sporting classics magazine september/october 2010 issue

If you read my post titled “Cold Feet…Literally,” you’ll notice I got a “great deal” on a pair of waders. Only now do I know that the man who sold me the waders laughed all the way to the bank. But he’s not the only one laughing now. So are the guys at Dan Bailey Fly Fishing, most of my friends who have been informed and even my wife. And you will be, too, I’m sure, if you read the post below.

You see, the waders I was sold were defective. I’m sure the guy who sold them to me didn’t know this, as they had never been used, so I don’t hold him accountable for that. I used the waders about half a dozen times and realized they were leaking. So I called the manufacturer of my waders, Dan Bailey, and to my surprise, they said, “Send them on in. We’ll either fix them or send you a new pair. Either way, they won’t leak when you get them back.” So I did.

It was when a new pair were returned to me that my folly of purchase was pointed out. In big, bold, letters on the outside of the box.

And on the invoice.

And in the description of the waders on the invoice.

Here, exactly, is what I saw on the box when I opened the nondescript, brown paper wrapping the waders were sent in: “WOMEN’S XL WADERS.” To drive home the point they were “WOMEN’S Xthey were “WOMEN’S XL WADERS” there was even a color picture of a definitely not “XL” woman on the top of the box fishing a beautiful stream out West. In waders. Just like mine.

Huh.

Interesting.

Real Men...Wear Women’s Waders

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OctOber 2010

� Sporting ClaSSiCS

MONSTERS FROM THE DEEP This Aussie angler not only caught the largest fish ever, but five other

great whites each weighing more than a ton. By Mike Rivkin

LO, THE LONG BROWN RIDGESWas it possible that he dreamed the huge deer into reality? By Edmund Ware Smith

RUSSET DREAMSEach autumn the mysterious little migrants arrive to brighten our days afield.

By Ron Ellis

ABOVE AND BEYONDMountain-top hunting for birds and deer beckons sportsmen to this

luxurious Blue Ridge resort. By Bob McKinney

HOUNDEDA dying leopard can be the most dangerous. By Dr. Joseph C. Greenfield, Jr.

AUTUMN REFLECTIONSSome of the best fishing and prettiest scenery lure autumn anglers to

High West trout streams. By Todd Tanner

THAT WYOMING MORNING It was a great day to be alive. Unforgettable even, complete with a number of

magnificent pronghorn bucks. By Mike Gaddis

PINE CREEK SHOOT A’ROUND Here’s a shooting retreat with all the attributes of a great golf club.

By John Steinbreder

A MILLION TO ONEAt Holloway & Naughton, fine guns are individually designed and built

“from scratch.” By Larry Chesney

TRENDSETTERSThe newest hunting rifles are all about accuracy and dependability.

By Ron Spomer

F E A T U R E S

– Celebrating Our Twenty-Ninth Year –

SPORTING CLASSICSVolUMe XXIX • ISSUe 5 • SepT./ocT. 2010

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In something less than five miles to the city limits, the dogs found five coveys, one of which was bivouacked in the front yard of a suburban friend. We did not shoot

that covey, since it involved firing through the windows of the living room. By Robert Ruark

BROKEN DOWN AND SHOT OUT 24

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12 THIS ’N THAT153 AUcTIoNS & eXHIBITIoNS189 THe TRAVelINg SpoRTSMAN202 Top SHelF208 QUoTeS

32 C O L U M N S18 FIRST LIGHT A man cannot afford to live so long. The price gets too heavy. By Mike Gaddis

32 LEGENDS OF THE HUNT The early safaris were lavish affairs that often employed dozens of native helpers. By John Seerey-Lester

47 TALES TO TELL Few things in the outdoors are more fun than fishing for frogs. By Michael McIntosh

53 DESTINATIONS A unique fly-fishing club has reserved miles of colorado streams for its members. By Michael Pearce

59 RAMBLINGS The author and his little Brittany never asked perfection of one another, only understanding. By Michael Altizer

