Why I dialed down to 2-3/4-inch steel loads for ducks and light geese

The cold rain felt good as it splashed across the prairie driven by a brisk northwest wind.

The fall rain wasn’tadrought buster, but it would help. North Dakota had been in the grip of a tenacious drought.

Andy Dahn, Chad Burrer and I flushed a number of green wing teal on our approach, and now we crouched. in the cattails below a leaden sky waiting for the birds to return to a small prairie pothole.

Andy was first to spot the speedsters coming in, and soon they were directly out front pitching into our small spread of decoys. A barrage of shooting left several birds floating on the shallow water. I barely had time to reload before the next group swept in. It was already late afternoon when the shooting commenced, and we limited out well before dark.

My shell bag rattled with spent shells as I picked up ducks. Each and every one of those empty hulls measured 2-3/4 inches.

Before my first goose hunt, an early season outing when I was still in junior high, I stopped at the local hardware store and bought a box of 3-inch steel T shot for my 12-gauge.

Lead shot had been banned and steel pellets mandated for waterfowl before the 1991-1992 season. Hunters were still struggling shooting the same size steel shot as lead shot, and I had read that Canada geese were all but indestructible, requiring big shot and plenty of it.

To make up for the lower energy delivered by lighter steel pellets, we were told to go up one or two shot sizes. I wasn’t a good wing shot at that age, and loads that pounded my shoulder didn’t help.

During college, when I started hunting in North Dakota with Chad, the prairie

 

was in a wet cycle. Flocks of waterfowl were everywhere. I shot box after box of 3-inch BB and No. 2 at ducks and geese. My shoulder sported a visible bruise most of the season.

Waterfowlers still go afield with magnum shells loaded with large steel shot. I like to learn from other hunters,