easy question about pheasents

[charliepete2]

Sometimes I drag out the 20 gauge early in the season when the birds are sitting tight for points. If you take them within 35 yards 1 oz of hard 6's knocks them down pretty good if you center them. I have gone to 5's before, but I got a pretty patchy pattern unless I bumped the shot weight up to 1 1/8 oz. When you shoot 3" 20 gauge shells the pattern might look good on paper, but in reality the shot string is really long. Think of shot string as how long the column off bb's coming out of the shotgun is. Large shot strings aren't good on crossing birds. They might catch the front half of it, but the bird will have moved sufficiently before the tail end of the column catches up. It's comparable to the difference between running through water being sprayed out of a hose, and having someone throw a bucket of water at you.

Personally when I want to push more than an ounce of shot I go with a 12 gauge. The bigger bore produces a better shot string with the 1 1/4 oz loads I prefer to hunt pheasants with. 6 shot is the smallest size I'll use on pheasant. 7.5's just don't have the knockdown power out past 35 yards. I like to gear up for the further shots I'll take, and just let the close ones out a bit so they are still fit for the table.

[Mr.Seaguar]

Heres my take- pellets in the tail, bird flys away. pellets in the head, bird is down. Doesnt matter what pellet what you pick, thems the rules.

[SCUMFROG]

Wow boilerguy that must be nice. I live in the BIG city . I'll be letting you know if I'll be able to go.

[Eric Wettschreck]

I agree. That's why I always tell the kids to shoot em in the lips.

Tail they flail, head their dead.

[lawdog]

Funny story: we were pheasant hunting and one of the guys was bragging how he always shot the roosters just in the head and never ruined any meat. He liked to brag a lot, and of course we were giving him all kinds of grief about how we thought he was full of it and wouldn't you know it, the very next rooster that gets up, he just absolutely guts from about 8 yards away. He was so frazzled he just had to show us what a good shot he was and he did that instead. He didn't hardly even get leg meat off the thing it was so hammered.

Moral of the story, hitting them in the head isn't always possible!