Once again, Ben, ducks and pheasants ain't the same critters. I've kept careful track of my "wounding loss" rates for about 35 years, and it's way lower than 15%. Matter of fact, it's way lower than the 8.5% Roster's guys experienced with steel 2's--and they were shooting preserve birds, which virtually any pheasant hunter with experience on both the wild and the released variety will tell you are a good bit easier to bring to bag. And I have large enough numbers on wounding losses on wild birds that my own statistics are, I'd venture, pretty reliable. Back when we were shooting more pheasants than we are in Iowa these days, during one 5 year period, I and my hunting partners shot and recovered 437 wild roosters; 12 were wounding losses. That's less than 3%. In any season in which I've shot a reasonably good number of birds (like 3 dozen or more), I've never had a wounding loss rate higher than 5%. So while loss rates of 8-12% may not look bad compared to waterfowl (which are typically shot at longer ranges than pheasants--and I'd note here that I'm not a waterfowl hunter so can't compare my own rates), they look very poor compared to my own wounding loss rates. Which, again, are on the harder to bag wild pheasants vs preserve birds.

And you need to work on your sarcasm, Ben. Sure sounded to me like you were serious . . . and I'm still suspicious that you may have been, until I pointed out the problems with disturbing hens in late winter/early spring. But whatever, glad you understand that issue now, whether you did or not previously. I'd also point out that the Iowa DNR won't even allow you to run dogs on WMA's from March 15-July 15.

Finally, I'd add that of your latest laundry list of "research", there's NOT A SINGLE STUDY that pertains to lead ingestion by upland gamebirds in the wild. Do you have something that actually pertains to the subject at hand? Something on upland birds, other than those on preserves? Something that establishes upland gamebird mortality from ingesting lead in the wild? The lack of such data must be why both the MN DNR and MT FWP say that the research just isn't out there. Guess they're more interested in specific research on upland birds in the wild, rather than stuff like urban pigeons eating paint chips. When the switch was made to nontoxic shot on waterfowl, it was because waterfowl were dying from ingesting lead. Shouldn't we be looking for the same kind of data if we're going to switch to nontox for upland birds? Seems only reasonable to me.

Last edited by L. Brown; 01/20/10 09:24 AM.