With a little experience I'll add my 2 cents . It all depends on who and where I'm hunting with , how many birds I need at home and how well I can read the birds on whether we are on the X , or not ? I have no problem shooting backup , in fact , I kinda like it ! With my partners allowing me to call the shot , I can get a pretty good read on the actions of the birds as to what their planned escape route could/would be . So as I call the shot , guys start shooting , dead birds are dropping and I'm at port arms looking not only for crips in the air but flopping swimmers . I try to remind everyone before the shooting , All Green Boys ! It ain't any more fun than that ! IMHO
All those flaring into wind and curling out and back at same time reminds me of shooting batues in sporting clays. Course I use to shoot regularly on a windy day would make birds hop in flight even on batue. Always interesting shooting and those type shots give you the ability to see the angle and lead. Once instilled muscle memory takes over but it was always fun being in the lineup when that wind made that bird hop about the instant trigger was pulled.
This is why I enjoy hunting in high winds. Even low over the decoys they still hop. Here is a question for all of you. How do you "lead" a bird that is flying into the wind as fast as it can but is still being pushed downwind?
^^^ Backwards, plus turn the shotgun upside down and close both eyes Seriously, your shot cloud is probably sliding downwind as well, more so if it’s steel pellets.
It's a real cluster of a shot, one I have never truly figured out. I hit maybe 1 in 10. Never hit 2 in the same day. I think of the speed of the bird, air speed not ground speed, then use sort of a sustained lead with the gun swinging the direction the bird is going. I doubt I'm even close to correct but I hit just enough to keep me trying. I hunt a lot of gale force storms on the salt so it can be petty common to see birds going backwards for a few seconds here and there. You get into sustained winds of 40-50 mph with gusts to 70 you like to think you're good if you hit something, in reality it's all luck. The birds make forward progress by gaining altitude and then diving to gain speed. It's crazy they can even go into the wind. No such thing as a birds flying an even close to straight line. Spray and pray.
Where I hunt in the open pastures on really windy days I try to allow the birds to go past me , which makes for a easy first shot and a compound lead on the second bird . If birds are sliding in the wind , perpendicular to me , I wait until birds are at about 90 degrees , that way what the winds doing to the birds it's doing the same to my shot cloud , makes for a successful day with larger pellets ! Shooting in the wind requires a compound lead and when birds are flaring the POI needs to be , more so , behind them......Haha ! IMHO Billy Bob , for what you're shooting it's more like taking a knife to a gunfight in a 40/50 mph wind ! FWIW , yeah you're lucky to even come close !
That's good advice. I do both of those things and when I was still able to shoot a 12 I shot 2's on those days. I still like that backwards motion shot and can't resist. Hoping the TSS will allow me to hunt in some wind even if not the storms I like so much.
Ran into that in Canada, with snows....simplest solution for me was to just swing through and shoot where THEY WISH they were. LOL ...down wind/leaving at 100mph? ....flip a coin. bird and shot seemed to coincide on an ACTUAL location in space and time, somewhat better on closers, in the howling winds those days.
