"Ground SWatting?- humm- Some years ago now, our first neighbors , Joe and Sandy- Joe was my age, a brother Vet-and from Baraga in our Upper Penninsulae-- we became casual hunting partners. So I picked him up early Sunday morning, with Molly my Setter and a 20 gauge LeFever DS in the gun case. He came out with a gun case and a thermos, saw Molly in the back of the old Jeepster that was my hunting/fishing buggy then-- said:" Hey, never hunted pats with a dog before, should be a new experience, for sure." So I asked him, figuring that Baraga in the UP probably was a good area for grouse (ruffed and sharptails)-- "How do you hunt them, then?"-- "Oh, we take turns with a Jeep on the back 2-tracks, one guy drives slow, the other guy with the gun rides on the right hand side front fender-- when we see a bird dustin" we pop them in the head, stop the jeep, and pick up dinner"!! That was the "UP Culture" he grew up with.
"A true gent using a side by side-- sounds like the lates: Paul A. Curtis, Aldo Leopold, Havilah Babcock, Nash Buckingham, Archibald Rutledge, Hal Bowen Howard, Ray P. Holland, George Bird Evans, all gone, but I'll bet a flat of RST 20 ga. No. 8 shotloads that NONE of them made ground swatting a part of their hunting Modus operandus-- "The Field is the Touchstone of The Man"-- RWTF
