When I am too old to be excited by a bird dog on point, they can bring the curtain down.

We all have a few bits and pieces from hunts long ago and not so long ago. The weather image is vivid since a couple of years ago we were in the Rockies and the sky got black, wind blowing from three directions at once pelting us with sleet, hail, and snow, and the lightning dancing. It may not have been the End of Days, but you could see it from there...

I've been trying to cram the 22 big game seasons I missed while in the service into the last 12 and hopefully a few more. My wife mentioned going to Africa on a missions trip. I was thinking more along the lines of a safari. That is sort of a mission isn't it?

These has to be the single best clips that I have ever heard. Mr. Petzal has done it again.

(others)

Dave,

You would probably enjoy seeing my GSH Jill work the birds. She's my best dog ever and due to have pups in Sep. I have hunted around the FT. Riley area and places farther west quite a bit. One of the things that stands out to me was a huge 9 pt buck we saw dogging a doe in a cut milo field while we hunted pheasants in Russell County.
BTW Couple farmers said there is a very good hatch of young pheasants this year. One guy said he has never seen so many young birds.

He always is...... :)

Wow! Impressions are everything. For me:
Two does sniffing my boot while squirrel hunting.
Of all the fishing I've done; While camping, a friends boy asked me to float down a stream one last time before the sun went down, so we did, he caught a walleye a striper and a smallmouth on consecutive casts.
My son's birth and his first deer.
This post may keep me up tonight thinking.

I remember a shooter whose scope self-destructs upon recoil on his 340 Weatherby Magnum and replaces it with a Tasco. A couple of stitches later and 3 hours before heading out on a fly in sheep hunt is barrowing my 03-A3 topped with a Leupold which he has fallen in love with! See you can fix stupid after all!

A cool pitch black rainy night on Afognak Island in November of '86. Four hunting buddies sitting around a warm fire drinking hot coffee spiked with Bailey's Irish Cream. Telling each other of the days events, deer shot, deer missed and "War stories".
You guys that haven't been in the far North to see the Aurora Borealis at 50 below zero on a clear night are missing one of nature's treats. like Clay I have a memory of that but I was on an Army patrol at the time.
Riding the Ferryboat from Homer to Kodiak feeling the huge swells pass under the boat.
Seeing a huge Humpback blow only a few yards from a 35 ft charterboat in Kachemak Bay.
Glassing for Caribou in Wood River Wilderness area. Meanwhile thousands of Sandhill Cranes in large flocks are winging their way South high overhead. The constant cacophony of them calling to their mates is music to my ears.
Watching a giant Alaskan Bull moose maul a spruce tree with his antlers knowing I can't afford to shoot him.

I've been reading Dave's stuff in field and stream since I was in 4th grade, and still have 90 odd percent of those old issues in my parents attic. I'm 31 now and Jim Carmichael ritired last year (or was it two years ago?) and I keep dreading the day that Dave is going to pursue his interests and no longer share them with us!! He has educated me, tantilzed my desire for adventure, and taken me on hunts I may never get to myself. Thanks Dave. On a side note that airport worker in johannesburg was just testing the integrity of your rifle case, and the exultant and jubilant nature of his dance was due to the fact that he found it lacking...

well, lets see. around 1974, we were bird hunting in eastern michigan. the dog had flushed out a quail, i went to shoot, and my younger brother and i both shot and hit the bird at the same instant. literally tearing it in half mid flight. roughly 3 years later, deer hunting by Houghton Lake Mi. i learned the limits of my navagational skills. i got lost in a huge swamp, and after 4 hours, finally figured out the i was holding the compass to close to the rifle (causing me to go way off course). it took me another 3 hours to make my way back out. i never did see a deer. fast forwad ten years, my wife and i were hunting on her aunts farm. we both had doe permits (turns out it was a good thing). my wife shot a deer, but it didn't drop where she shot it. she called me on the walkie talkie to help her track it. as it turned out, she did not shoot a deer, she shot 2. the mom, and a button buck, with one shot. 2 deer, 140 yards, with a 30-30. not to shabby. the first deer i ever shot with a 300 win mag. i shot it in the front shoulder, quartering twoards me. when the bullet hit, the deer raised up like a horse sometimes does and flipped over backwards, never to move again, except fot the twitching of the muscles as i dressed it out. three years later, my first handgun deer. i shot it at 32 paces with a 357 mag. in the middle of a snow storm. wind was blowing HARD, and it couldn't have been above zero (w/o the wind chill) at any point of the day. this happened about 2:30 in the afternoon. gutting a deer had never been so enjoyable! another time, i got stuck (i backed into a ditch) in my truck. trying to retrieve a deer i had shot. while waiting for the tractor to pull me out, a bald eagle flew in and was eating at the gut pile from the deer i had shot. THAT, WAS COOL! made getting stuck just fine with me.

Carney ROTFLMFAO!!!!!!!!!!! I will bring my own tent thanks!

I remember- leaving the pawnshop/gun broker with my father, and the Winchester 62-A we bought that I still have today.

Watching a liver and white pointer point a bird with a dead quail in her mouth, and moving up to flush and kill the bird.

The first squirrel I shot with the Winchester pump, and my father’s approval that it was hit in the eye.

My four year old son hooking a six or seven pound catfish when I had set him down to fish to keep him from “helping” get the Coleman lanterns fired up and a camp set up.

