the one that got away......almost

[peterpointinglab]

was hunting with a friend from ND on saturday morn on a lake surounded by cattails. we flushed one on the south side, we each unloaded our guns on the bird and watched it fly a few hundred yards across the lake. As i watched the bird fly i noticed that he started getting higher and higher into the sky! He got to his peak about 70 ft into the air and died hitting the ice about 400 yds across the lake. I healed my retriever and sent him on his longest blind to date! He made a great retrieve and my friend was happy to get his first bird in 3 years. The bird had one bb in his heart:thumbsup:

 

[KBell]

Early lesson

As a young man 46 years ago my father taught me to always watch the shot at birds until they were out of sight. I have had a dozen or more birds do what yours did, several more that just folded wings and fell and at least a dozen more that suddenly changed direction of flight and struggled then falling to the ground. I once had a bird fly up so high that when it hit in the bean field it split its breast from one end to the other.

It pays to watch a shot at rooster until out of sight!