In the mid-1970s we had a great gunning farm on the peninsula formed by the confluence of Skipton Creek and the Wye East River near Wye Island, MD. We had 2 cornfield pits in a huge riverfront field along with 3 water blinds up around the Skipton Creek shoreline. One was no good; the middle blind was medium good, and the first blind stuck out on a needle-like point into the creek about 200 yards. This one was fabulous for geese and very good for ducks when they were using in the areas, usually about one year in three in those days.
My old gunning partner Capt. Al Leyendecker shot a very early (late 1950s-early 1960s) Spanish AYA 10 ga. 3 1/2" mag with 32" barrels choked 'Death' and "Death Warmed Over'. This gun was one of the early good ones with steel properly heat treated and nice hand finishing, before they cheapened them up for volume sales in the 1970s. Al would make some amazing shots on geese at ranges I wouldn't even attempt with my Rem 870 3" Mag, he usually used BBs and #2's out of the pit on decoyed geese. Of course we were still legal using lead in those days and really hammered them.
Every so often we would wind up in the point blind with ducks really flying well, and Al would break out his stash of 2 7/8" 10 ga. #4s and #5s. They were old Winchester Western paper cases that he found in the cleanout of a local sport shop. The owner had two of the old 20-box paper WW heavy cardboard cases of them, one #4 and one #5 and wanted to get rid of them in the worst way, since everyone seemed to want only the 3 1/2" mags. I think he paid $45 a 500-rnd case each for them.
Al used the big 10 exclusively for both ducks and geese from about 1970 until the non-toxic shot laws came in, which for us meant switching to steel. When that happened he retired the big gun and went to a Remington 1100 3-inch Magnum which he still shoots today. He loved the big gun and to this day remains the only person other than my brother who really knows how to shoot one to the max on waterfowl. Nash and Ho'ace would be proud!
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