up one morning at work and asked me if I could take off later that afternoon for a woodcock hunt. He knew some good covers and checked them every few days. I said sure and bailed out of work. One of the last things he said to me was, "And for Chrissakes, bring a MAN's gun, not one of your peashooters! Lots of birds in there and I don't want to cripple and lose any!" Confronting the disbelievers, so to speak, I brought along a 28" barrel LC Smith .410 which I handled and shot well. After about an hour and a half hunt, his rawboned male Brittany "Skye" had pointed about 12 birds for us. We both shot well and "limited out" (3ea.) with no cripples and no lost birds, and let Skye point, hold and flush another 9 or 10 birds just for the goodness that was in it. (We were clearly into a flight). As I recall he shot an SKB O/U 20 gauge. I shot skeet loads (#9s) in my Elsie and I think he shot them as well or possibly #8s. When we got back to the truck all he said was, "Not bad for a girl's gun!"
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