doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Your very best day afield

Best days afield don't have much to do with the number of birds in the bag. That said, I remember a day when I took a limit of four wild prairie pheasants with four shots from my old Stevens 5100 16ga.

That gun was my first double gun, and that is a feat I've not accomplished since, even with my modest collection of much "better" guns. I sometimes wonder why I don't shoot the old Stevens every time out. For me, a day to remember indeed!

when i hold semi annual shoots at my home in mo..

Couple years ago, I was posting a shelterbelt in western Ks. My brothers and son were walking it to me.
My gun was a Beretta 12 ga O/U.
I dropped four very high and fast flying roosters stone dead in about one minute. One shot each.

I have wonderful memories of a quail/pheasant hunt one November day. At the end of the day I set up my camera to take a photo of the four of us. I had the photo printed on coffee mugs for everyone. The four of us haven't hunted together since although we regularly did before that day. One moved out of state, one has mobility issues with his knees, and one lost his son to suicide and hasn't been quite the same since. The place we used to hunt was a wonderful bit of land that was owned by the old farmer who farmed my land. It was prairie pasture land with two spring-fed ponds, rolling hills, and stands of cedars along the creeks. The land has been sold off and is a trophy home farm now. Everything changes.

Not exactly a day afield, but a night awoods.

In Scotland some 20 years ago together with a pal I was invited on a woodcock moonflight by John our 'keeper friend as a bit of a reward for some work we'd done for him. We'd been walking up all day in typical west coast Scottish weather and I'd left my Springer in the vehicle all nicely rugged up, the poor old boy was pooped.

John stood us on a ride in a Christmas tree plantation; they were maybe 12 -15 feet tall. We waited for the flight to develop and it did so, but very slowly with just a few birds, not any numbers at all.

I did see birds, but they were too quick for me so I never had a shot, although chum Gordon did connect with one and dropped it behind him. I walked over.

"Where is it Gord?"

Pointing in the general area of Somewhere In A Galloway Forest, "Err .... well in that lot."

"Dead is it?'

"Not sure. Might be."

"Stay here, I'll get Chrissie out of the motor and see what he can make of it."

I guess it took 15 minutes to walk there and back, so when I cast him off the dog was looking for a bird at night, on a blind retrieve, that might have run anywhere, in the pitch dark of the Xmas tree understory. At first we could hear him moving about, but then we lost the sound, and had no idea where he was. After maybe ten or twelve minutes we heard him moving around once more, and he came out with a very much alive 'cock, looking fairly pleased with himself.

John came over and said "I think that's one of the finest bits of dog work I've ever seen, well done the pair of you."

"Nah, nothing to it me old china, he does that all the time!" Lying git.

In truth it really was a terrific performance and has never left my memory. So one of my very best days was just a single retrieve of probably no more than sixty yards. Wonderful.

Here's the great man himself, looking just as wise as he really was. My heart breaks.



Eug

Another John the Scottish 'keeper story that sticks in the mind no matter how much I try to forget ....

We were on a driven shoot in Dumfries on the Stairs estate, and I was shooting with a single trigger Rizzini O/U (sorry purists) as flank Gun. Three quarter choke and full using Eley nickel plated trap cartridges. A hen bird slipped out to the side about thirty plus yards off and I shot at it ..... with both barrels, the bloody thing double discharged. It's fair to say the hen was hard hit.

John walked over with it and held it up shaking it so everyone could see there wasn't an unbroken bone in it's body; I swear it rattled. "Eugene, Ahm nae sure, but this burrd appears tae be ******* deid!" Oh the shame of it.

Anyway after that I just loaded the one barrel and things went reasonably well until the last drive which was a down the length of a steep wooded hillside. Virtually all the birds come down the line of the Guns so it was a bit of a killing drive and not exactly my idea of fun, so I (hero) decided to be really selective and only go for the truly high stuff.

Well pride cometh before a fall. A cock bird, a real skyscraper came down the line (I was again the outside or last Gun) and nearly everyone had a pop and missed. He was going like a train, dropping down the hill with wings set, and a bit of a curl on him, a stonker.

"Come on my beauty, come on." A classic gun mount, faultless footwork, perfect timing on the trigger and CLICK. I'd loaded the wrong barrel.

I knew what was coming and it did; "Eugene, everybody made a bollix of that cock, but nae one made a bigger bollix than you just did. We'll see ye in the pub and your buyin'!"

Some days go better than others.

Eug

These are wonderful stories, fellas. Please keep them coming. Thanks to all who have taken the time to contribute.

I'm still a'thinkin.

SRH

At one time, duck hunting was permitted in the old ricefields which make up a part of the 29,000 acre Savannah River Wildlife Refuge. My late duck hunting buddy Bill A. and I stumbled into a conveniently located honey hole, a series of beaver dammed waters formed by a newly installed subterranean gas pipeline through the fields about 200 yards off Highway 17 near the Georgia line. We were in SC. It was an easy walk through the freshwater marsh to the holes. The potholes weren�t large, maybe the size of a school bus, but were loaded with natural food and drew in the big ducks, mallards and blacks. Woodies were there to fill the limit on slow days.

