I agree that hunters with 28 ga. or .410, either deserve our admiration, or only talk about their good shots (and forget about the misses and the crippled birds, not to mention the totally destroyed birds). For european woodcocks, in europe they have a full range of shots just for that matter. The shot size range from no 10 early in season, to no 8 ( i never saw a european hunter with greater size shot for woodcock). Also you have the "discos":the shots are disc shaped, to move sideways in the air and open the pattern. They spread for the first 10 yards but after reaching their flat side, they go straight. They offer excellent penetration, but the pattern is very erratic, just like the cubic shots, wich perform the same. Another kind of shot that is excellent for close up shots is the spreader shot, with a 4 compartment wad.Some european companies even advertise that their wad is built to spin like a sabot slug, to spread the shot more. At 15 yards, they increase substantially the pattern, but the best part is that you wont have that "sweet spot" in the center where you can hit a woodcock with 30 shots!!! A group of members from The Québec woodcock association experimented hunting with no 11 shots, 1 oz. with 20 ga. guns this fall, and had x rays of 8 birds. The mean no of shots in the birds was around 13 (a lot). You must know they were shot at a mean distance of 12 yards, with rifled barrels. They concluded that 3/4 OR 7/8 OZ. is plenty (another thing with tiny shots, they noticed that they never felt any shots in their food, probably too small, gulp!