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WyoChukar
PostPosted: Sun Feb 24, 2019 1:29 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 16 Jul 2015
Posts: 2124
Location: Hudson,Wy

Life is always filled with obscure little details, things we never even ponder until for some unknown reason they connect in ways never anticipated. I know people here on the site do shoot Fiocchi Golden Pheasant in 16 ga. but honestly, I have never met one in person in my neck of the woods. Of course, it's not like many people live in Wyoming, our biggest city has a population of less than 60,000. However, I do travel and that's where the mystery unfolds.

Two years ago I looked down while hunting a food plot in North Dakota, a place where I have traipsed more times than I can recall. A blue hull caught my attention, obviously a 16. I picked it up as a much as a momento as anything. Someone, possibly a member here, had fired a single round not far from the cattle guard. Odds are good that when only one hull is present, some unknown hunter put a bird in the bag, or perhaps just couldn't find one of their empties. It is mystery full of possibilities for my overactive imagination.

Well, this past season while hunting a similar food plot far to the south, as in Nebraska/ Kansas border south, I was pushing along behind Rusty when I looked down and there it was, another lone blue hull. Hmmm. Today, while sorting the season's spent 16 ga. hulls to resize, I found this hull and set it next to the other, which has been on display the past two years for reasons not truly evident.

This spurs me to wonder how many of us who travel are crossing each other's paths, just on different days, kindred spirits drawn to the same places, events, and birds...motivated by much the same twinges in our souls?
[[URL=http://www.jpgbox.com/page/56351_512x768/] [/URL]][/img]

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Pine Creek/Dave
PostPosted: Sun Feb 24, 2019 3:31 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 17 Mar 2017
Posts: 2786
Location: Endless Mountains of Pa

WyoChukar,

One thing you can be sure of, it's not mine. I hunt mostly with my extractor 16 gauge double guns, if I happen to drop an empty I always pick it up. No need to show others where I like to hunt.

Like you when I find an empty shell I pick it up, even wonder if anther 16 Forum member has hunting the habitat, I consider my own.

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

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PDD
PostPosted: Sun Feb 24, 2019 5:14 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 08 Dec 2010
Posts: 32
Location: East TN

Like you gentlemen, I pick up any/all hulls I come across. I don’t often reload anymore but I don’t like the thought of hulls laying in the woods, fields, etc. Nor do I like someone else seeing that I have been shooting somewhere they did not realize held game. :P. There are not a lot of bird hunters in East Tennessee so I am a minority. I do wonder who else runs these ridges looking for grouse.
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Pine Creek/Dave
PostPosted: Sun Feb 24, 2019 6:42 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 17 Mar 2017
Posts: 2786
Location: Endless Mountains of Pa

PDD,

Keep picking those empties up, and yes who are those guys who invade our Grouse Coverts without written permission form either of us!

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man


A likely bunch with a darn good dog.

[URL=http://www.jpgbox.com/page/56363_600x400/] [/URL]

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duckdup
PostPosted: Sun Feb 24, 2019 8:59 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 12 Feb 2018
Posts: 258
Location: West-central Missouri

Nice musing on the two hulls and who might have been there.
I enjoyed the images your story brought to mind.

Hunting public conservation areas near Kansas City, I can often pick up enough to leave with a plastic sack half-filled of empties I didn't create. Have yet to find a 16 or 28 hull...

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fin2feather
PostPosted: Mon Feb 25, 2019 8:22 am  Reply with quote
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Joined: 06 Aug 2004
Posts: 2171
Location: Kansas High Plains

This is 12ga-auto-loader-with-the-plug-out country out here so as you can imagine there are lots of empties to be found, and most of 'em are red. Here's a little something I posted on another site a while back; 20ga content so read at your own risk Very Happy !