A monster blue marlin that flashed under a marine vessel in the Gulf of Guinea, never to bee seen again after that one sighting.

Using a double barrel Parker 20 gauge to do the best shooting I have ever done on doves in my life, and my son acting as retriever.

A never to be forgotten Catahoula hound that treed the local dogcatcher, and had to be leashed and led away before he let the putz go.

Taking my son to his first serious deer camp, and that he shot cleanly and well, and jumped right in on the skinning, butchering and camp chores.

I remember…

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Little Vizsla pup, on his first hunt, locking up at the spot where we had just shot up a covey of quail that had been pointed by the older dogs. He never flinched while we kicked around right under his nose. We decided there wasn't anything there and started to go after singles with the "good" dogs. That's when the pup finally moved, sticking his head in a clump of grass that we had kicked several times and came out with a bird. He took it to my buddy and then watched as the bird flew off before my buddy could close his hand.

Pup stood there and looked at us like, "What kind of idiots did I get stuck with?"

I was rabbit huntin' with my step-dad and his dog Ringo, in 1959. Got in the woods about day break,and the temperature was 20 degrees.

I didn't bring any gloves and my hands were nearly frost bitten. I had to go take a pee,and realizing how warm the flow was, well ... let's just say I warmed 'em up.

Thanks, Dave...
This is reminescent of Cory Ford, and I like it. This is more than a minute of angle, and is the angle on our minutes afield. We need more of this kind of reflection, among fellow shooters and sportsmen, I think.

One memory of mine, was when Dad and I had set the .270 aside, and had picked up muzzloading shotguns and rifles. We went to a shotgun only area near Concord, N.H., after a fresh snow...shotguns in our hands, and nine .44 caliber balls in each barrel. We jumped deer who had lain down near the lumbering operation, not too far away...it was like they were enjoying the cacaphony of noise the men were making. We surprised them, and the snow flew as they waved a frantic goodby with their white tails. We saluted them with a shot apiece, and the sound was sooo diminished, out there in the snowy woods. The smoke drifted away, and the deer were untouched, but Father and Son had a moment together that was...well, special, if fruitless.

Blue

2 things for me really stick out, first climbing a mountainside on all fours (steep!) and then watching clouds rolling thru the valley below, also sliding most of the say down said mountain on my arse! I kept ending up that way trying to walk down so I figured I might as well stay there and slide on the leaves, only hit 2 big rocks and 1 little stump on the way down. You don't want to know where the stump hit......

Second is walking along a trail with a buddy with him leading the way. This trail was along a mountainside, about 4 feet wide with a almost vertical drop of about 200 yds on our left. Most of the path was dirt but there was a large, flat and slightly slanted rock in the path. Actually it was the path for about 8 feet, he walked across just fine, me, with my luck stepped one foot on it, then as soon as the second one hit both flew out from under me.
Next thing I remember is him leaning over me asking if I was alright!
My reply was "Am I dead?" thinking I went over the side! Luckily(?) I fell flat on the rock, and evidently was knocked out for a while. I wore glasses back then and they were laying on the ground about 3 feet above my head! Also luckily for me I usually sling my rifle across my chest, not my back. So it got one little ding on the forearm but otherwise was ok. So once I got feeling back in my lower body we were able to continue the hunt just fine, and I learned NOT to step on smooth mildewy rocks!

My 3 sons got SCUBA certified at the same time. They were 13, 14 & 15. I went with their class on the last open water dive. I watched them do their skills test on the deck of a shipwreck in 60' of water. That was a great proud dad moment.

The call of a dove as you focus on fresh tracks at dawn in any African country.

Seeing the Northern Lights and hearing a wolf howl in the background, my first Alaskan sheep hunt

Curled around a tiny campfire when darkness catches up while on the track of a good bull elephant. My tracker softly explaining how the Legend of the Half Man accounts for his tracking prowess

Elk bugling in the morning mist

crm3006,

Thanks for the kind comments. I,m not really a writer, more of a raconteur, a teller of stories as you will. I have just spent most of my time and ill gotten gains on adventure and hunting.... the rest I just wasted.

kindest regards

duckcreekdick, I feel the same way as you, living in an area where the birds have all but gone, I'll never forget the thrill of watching a good birddog do it's business. Around here more people like rabbit or coon hunting, me it's watching "Lady" come to a point. Her pups while just even big enough to wobble would stop and point butterflies in the yard. Strang as it seems, even the wifle wouldn't part with her. We had many good days in the fields of Ky.

Sitting here at my compuer,I began thinking about your post, Dave. I was down to the local hunting/fishing story we guy frequent often to pass along some bits and pieces,show a few pic's or trade guns. They were showing their "Sleived" shot guns they use at the Turkey shoot on Sunday afternoon. (You guys from Ky. and Tenn. know what I'm getting at). They were showing cards with a X in the middle ,shot to pieces proof. I got to thinking back in, In the '60's we would meet at the little Garage/Junkyard an have a "Ham shoot" Sleived guns not permitted, But we would put up a dollar at 45 yrds shoot at an envelope, counting the shots put there. Don E. my friend shot a Mod.12 with the progressive -choked barrel. when they would be putting in their money I thought it would be easier just to give Don the money and save shell's but he always shot a few and not do so good.(I think missing on purpose). but in the end we all had fun. I can still smell the powder, afer which Don and I would go do a little bird hunting.... Never give up your rights to enjoy life for the gun haters or animal rightists...