In our last installment, we talked about pigeons and ducks decoying to the blind and some tips on how to become more proficient when hunting incoming and decoying birds. It wasn’t two weeks after I sent in the article that I got a call from one of our clients who had been on a duck and goose hunt in Canada.
And, well… let’s just say all involved are lucky to be alive to tell the story.
There was a group of hunters on this trip, some of whom were very experienced (our client) and some who weren’t as experienced. They were using the lodge’s guns and hunting three in a blind, and the blinds were next to each other.
As so often happens in situations like this, no one in the blind talked about either standing or sitting when shooting, or the dangers of someone not standing next to someone who was standing while shooting.
If you will remember, in the last issue we included a photo of two customers in Pennsylvania who agreed to show what could happen if two hunters were shooting at the same birds in the same blind and one was standing and one was seated. We have decided to include that photo again, just to be sure everyone knows and understands the importance of communicating in the blind about shooting seated or standing.
In this photo, the shooters were demonstrating a situation of two hunters shooting at the same birds. But what happened on the Canada trip was two hunters were shooting at different birds, with one standing and one seated.
The standing shooter was tall and was moving on birds coming from left to right. The seated shooter was moving on birds coming from right to left. There were three shooters in the blind and the tallest was in the middle. This creates a big problem if all don’t stand to shoot.
The shots rang out and the guide and our client realized instantly something was not right. The sound was not what it should have been. After the shots, it was eerily quiet in the next blind, and our client and the guide ran to it to find all three hunters pale white and speechless.
Our client asked loudly if anyone was hurt and, thank God, the answer came back “No.”
What had happened in the incident was the seated shooter’s barrel had touched the standing shooter’s barrel as the seated shooter pulled the trigger. The shot blew a hole in the side of the standing shooter’s barrel and the shot exited the shooter’s barrel. The wad was stuck in the hole in the side of the barrel!
There were so many things that could have happened to create a much worse outcome. But thank God all came away from this incident unharmed, with all fingers, hands, and toes still intact, and a memory that will be with them forever!
The magazine tube was blown off the receiver and the mechanism was badly broken up. But looking at the hole in the side of the barrel, you could see the wad still stuck in the hole where the seated shooter’s shot penetrated the outer wall of the barrel, and his shot then exited the barrel.
If I had tried to do something like this, I don’t know how I would have approached it. And I definitely would not have thought the shooter’s shot would have penetrated the side of the standing shooter’s barrel and then gone out the end of the barrel. But that is what happened.
Mother nature is a pretty tough teacher. She gives the test first and then the lesson! So, what are the takeaways from this incident?
In visiting with others about this incident, we have come to realize that this is not the only time this has happened. This gives us the courage to say to all who read this column, regardless of who you think you are going hunting with, go over simple safety procedures before the guns are loaded. It just makes perfect sense!
Understanding all the safety protocols we talk about at every range we go to goes a long way to embedding them into the brains of all those who enjoy shooting a shotgun! As you can imagine, we have seen a lot of accidental discharges in our line of work for the past 25 years. No one has ever been hurt, thankfully, but we have seen enough of them to understand the benefits of all safety protocols.
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