63 SHOTGUNS A sweet little garbi 28 shines brightly, on the range and in the field. By Robert Matthews

69 GUNDOGS The reasons are many why one sporting breed continues to be our most popular. By Tom Davis

75 HORIzONS Bringing your bird guns to Argentina is not for the harried, hurried or faint of heart. By Roger Pinckney

83 CRAFTSMEN You can own a piece of history with Sporting Classics’ 30th Anniversary bow. By Matt Coffey

135 RIFLES classy and classic . . . deadly and dependable . . . that’s Dakota rifles. By Ron Spomer

141 FISHING catching big “roosters” can make even the saltiest knees wobble with excitement. By Paul Smith

150 ART & ETC. Jules Bouillet came from a humble background to earn widespread acclaim in wildlife art. By Lisa Metheny

159 BOOKS The writings of Harry Middleton flow like the sparkling streams he treasured all his life. By Jim Casada

S p o R T I N g c l A S S I c S V o l U M e X X I X • I S S U e 5 • S e p T . / o c T . 2 0 1 0

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D E PA R T M E N T S

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Looking for the Rabbit, painted by Arthur Davenport Fuller (1889-1966) in 1920, is reproduced courtesy of christie’s. Visit www.christies.com to explore multi-media sales promotions, browse their illustrated catalogues and leave absentee bids through lotFinder, their online search engine and register for internet bidding with christie’s live.

C OV E R

P U B L I S H E R & E D I TO R

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r y a n s t a l v e yM A n Ag I n g E D I TO R

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CUSTOMER RELATIOnS DIRECTORb i l l J a C k S o n

C I RC U L AT I O n M A n Ag E R sd e b b i e S . M o a k l a u r a W i l h e l M

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BOOKS

FIRST LIgHT

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LEgEnDS OF THE HUnT

RAMBLINGs

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S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S

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By The Editors

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president. “I’ve learned from experience the differences a motivated individual can make when the cause is just and the need is great.

“Many times in the past, our success or failure hinged upon the individual effort and contributions of someone who felt the need to step forward in a time of crisis,” LaPierre added. “And because they decided to take that first step, the NRA is still in the thick of the fight to protect your gun rights and hunting and shooting heritage.”

Through this Ring of Freedom edition, Sporting Classics readers will receive a special invitation from Wayne LaPierre to “Join the Ring” and learn how they can receive their own ongoing digital subscription.

MULE DEER TAGSRAISE BIG MONEY

Big mule deer have become the most coveted trophies in the U.S. If you don’t believe it, consider this: Last year the Mule Deer Foundation raised more than $1.84 million in its raffles and auctions for 129 tags. The coveted tags were offered at MDF’s National Convention in Salt Lake City and local banquets nationwide.

The MDF, in partnership with 11 state wildlife agencies and the Jicarilla tribe, sell big-game hunting tags to provide much-needed funds for the management of mule deer and black-tailed deer, elk, bison, antelope, turkey and other game species. More than 93 percent of the money raised either goes back to state wildlife agencies for management programs or is spent on habitat projects. Beginning in November, MDF will once again be selling auction and raffle tags at its fundraising events. If you are interested in bidding on a tag or buying a raffle ticket, log on to www.muledeer.org for event dates and locations.

YOUR COMPLIMENTARY COPY OF RING OF FREEDOM

Enclosed with this issue of Sporting Classics, you will find a free and exclusive gift from the National Rifle Association: their September/October Ring of Freedom magazine.

Printed quarterly, with a digital edition updated monthly, Ring of Freedom profiles those Second Amendment defenders who have answered freedom’s call and made outstanding financial contributions to preserve gun rights and our hunting and shooting heritage. The NRA recognizes these individuals through its Ring of Freedom donor recognition society. Their stories, and the impact of their contributions, are chronicled in each issue of the magazine.

This special edition features profiles of Ring of Freedom members Ugo and Monique Beretta of the Beretta Holding Group and Larry and Brenda Potterfield of MidwayUSA. It will also take you on a trip to Africa, where Ring of Freedom member Michael Luzich embarked on the safari of a lifetime as a result of an auction-winning bid at the 2009 NRA Annual Meetings, and to Hungary, where a group of donors enjoyed a unique ladies-only roebuck and wild boar hunt. Future issues will continue to profile the passions and pursuits of the Second Amendment’s foremost defenders, while also detailing the important work made possible by their contributions to the NRA.

“It’s been my privilege to know each of these individuals as friends and tireless allies of the NRA’s effort to protect the Second Amendment,” said Wayne LaPierre, NRA’s executive vice

merican sportsmen are shelling out millions just to head home with a trophy mule deer.

A


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SOTHEBY’S SELLS GUNSET FOR $350,000

A set of six Holland & Holland Royal de Luxe side-by-side shotguns were sold by international auction house Sotheby’s in Charlottesville, Virginia, in June for $350,500. Known as The Wildfowl and Wader Set, the guns were built by H&H in 1983 to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the founding in 1908 of the Wildfowlers’ Association of Great Britain and Ireland. Some of the proceeds of the original sale were applied to the conservation organization familiarly know as WAGBI.

