Q&A with Slayer Pro-Staff Mike Wec: Ammunition, and the early goose season
By M.D. Johnson Back in the day — NOTE: I would define “the day” as the mid- to late-1970s, if anyone’s wondering — everything my father and I hunted, with the exception of whitetails and geese, was hunted with us using #5 lead shot. That’s it. #5 hand-loaded lead. Mind you, this was prior to 1991 and the non-toxic mandate, so mallards, blacks, teal, wood ducks, pheasants, ruffed grouse, cottontail, squirrels, the occasional woodcock … all #5 lead. But, as S.E. Hinton wrote, that was then, this is now. Waterfowl hunters, and here we’ll stick strictly to ’fowl hunters, have available to them a wide array of non-toxic ammunition choices. This duck load. That duck load. And goose hunters, too. Big stuff. Medium big stuff. Ammunition for the pellet count/pattern density folks — NOTE: That’s me! — and shotshells for the “big bullet guys.” If you have a goose-hunting ammunition need, it’s almost certain there’s one out there just for your situation.
Which leaves us pondering this question: How do we know what’s best? What’s the right ammunition to use for, say, September’s early goose season?
Fortunately, we here at Slayer Calls have access to guys like Mike Wec. Heralding from Central Falls, Rhode Island (“The Smallest Town in America’s Smallest State”), Wec, 36, is by trade a professional butcher; a pro-staffer for Carlson’s Choke Tubes; the, as he explained, first person in the state of Rhode Island to shoot a perfect 100 in the handicapped trap-shooting event; and, perhaps needless to say, an avid waterfowler. Wec recently slowed down enough to talk with us for a bit on the subject of shotshell selection for September’s early goose season.
Slayer Calls (SC): What’s the most common mistake you see or hear about, regarding ammunition choices for early geese?
Mike Wec: I think a lot of guys 
SC: True or false, Mike. The 3-1/2 inch 12 gauge is the best way to go, especially if you’re hunting big Canadas?
Wec: I would say True. Maybe not the 3-1/2 inch, but the <3 inch> 12 gauge. No one wants to wound a bird. You want to get them down, and you want to recover every bird you hit.
SC: So to follow that up with this “opinion question” … What do you think about this trend to go small? The sub-bore shotguns for geese? The 20s and 28s and .410s. Thoughts?
Wec: I think it all comes down to going back to the range and analyzing your patterns. If you’re comfortable shooting a 20 … Personally, I can’t see myself shooting a .410, unless I’m trying to kill a bird at 10 … 15 … 20 yards. A 20 gauge is a great all-round shotgun, especially if you’re doing early season and the geese are in close. No problem, at least 
SC: With all the new ‘designer’ non-toxics today, Mike, is steel shot a thing of the past for goose hunters?
Wec: No. Absolutely not. I think 
