Chokes

Light Modified for me in a Retay Gordion 12ga..I hunt over pointers on all public land and pressured birds, so more times than not they get up a decent ways away.
 
Been thinking about this all last week getting ready for the opener. Decided on modified. First couple birds saw a lot of feathers explode. As the day went on flushes got farther out. Made a lot of nice long shots, birds dead too, not very many runners. Leaning modified
 
IC and mod in my Beretta 693 20 ga.
I won this gun in a pheasants forever raffle a few years back, previously I mostly shot a Rem 870 Lw 20 ga with a fixed mod choke. When i started shooting the Beretta and put in the IC to start the season, I expected to get more hits on birds, but also more cripples/runners.

What I found instead (once I learned to shoot the thing, it shoots a little high which I've grown to like) is that I get more hits and more birds dead in the air. I think the more open patterns result in birds with more hits over the whole body, and a lot of my birds with the fixed Mod choke were just getting hit by pattern edges. For a while I was screwing in different chokes depending on time of year and cover conditions, but now i just roll with the IC/mod and kill birds without overthinking it. The 2nd barrel with the mod choke is almost exclusively used for anchoring birds hit with the first barrel, though it does get used for the occasional double.

I hunt over a couple labs, mostly in cattails and heavy cover here in Alberta. But I've hunted MT and ND a fair bit too.
 
Hunted ducks this weekend on a private (farmer's) setup; shots were from 10-30 yards. Used the A5 Sweet 16 with Boss ammo, #5's and a skeet choke. I shot 5, all dead right there. Recoil out of that light A5 seemed very manageable. My companions shot Benelli 12 gauge SBE II's and III's with Mod chokes and Winchester SuperX steel. Mixed bag of woodies, mallards with 1 pintail and 1 gadwall. Bluebird days both Saturday and today. Going again in the morning, clouds and drizzle predicted so shooting may get better.
 
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