I'm with you, Lloyd! Dove opener in VA only 39 days off, and this year I'm taking my first trip to northern WI to see if my Boykin and I can find a few grouse, having found none at all here in VA mountains the past couple of years. The pup is always ready, and I have been flailing a treadmill with my creaky bones so that I will be able to keep up with him. Briley is shipping my gun back to me today, having opened the full choked left barrel to LM (.015) to better complement the cylinder bored right barrel. It is quite the beater, a 16 gauge English made gun proofed in Birmingham between 1925 and 1954. Engraved on the rib is "H & TC Godfrey of Saffron Walden," which my research suggests was an iron monger (hardware store) where it was initially sold. Got it from Kirby Hoyt's "Rust and Dust" listings, well used but nicely functional and worked well on our VA woodcock last year. I still need to load a few more 2.5 inch Cheddite hulls, but I have plenty of time for that.
The pup and I have a room booked in a dog friendly motel in Park Falls October 7-17, I have been studying on-line maps, and my wife may even join us for some or all of our Wisconsin adventure.
Now that nobody is "ridin' with Biden" anymore, it's time to focus on the really important business of the fall: birds!
