A big 12 and big goose

[Double Lab]

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.

[J.B. Books]

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.

[Double Lab]

Originally Posted by 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.

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

[J.B. Books]

Originally Posted by Daryl Corona

Looks like you are the winner Pete. 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.

[Double Lab]

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.