There are a couple of lakes near my house that hold some pretty nice fish - bream, bass, big cats - a two minute drive and you're there. They're surrounded by houses now but with enough green space so you're not close to being in anybody's back yard, and it's a quick and easy way to spend an hour or two on the water. Anyway, the last time I fished one of them I found this. It's obviously been there a while and it's old but not ancient. These lakes have been "in town" for quite a while; I know no one has hunted there in at least 10-15 years - probably more. I've walked those banks many times and never saw it until last Sunday; we've had some pretty high water recently and I'm guessing it washed ashore at some point. I love finding stuff like this and it just got me to thinking about who it was, when it was and what they shot at. Whatever it was, I hope they got it...


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WyoChukar
PostPosted: Mon Feb 25, 2019 9:21 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 16 Jul 2015
Posts: 2124
Location: Hudson,Wy

Old 20 hull for sure. Looking at the plastic texture, ribbing, and color makes me think it was an old composition based hull. I see a few like it here once in a great while, up on the sage grouse prairie in locations that have been long popular for the birds.

One interesting thing that happens far less often is my finding one of my own old hulls on the mountain near my parent's house. I started hunting with an 1100 autoloader so it goes without saying that I lost a few hulls in the sage, sumac, and cheatgrass. Back then my hull supply was mostly black Remingtons but I loaded with Win 209 primers. Occasionally I would stumble onto an old black low brass hull with a silver primer, pick it up, and smile, all the while wondering if I had flushed sage grouse, chukar, or hun. I still find a similar cattle stomped hull up there once in a blue moon, but have no idea if it is one of my prodigal cartridges since the primers are rusted.

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brdslayr
PostPosted: Mon Feb 25, 2019 1:53 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 05 Apr 2017
Posts: 155

There is a small pond near me that never freezes except in negative weather. I keep it to myself as it is easy to walk up to and check for ducks. Last year after the snow melted I picked up 74 hulls from my so called "secret spot."

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skeettx
PostPosted: Mon Feb 25, 2019 2:12 pm  Reply with quote
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Joined: 15 Apr 2007
Posts: 9455
Location: Amarillo, Texas

We (Bruce, David, and I) are blessed to be able to hunt an entire section of land within 15 minutes of my house. There is a pond on the land, windmill, and overflow, and planted in parts in milo, and wheat Smile

We keep the place clean and even rake the moss out of the watering troughs.

One day the land owner stopped by to chat. He asked "what is in the black plastic bag?" We opened it up and showed him all the hulls and aluminum cans that we had picked up that were left by his kin folks on one weekend.

He said "Y'all have a home here forever"

What joy, what joy

Mike

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Pine Creek/Dave
PostPosted: Mon Feb 25, 2019 3:43 pm  Reply with quote



Joined: 17 Mar 2017
Posts: 2786
Location: Endless Mountains of Pa

Mike,

Land owners definitely favor men like you, I know I let the exact same kind people hunt my land in Potter/Tioga, Pa.

Good trusted people are always welcome on most land owner property, looks like you have a place to hunt for ever.

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

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fin2feather
PostPosted: Mon Feb 25, 2019 5:05 pm  Reply with quote
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Joined: 06 Aug 2004
Posts: 2171
Location: Kansas High Plains

WyoChukar wrote:
One interesting thing that happens far less often is my finding one of my own old hulls...


I know what you mean. I see a purple one occasionally and figure it's mine...it taxes this old memory to think back and remember whether it was a hit or a miss Very Happy .

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4setters
PostPosted: Mon Feb 25, 2019 8:59 pm  Reply with quote
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Joined: 19 Nov 2013
Posts: 381
Location: NW Arkansas

WyoChukar,

Quail hunters are so few and far between here in AR that the only hulls I find now are in areas where my brother and I have bird hunted for a decade of so. They are indeed 16 gauge, those that we may have lost in the weeds on earlier hunts. They are almost always CF Winchesters, and probably were lost by my brother shooting a M37, although he makes an effort to find empties. We find a few about every year. I usually shoot a break-open double, so no problem with loosing hulls, but my new A-5 has lost a bunch of them the past three years. Ouch, when its a CF Win!

