519vx
Member
Not going to rehash the ugly details, but I had some issues this fall with hit and not recovered birds. You can read about it in detail if you want in the South Dakota thread, but long story short, I though I was shooting #5 lead and it turned out to be #5 steel. Boxes looked nearly identical and it was my mistake by buying the wrong stuff.
I hit several birds HARD that crumpled but werent recovered. I hunt with two flushers that have pretty darn good noses and still no luck. In one case, Reddog had his GSP help try to find a bird that I dropped like a stone. Three dogs looking for a rooster that we all watched drop in brohm grass and it wasn't recovered.
Like SDJim said earlier, there is a lot of shock behind the pellets when they hit and that's apparently what crumbled the roosters I hit so good, but little or no penetration so they took off on foot. Unfortunately it was my last day in SD when my dog put up a beautiful rooster that flushed across a cut bean field. I shot, it crumbled and hit the ground. It layed there for just a couple of seconds, then popped up, looked around and ran like heck! My dog was on it but it ran to an overgrown abandoned homestead that was full of scent and birds. We never found it but I sure learned a lesson that trip.
I hit several birds HARD that crumpled but werent recovered. I hunt with two flushers that have pretty darn good noses and still no luck. In one case, Reddog had his GSP help try to find a bird that I dropped like a stone. Three dogs looking for a rooster that we all watched drop in brohm grass and it wasn't recovered.
Like SDJim said earlier, there is a lot of shock behind the pellets when they hit and that's apparently what crumbled the roosters I hit so good, but little or no penetration so they took off on foot. Unfortunately it was my last day in SD when my dog put up a beautiful rooster that flushed across a cut bean field. I shot, it crumbled and hit the ground. It layed there for just a couple of seconds, then popped up, looked around and ran like heck!
My dog was on it but it ran to an overgrown abandoned homestead that was full of scent and birds. We never found it but I sure learned a lesson that trip.