Yesterday was snowy, wet and thoroughly miserable. Looks like the marmot was right. A perfect day to stay inside. So I loaded up the dogs and went quail hunting. As I was driving to my hunting spot I passed the intersection in the photo below. Just a lonely, little-traveled county road junction way out in the back of beyond. No stoplight, no traffic, and definitely no random porta-potty abandoned in the middle of the intersection.



But on my way back, there it was, smack in the middle of the road. Did someone lose it? Did they get tired of hauling it around and decided that this junction was as good a place as any? Was it, you know, used? (I didn’t find out). Was it a protest statement about the condition of my state's public roads? Maybe an anonymous philanthropic gesture toward us Johnless late-season public-land quail hunters? [ Read Full Post ]

See that sock in the photo above? The one that looks like it was attacked by a small, rabid shark. Well, that’s my sock after Pritchard got a hold of it this weekend. The attack lasted, to the best of my knowledge, no more than 5 minutes. When I caught her in the act, she looked up with a few white threads dangling from her mouth. “Who me?”

As most of you know, many dogs eat socks and, as any Vet will tell you, an inordinate amount of women’s underwear. But soft fabrics can cause devastating effects in a dog’s bowels, mainly blockage. I’ve heard that sometimes a Vet will suggest giving a dog a bit of hydrogen peroxide to induce vomiting. This hopefully removes the object before it travels into the intestines.

I discussed the situation with my wife, and we decided that we would watch the dog closely and take her to the Vet at the first sign of distress. The following morning after the sock attack we were running Pritch on the beach when she took her typical morning constitution. I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t hoping for a sock deposit. But a few... [ Read Full Post ]

Believe it or not, this is the second time in the past few years that I’ve posted a story about a dog that shot his owner by stepping on his shotgun.

Anyway, here’s the lastet, from the San Francisco Chronicle:

One California hunting dog apparently takes the term a bit too literally. . . .

The Merced County Sheriff's Department says [a] man and a partner had been hunting near Highway 152 in the Los Banos area Saturday. The man set down his shotgun to retrieve some duck decoys and his female Labrador retriever stepped on it, causing the safety to disengage and the gun to fire, sending a shot into the hunter's upper back. [ Read Full Post ]

It’s easy to miss—a bronze statue of a black and tan hound on the Johnson County Courthouse lawn in Warrensburg, Mo. But the dog, called Old Drum, has a legacy that will last longer than that statue of metal and stone. The death of Old Drum, you see, inspired a typically loquacious lawyer to deliver one of the finest speeches ever about the loyalty of a hunting dog, and in doing so coined the phrase “man’s best friend.”

Old Drum was known around the area as an exceptional hound, with a fine nose and a thundering voice. But one night in 1869 when he wandered onto the neighboring property of a livestock farmer Old drum was fatally shot. Old Drum’s owner, Charles Burden decided to sue his neighbor, and the case eventually found its way into the Supreme Court. The highly charged and emotional trial would rest on the closing argument of George Vest, who was representing Old Drum’s master. Here’s what he had to say:

Gentlemen of the jury, the best friend a man has in this world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter whom he... [ Read Full Post ]

I’ll be the first to admit that my gun dog is a bit spoiled. In fact, one trainer, while gently telling me to be a little tougher on Pritch said, “Dave, she lives better than some middle income kids.” Well, she eats good dog food, has a warm roof over her head, gets plenty of exercise and training, and is the center of attention. Yes, she’s got a good thing going.

But there’s one place Pritch is never allowed, and that’s my bed (except for the above photo). For one, I wake up enough as it is worrying about shrinking bank accounts, deadlines, and life’s other niggling concerns. I don’t need a dog kicking me in the night so it can get some more room. And while I’m also not an alpha nut, I do think there’s something to making certain spots off limits to the pooch. Finally, you can’t really expect your dog to be conditioned for the harshest of hunting weather (both hot and cold) if it spends too much time indoors.

