Acceptable Loss Rate

Some may be where they fell…And some run like Olympic sprinters. Seen it all…tough birds. Proper ammo/choke combo is key, along with shooting ability. And good dog work. I host multiple hunters every year, I’m amazed at how many don’t listen to ammo/choke advice, and they wonder why they lose birds! Last trip, 2 weeks ago, my buddy was shooting 3” 6 steel at Mach speed…seduced by 3” at 1500 fps. Shot a cock at 20 yards, dog got it, it got away from the dog and ran, snow was deep and dog couldn’t get through a fence…I ripped my buddy and gave him 2 3/4” 5 lead at 1200 fps…he’s been hunting for 40 years…I was pissed. The other birds were retrieved without issues.
 
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matto said:
This past Sunday my group of 3 killed 3 pheasants and 5 quail. We had zero losses. It helped that two of the roosters were dead when they hit the ground, but one was a runner for sure. 3 of the quail were runners. That was an extraordinarily good day. I think my overall rate this season is probably closer to 20%, which I think is too high. I've had seasons that were around 10% or lower. Good dog work is absolutely the difference.

The dog I lost two years ago was really good at this. The two I have now are still learning, I hope. I need to spend a little time training for it, but I'm not really sure how to do that, other than buy pheasants, pull the primariess, let them go, and then turn a dog loose. The standard NAVHDA dead bird drag isn't that challenging for them, but maybe I should start there.
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Thumbs down.You don't intentionally cripple a bird.
 
I think we all strive for 0% loss rate. I’ve shot around 50 this year and haven’t lost to many. We’re all up against something different. I rate my dog at a 7.5 on finding down birds. Any time a bird drops I get nervous. I run like a track star to the spot and try to recover ASAP. IMO SD birds are tougher and require more prompt picking up or they take off on you. My IA and NE birds more times than not are DOA. This year I’ve noticed in the last three weeks the birds aren’t getting hit as hard. It’s hard to duplicate situations to know if things need to be changed up. Seem to be shooting a lot of shots flying away, a buddy mentioned the winter fat makes it harder to penetrate. When hunting in SD we tend to have lager groups. May shoot multiple birds in a flush and is hard to mentally mark them all. Different skill levels of hunters that don’t know how to get downed birds. May shoot 30+ birds and loose one or two. Hunting with a couple buddy’s we hardly loose any but we don’t shoot 30 in a day either
 
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