One morning, Billy C., Clark and I pulled onto the road shoulder and started to trek towards the holes. We heard a gawdawful sound coming down the highway towards us about a mile away and gaining. We couldn�t see headlights but saw sparks shooting out from whatever it was heading our way. It turned out to be a hysterical woman driving a beat up car on four rims at low speed. She and her boyfriend had been drinking and fighting. He had slashed her tires and passed out. She was hauling butt to get away from him. She stopped and asked us to take her to the cops. This predated cell phones and any sense of obligation I might have had for a damsel (large damsel) in distress during duck season. We were about 20 minutes from legal shooting and she was about to ruin the dawn flight with all the racket she was making. Once we figured out she wasn�t hurt, we told her to get back in the car and continue driving to the nearest town which was a half mile down the road across the river into Georiga with the Mayberryesque police station on the left. Last thing we wanted was for the hunt to be ruined by a hysterical woman to whom we weren�t related. We killed a few ducks, but that wasn�t what stuck in my mind about the hunt. At least on that particular morning�.I still think Billy took her phone number.

I have so many memorable hunting stories with my dad, brothers and friends. Of hunting waterfowl,upland birds and big game, I'm not sure which to share.

Home for Christmas break from college a good friend and I went out in the evening to locate a good spot to set up the following morning for some waterfowl shooting. We turned west on a narrow gravel road that skirted along the edge of one of the many lakes in the area. The water was at it's winter level exposing some mud flats where earlier some wild rice had been growing. As we topped out on a slight rise in the road, we stopped to watch mostly mallards and widgeon flocking into a mud flat area.

Calling another friend to let him know that we had found a potential hot spot, we made plans for the next morning. There was an old farm fence that skirted the edge of the mud flat, with some sparse brush growing along side. The plan was to sneak in along the fence before daylight and hide behind the brush, hoping that the birds had rafted in the lake the night before and would fly back in the morning.

We met up in town and drove the 6-8 miles to our destination, snuck in along the old fence line and luckily, the birds had done as we had hoped. We didn't set out any decoys on the mud flat and just hunkered down for the 30-45 minute wait.

As dawn approached we could hear the wings and see the silhouette of birds as they landed on the flat to feed on the exposed wild rice. The birds just kept piling in and by shooting time, there must have been 700-800 birds sitting in front of us, some within 15-20 feet of where we were sitting. in unison we stood up and one of the friends shouted HEY! Nothing happened, so he yelled ""HEY" again and the birds exploded off the mud flat. We opened up and when it was all over, we were 1 bird shy of our limit.

What I particularly remember of that hunt is sitting behind the old fence, hearing the wing beats and watching the birds come sailing onto the mud flat as the sun started to rise and after the smoke had cleared, thinking I'm going to have a coronary as I chased a few cripples across the mud flat that oozed to mid calf or higher with each step!

My old Brittany, Mandy has been gone for almost 5 years now but most of my great days afield revolve around her. She had the heart of a lion.

She demonstrated that heart one day in the goose blind when dropped a huge gander who jumped to his feet and was ready to fight even if unable to fly. Mandy was out of the blind before he hit the ground and the two of them circled each other like a pair of prize fighters. The gander made a couple of jabs at her which she deftly side stepped. About the third time he made a poke at her she jumped in, grabbed the gander's extended neck and for a few eternal seconds all I could see was a dust cloud of fur and feathers. What was only seconds seemed like minutes. Pretty soon the dust cleared and the lion hearted Brit dragged a very large and very deceased goose back to me.

Her favorite game bird had to be valley quail. She loved to hunt anything but I could tell by her intensity level when she was on quail. Her stub of a tail would have an almost audible frequency it was moving so fast. It seemed she loved hunting quail more than anything.

She pointed one covey and I stepped in to flush the birds. I made a nice double with my little 28 gauge Beretta 686 and Mandy went out to retrieve the pair. She made it almost back to me when she locked up hard on point, with a quail in her mouth. She was pointing a tuft of grass that didn't look like it could hide a cricket, let alone a quail. I asked what she was doing. The birds are already gone. She ignored me and just kept pointing, all the while still holding the first quail. I toed the little tuft of grass and low and behold, out came a lone quail.

One last story. I parked at a local, popular, public hunting area just in time to see a guy coming out with his dog. I'd seen him before and spoke with him a couple of times. He always struck me as a know it all and today was no different. He had his three rooster pheasants and assured me they had hunted the ground pretty hard and there was little chance of me finding any birds. His dog he assured me, was exceptionally thorough and they had worked all the cover pretty hard to get those three birds. I congratulated him on his good morning and said I'd hunt it anyway and maybe get into some quail or huns.

Mandy and I headed down a particularly thick strip of grass that always seemed to hold birds despite being close to the parking area. We hadn't gone 75 yards when she locked up. I stepped up and told her okay. Out came two roosters, doing their best to imitate a post three pair of trap doubles. My favorite post when shooting doubles. I just reacted instinctively and had two puffs of feathers in the air simultaneously. Mandy started after the downed birds and swung around hard and locked up tight on point. I got my Beretta reloaded and told her okay. Out came a third rooster, slightly quartering to the right and at the shot, folded neatly.

Mandy retrieved the three birds and since the know it all was still at the parking area I just had to saunter back that way. He had a stunned look on his face and I just smiled as we loaded up and headed for home.

I miss that little Brit. She was a great little bird dog and taught me more than I ever taught her.