The long wait to Aug 1st begins today. The Maine and NH spring seasons ended yesterday. 10gacrowshooter and I got out for one last hurrah in the morning, not many birds flying but we managed to down 6 and our season ended on a high note with our last shots being on a pair of crows with each us taking one with our last shots of the season.
With the nearly snowless winter and warmer temps, plus Maine starting on 1/21 instead of 2/1 I thought we had a very good possibility to beat last years record winter/spring season but the birds never showed up in big numbers. About a 15% drop for me from last year but the good news is I was shooting better.
As many of you know winter/spring birds are tough, they are smarter (no juveniles), they were hunted in the fall, and cover is practically non existent. However a majority of the birds that didn't want to commit fully ran into the equivalent of a German 88 flak gun as the patterns of hard #6 from a pair of old Parker 10 gauge's made long range kill shots a seemingly routine matter. It's become easy for me to see why the old 10's were banned from trap and live pigeon shooting. It's almost not fair, but sure is fun
-- Edited by nhcrowshooter on Monday 2nd of April 2012 08:05:13 PM
Mine also ended 31 March. But doesn't start til 1 Sept. So I will fish, kayak, and play with hunting gear such as touch up flocking, reload some shotshells, mend decoy bags, etc. etc.