When I go out-of-state, I rarely need to use non-tox, so its almost always 100% Winchester CF reloads due to reliability. They always shoot and eject. Can't say the same about those blue hulls you mentioned: have vivid memories of watching several cock pheasants fly off when I made the mistake of using a box of GPs in a repeater during the 2000s. Fortunately, I only had to walk a hundred yards of so to cut a sumac sapling out of a fencerow to eject hulls from the barrel. And fortunately I carried it in my game pouch, as I had to use it multiple times. The next day I was back to using CFs with no problems.

If I run on to empties on out-of-state bird hunts, they seem to be in all gauges--I have found quite a few 16s over the years in a variety of brands. Come to think of it though, I can't every remember finding a 28 in the field. They may be the rage with grouse and woodcock or pen-raised birds, but I don't find them on the Plains.

As far as crossing paths with other hunters, my best example is when I camped out in a Forest Service campground near the Snake River in Idaho a few years back. I shot ruffed grouse, gray pats and a chukar of that trip. Later, I looked up an old article in the Arkansas Democrat/Gazette and found out the outdoor editor (a fan of 16s) had camped in the same campground a year of two earlier and also killed upland birds. I didn't find any of his empty hulls though. It is a small world.

Hulls on the ground always makes one wonder of the details surrounding their presence! A hit or a miss?

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Dave in Maine
PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2019 3:48 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 12 Sep 2010
Posts: 1972
Location: Maine

I find empties from time to time, usually 12s, sometimes 20s - this is New England and grouse woods, after all. But I also occasionally find live rounds. These are almost always in the kind of places where the trail or terrain roughens enough that you might lose one out of your vest or pocket. So I wind up checking my own vest and, sure enough, there's one ready to pop out of the loop.

The live ones I take home. They are usually rusted enough that I cut them open, harvest the shot, dump the powder and discharge the primer on a trip to the range.

There's one I haven't done that with, though. I was walking a WMA near my home and picked up a high-brass 16 ga - a Remington black, loaded with #6. Thing is, it had to have been there for a long time because that WMA (a big marsh) has been no-tox for some time.

And I, too, often wind up with a game bag full of others' empty shells and beer cans. It dispirits me to see the mess and moreso to haul it out, particularly because it's almost always on private land (Maine is something like 98% private land, so...). At least I get a nickel a can at the redemption.

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Pine Creek/Dave
PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2019 7:52 am  Reply with quote



Joined: 17 Mar 2017
Posts: 2786
Location: Endless Mountains of Pa

Dave in Maine,

Got to admit most of the empties I pick up are pretty old now, except on the State Game Lands, where I constantly still find all kinds of different shells. Back in the SFL I find a few, however nothing like it use to be. With the advent of the older Grouse and Woodcock hunters fading away, the number of small game hunters has decreased severely on the SFL, leading to a lot fewer empties on the state forest land (SFL), especially when you must walk a few miles back the big logging roads. I do find shells along the acres roads however, especially where 4 wheelers are still allowed.

On private property like mine, there are very few empties if any at all. The men and ladies I let hunt on our property keep the private property pretty well cleaned up. I really appreciate these kind of sportsman. Most of the private property is like this now, except if you have a public road running along your property, then you end up with all kinds of junk thrown from cars. You can definitely tell the difference in the summer months when all the out of state people are visiting. I constantly each week have to clean up the junk thrown from the cars. I really wish we could do something about this, long ago the game and fish wardens enforced the litter laws, today only the Foresters seem to do it.

Pine Creek/Dave
L.C. Smith Man

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Riflemeister
PostPosted: Tue Feb 26, 2019 1:00 pm  Reply with quote
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Posts: 1111

I like ejectors on my bird hunting SXS's, but if I don't trap the hulls in favor of a quick reload, I make certain to pick them up when the birds are gone. Those Fiocchi GP #5 hulls look like a pheasant hunter, not many people I know use #5's on anything else. I save all my GP hulls, but load mostly Cheddites. Recently one of the members on here was looking for Fiocchi hulls to reload and I was able to parlay those saved hulls into a little bit of spending cash and help someone out at the same time.

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