first time goose hunter with waders, no boat / no dog

[Foxton Gundogs]

100meters!!!!!, 20, hell even 15m is a long way to be shooting. not gonna make many friends with other groups in the marsh sky busting like that,

try to wait till their a little closer , we try to set our farthest decoy out the maximum distance we want to be shooing, till you get a feel for judging distances on birds it would be worth ranging even measuring this out beforehand.

think about it similar to deer hunting, you wouldnt take a long or bad angled shot at an animal if you are not comfortable or confident you will make a lethal kill. show the birds the same respect and wait for them to be in effective range or a range that you are comfortable shooting at until you have the experience to make longer shots.

get out there and try again, but make sure yo know the effective range of your guns and be patient till the birds are well within your comfort range.

You may wait a while to get them into 15 yards, 3" BBs flying at 1550 fps I would think you would be good to at least double that, but then again I could be wrong.

[silveragent]

Dale told me to get 1700fps so that is what I was shooting. When we opened up on a flight the first day I could make out their little feet and fat bodies when they were almost overhead. Outside my skill or outside my range; they just shook the fire off and veered away.

[fowl language]

just to be clear, the effective range of any shotgun is forty yards..an experienced shooter such as the world renown jim fox would make it work out to 50 yards but after that your wasting your time and educating a bunch of birds. I understand it is hard to restrain your self but it works....dale

[Foxton Gundogs]

just to be clear, the effective range of any shotgun is forty yards..an experienced shooter such as the world renown jim fox would make it work out to 50 yards but after that your wasting your time and educating a bunch of birds. I understand it is hard to restrain your self but it works....dale

I heard a vicious rumor once that a 10 gauge with 3.5" shells will kill geese at 95yds, I wonder if there is any truth to that???
CAUTION boys and girls DO NOT try this at home LMFatAO

[silveragent]

Okay we're going to try again.. going to work on getting as far out as we can

[silveragent]

Went out for the last time this season by myself in Roberts Bank again. The previous two times all we could do was look enviously at what looked like a couple hundred hanging out on the farmer's field beyond the park. I decided to try again but unfortunately none of my partners were able to make it that Sunday morning. So by myself I dragged out my decoys and then went back to my car to grab the rest of my gear.

When I arrived at around 8:30 there was heavy fog but above the fog I could make out hundreds of snowies coming in for a landing. There were already a couple hunters who were popping away at them. I was convinced this was going to be my day.

I met a Russian hunter coming out who joked that I must have forgotten my 'rifle' but this was when I was going back to my car to get the rest of my gear. Unfortunately by the time I got back to my decoys the snowies had already settled in. In fact the hunters who had been there were packing it in (and it looked like they didn't have any luck). I figured then I wouldn't do any better but decided to set up for the morning anyway.

I settled with my back on my hunting pack with my shotgun on my knees and read a novel waiting for something to happen. In between chapters I had a great couple naps. The last one was interrupted when I heard a goose calling very close nearby. I popped up and it was the same Russian hunter who was laughing at me because I had fallen asleep and he was stalking my decoys. We had a fun chat ("Hi Yuri!") and I packed it in at about 1pm. On the long slog back to my car with decoys hanging all over me I noticed that the snowies who had been in the field had somehow sneaked away - maybe when I fell asleep.

I think each time I went out I learned a bit more so I will be back in the fall, hopefully with better preparation and better timing.