A few weeks ago, I was shooting with a friend who owns a pair of Boss side-by-sides. On one target, the clay appeared, he pulled the trigger, and nothing happened. He made
some adjustments and shot. A few targets later, the same thing occurred.

Black Ducks by Richard D. Benson courtesy of South Carolina Department of Natural Resources.

P.J. O’Rourke, satirist, writer extraordinaire, and our longtime friend and hunting buddy, first dubbed me “Martha Stewart with a shotgun” when he wrote a blurb for the back cover of my Eat Like A Wild Man: The Ultimate Game And Fish Cookbook.

Right Place, Wrong Time by Scot Storm courtesy of courtesy of Scot Storm and Wild Wings.

K is for Kansas. Some would say it is also for King, the new king of pheasant hunting states. While Kansas still ranks second to South Dakota, the perennial leader in the number of pheasants taken by hunters, the gap is small and closing. If Kansas is not yet the King, definitely it is the Krown Prince.

In February, optimism begins to bloom inside of me, riding on warm thoughts of the coming spring. Maybe it is the same with you when you see the days getting a bit longer and the gray, leaden clouds occasionally opening up to provide a much-needed glimpse of a warm blue sky. Under these conditions, my first thoughts are always of woodcock returning from their southern wintering grounds to nearby brushy fields and clearings, and of the magic and wonder I feel when going to those secret coverts on March evenings to watch the males perform their mating ritual in the thin, fading light. My wife, Debbie, and I go there with old friends and hunting companions—Mark and Lois, Jim and Linda, Billy and Linda—just to be among these little russet migrants that have captured our hearts over these many years and, quite simply, as Mark often says, “to see the woodcock dance.” We thrill to the male’s peenting and his erratic, spiraling flight into the dusky sky and then watch amazed—over and over again—as he plummets to earth, seemingly out of control, only to catch an occasional glimpse of him stopping short and then fluttering softly to earth, at nearly the exact place from which he began this aerial display for a female tucked into the cover somewhere nearby. It is a fine way to welcome spring and the best of excuses to be among old friends with whom I’ve shared the woods and waters for most of my life.

The problem of how we view the different shotgun gauges can be illustrated by a real-life example from two plantations where wild quail are shot over dogs.