Today is opening day of Ohio's Marsh duck season ( Ohio has 3 zones )
A couple of us all felt like going Old School for the morning hunt at the Marsh
I used a Winchester 1897 ,30" full plain barrel
There was also a Winchester SxS and a J C Higgens bolt action shotgun
All 3 were 2 3/4" 12 gau guns
I bought some Bismuth / Tin alloy from Rotometals a while back
I have cast 2 sizes of shot .... about #4 and about #1 , the pellets ended up a little smaller than I wanted ... Oh Well LOL
I made up the molds to make a stack of shot like the Lee Buck shot molds
The #4 is for ducks and the #1 was for Canada Geese
Ducks were willing to decoy , but we only saw 1 flock of geese and they were 1/2 mile away
Ducks are not to smart yeat
So the Mallards decoyed well and the Wood Ducks slowed down and gave us a chance
No great shooting skills , as non of the shotguns were our normal choice
But we were out to have fun
We ended up with 9 wood ducks and 2 mallards for the 3 of us
I loaded the shells that all 3 of us used
I made up a load of almost 1 1/4 oz of the #4 pellets at 1280 FPS using Bluedot powder
I will admit all 3 of us missed ducks that we should have hit
But we backed each other up and we didn't loose any cripples
The only bad part about the hunt
Was the mostly cloud free sky
So a lot of the wood ducks came through early before shooting time
Also we only had 3 mallards come close .... only 2 of them decoyed
I will be heading back out again with the Winchester 1897 in the morning
But we plan on field hunting for geese
John