Still, plenty of gun dogs sleep in their owners’ beds and wake up raring to go chase birds. In fact, in my very own... [ Read Full Post ]

Yesterday I trailed Phil Bourjaily around the SHOT Show floor with a video camera. Today it was Dave Petzal's turn. Some of the items you are about to see are new. Some are not. But they all fall under one category where release date is irrelevant. Simply put, here's a showcase of "Stuff Dave Likes." Mr. Petzal, please take the floor. -- Joe Cermele

Greetings Gun Nuts. Though I never thought an occasion would arise that caused me to stray from my post at the Honest Angler blog and enter the realm of Mr. Petzal and Mr. Bourjaily, sometimes strange things happen. One actually happened today. I aimlessly wandered the SHOT Show floor with Phil Bourjaily, filming whenever something grabbed his attention. Here's a look at what we found, including some of the hottest new guns and gear, plus a booth babe that signs lingerie. I hope you enjoy the show, as Phil and I certainly had fun making it -- Joe Cermele

Here's one to file in the "did we really need a study to tell us this" category. It seem scientists have determined that watching television really is hazardous to your health.

A recent study shows you should probably turn off the TV and go outside, as researchers found that people with a four-hour-a-day television habit were 46 percent more likely to die of any disease, and 80 percent more likely to die of cardiovascular disease. But the study's authors say the solution is not to go for a run or play basketball. [ Read Full Post ]

Sometimes we talk about guns as works of art in this space.  How about works of art as guns? Robert Powell’s painted stocks use wood as canvas for designs based on the work of the masters. Painted gun stocks are popular among target shooters, although I for one would love to show up at a sunflower field dove shoot with a gun painted to look like Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers.” (What I would really like would be a turkey gun in Jackson Pollack camo).

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I try to blog about books and writing as much as the online editors will let me get away with, and I thought it interesting that today I received in the mail three books with a Field & Stream connection.
 
The first is The American Hunting Dog, copyright 1916 by Field & Stream Publishing Co. and written by former (and I'm assuming late) Field & Stream editor Warren H. Miller. The second is The Experts' Book of Upland Bird and Waterfowl Hunting, copyright 1975, edited by David E. Petzal. The third is He Loved The Dog, The Bill Tarrant Story by Mike Gould, a dog trainer Tarrant often featured in his writing.

 
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I’m not to keen on revisiting a topic we’ve recently discussed, but this one seems to deserve more attention. Just last week we lost another member of our hunting fraternity. According to the Great Falls Tribune, Gary Wallace, 58, was hunting with his Lab and a friend in Montana when the dog went to retrieve a bird on the Missouri River. The dog busted through the ice, and Wallace went out to rescue him. He, too, fell through the ice and could not get out. Wallace’s hunting partner tried to help him out but had no luck and eventually ran for assistance. When the authorities arrived, Wallace had slipped beneath the river and was later pronounced dead. Wallace left behind a wife of 30 years and two children. The dog survived.

I didn’t know Wallace, but from what I understand he was one of us. Here’s how his wife described him in the Tribune: "He loved hunting, and he loved his dog, and he loved his family. I—you know—just wasn't ready yet."

That’s some gut-wrenching stuff, folks. I tried to find some good information on what a hunter should do if his dog goes through the ice. Unfortunately, there’s... [ Read Full Post ]

Dave and I get chided from time to time for writing about guns that cost too much for ordinary people to buy. Today’s topic is a gun I can pretty safely predict none of us will be able to afford: Nash Buckingham’s “Bo-Whoop,” probably the most famous waterfowl gun ever, goes on the auction block in March.  Buckingham’s Super Fox, named for the sound of its report, has been missing for over 60 years, making it the Maltese Falcon of American doubles. Some people think it may fetch even more than the $287,500 brought in 2007 by the Parker A-1 Special made for (and never delivered to) Czar Nicholas II of Russia in 1914,

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