Bob, once again, thank you. I was torn on this one, but leaned on the side of protecting the fish, so I went ahead and "stressed" the merganzers with barely 'out-of-range' peppering with the 12ga. No dead fish this evening. Merganzers are as smart as they are hungry, and getting shot at is NOT their cup of tea... I am encouraged to think how big and fast the Bass will grow with all that feed (BG's) in there! I'll keep you posted.