- Location
- Planet Earth Wearing My Tinfoil Hat
Kicked it old school this morning with the Parker and some original Bismuth brand 2.5" 1oz #4 1200 fps shotshells. I set out a mixed spread of 5 dozen Speck, Blue and Snow silos and 20 Canadas in a harvested barley field holding about 2500 Specks and 1000 Snows.
I limited myself to 1 - 10rd box of ammo with my main focus to be to collect(if possible) a limit of Specks(8).
Well once the Snows started rolling in and being a sucker for Snows especially on the ultra rare occasions they actually commit to the decoys well my shells got divided quickly and evenly between the Snows and Specks. They flipped and flopped cartwheeling upside down into my spread by the hundreds at times. We must have had a big push of birds arrive overnight on the full moon because I easily had 5000 Specks and as many Snows descend on me in the first hour of legal shooting time as if they were poured from the sky!
I started off dropping a pair of Specks clean at about 30 yds through the 30" F/F barrels and followed that up a few minutes later with a pair of Snows at 25 yds.
I sat mesmerized by the show and really picked and chose my shots as unlimited opportunites presented themselves. I emptied the old Parker three more times exhausting my meager ammo supply and had 8 birds in hand to show for it.
Had I not left my semi and steel shot in the truck I'm 100% positive I'd have shot my 8 darks and 50 whites this morning easily.
If there is one thing I have learned about hunting Snows it's that more often than not less is more.
I did away with big spreads and now stick to mixed dark and white spreads of 2-6 dozen decoys and enjoy better action than the days we ran 300 full bodies and 800+ socks.
What a feeling to sit back after I had exhausted my lone 10 rd box of Bismuth, 8 birds in hand, gently running my hands over and marveling at this wonderful piece of fowling history before me and I wondered who might the original owner have been?
The new to me Parker had been made prior to WW1, 1911 in fact and I wondered if the original owner would be looking down from above smiling knowing that their gun's legacy lives on and is still harvesting game 113 years later.
I'd like to think they are.
And please excuse my modern ball cap and call lanyard. I forgot the brown Jones cap I recently acquired and I'm still trying to find an old original Olt call and lanyard to really kick it old school properly!
I limited myself to 1 - 10rd box of ammo with my main focus to be to collect(if possible) a limit of Specks(8).
Well once the Snows started rolling in and being a sucker for Snows especially on the ultra rare occasions they actually commit to the decoys well my shells got divided quickly and evenly between the Snows and Specks. They flipped and flopped cartwheeling upside down into my spread by the hundreds at times. We must have had a big push of birds arrive overnight on the full moon because I easily had 5000 Specks and as many Snows descend on me in the first hour of legal shooting time as if they were poured from the sky!
I started off dropping a pair of Specks clean at about 30 yds through the 30" F/F barrels and followed that up a few minutes later with a pair of Snows at 25 yds.
I sat mesmerized by the show and really picked and chose my shots as unlimited opportunites presented themselves. I emptied the old Parker three more times exhausting my meager ammo supply and had 8 birds in hand to show for it.
Had I not left my semi and steel shot in the truck I'm 100% positive I'd have shot my 8 darks and 50 whites this morning easily.
If there is one thing I have learned about hunting Snows it's that more often than not less is more.
I did away with big spreads and now stick to mixed dark and white spreads of 2-6 dozen decoys and enjoy better action than the days we ran 300 full bodies and 800+ socks.
What a feeling to sit back after I had exhausted my lone 10 rd box of Bismuth, 8 birds in hand, gently running my hands over and marveling at this wonderful piece of fowling history before me and I wondered who might the original owner have been?
The new to me Parker had been made prior to WW1, 1911 in fact and I wondered if the original owner would be looking down from above smiling knowing that their gun's legacy lives on and is still harvesting game 113 years later.
I'd like to think they are.
And please excuse my modern ball cap and call lanyard. I forgot the brown Jones cap I recently acquired and I'm still trying to find an old original Olt call and lanyard to really kick it old school properly!