Executed by H&H chief engraver Ken Preater on designs by prominent wildlife artist Rodger McPhail, the original drawings were mounted in leather and included in a folio placed inside an Asprey display cabinet that accompanies the guns.

The set, which has consecutive serial numbers, is comprised of a 12 gauge with 29-inch barrels, a pair of 12s with 28-inch barrels, a pair of 20s with 27-inch barrels and a single 28-bore with 26-inch barrels. All are discreetly inlaid with red and white gold, and the waterfowl featured run the gamut from the prosaic to the exotic. They include mallards, American widgeon, canvasbacks, mandarin and shell ducks as well as Hawaiian nene geese, goosanders and smew. Even some of internal parts are engraved with water plants associated with the habitat of the waterfowl species represented. – Douglas Tate.

NEW FUNDING FORPRIVATE LAND ACCESS

The Department of Agriculture has announced plans to release $50 million in funding to help improve public hunting access and habitat restoration on private lands.

Open Fields, which is part of the Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program, encourages landowners to provide public access to their property. The money is awarded to states that meet criteria through a grant process and is then passed on to participating landowners.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack made the funding announcement during a recent press conference.

“This program provides better conservation on private lands, and you have to give landowners an incentive to participate,” Vilsack said.

“First and foremost, this program compliments conservation programs. The second priority is to give rural communities the ability to generate dollars through the purchase of goods and services that outdoorsmen pay for. Third, and I think this is something that’s often understated, is rural values. We need to raise a generation that understands and appreciates that you can’t continually take from Mother Nature, you have to give something back. And when you do, Mother Nature responds in great way.”

Grants will be awarded beginning in September.

his 12-bore was one of six Holland & Holland Royal de Luxe guns that together brought $350,500 at a Sotheby’s auction.

T

3P-OPENED

And then, how sublime it will all become.You’ve dreamed of this moment for years.

Remember all the hunting stories you read as a kid?Remember how hard you’ve worked for this?

Remember how you once thoughtthis moment may never come, and thatyou might never have the opportunity

standing before you right here, right now?

You have less than seven seconds.And then he’ll be gone. It’s okay.

You can do it. You can make this shot.

It’s all up to you now, the memories you’ll carry,the stories you’ll tell. But then again, maybe you’ll justkeep them to yourself. After all, it’s not going to be easy

putting into words what you’re feeling at this very moment.

You can do it. Take your time . . . just exhale.And squeeze.

The Lodge and Ranch at

CHAMALAND&CATTLE COMPANY

CHAMA, NEWMEXICO575-756-2133

email: [email protected]

CHAMA, NEWMEXICO575-756-2133


INLESSTHANSEVENSECONDSYOURLIFEWILLCHANGEFOREVER.

There are more imporTanT Things Than deer hunTing.JusT noT during deer season.

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17

SHOOTING/HUNTING JUST A CLICK AWAY

In today’s world, wanting to do something and then actually doing it is typically influenced by opportunity, time, cost and convenience. Recreational shooting is no exception, so the National Shooting Sports Foundation provides a number of features on its Web site to help you find exactly what you’re looking for.

One of the most valuable aspects of the NSSF’s offerings is www.wheretoshoot.org. Through the comprehensive “Find a Range” menu item, you can see a listing of shooting facilities in the U.S. and Canada by area code, zip code or distance from a location. If you need instruction, want to rent a firearm, or are looking for a facility that offers youth or women’s programs, you can get a list of facilities that meet your criteria. You can also go directly to a range’s Web site to find hours of operation, fees and contact information.

The “Shooting” link on the NSSF’s Web site lists the type of shooting- and hunting-related opportunities offered in your state. A team of outdoor writers track and update the site regularly.

The NSSF is currently updating its listings at www.wheretoshoot.org and is seeking to include any ranges not currently listed. If you belong to a club or shoot at a commercial or public facility, check the site to see if yours is listed. If it is, double-check it for accuracy and update as needed. If a club or range doesn’t appear, and you’d like to add it to the database of the more than 6,500 facilities, click on “List Your Range” near the top of the page. And, if you know of shooting and hunting opportunities and events in your state, contact the correspondent for the appropriate state.

For more information and to check out everything the NSSF has to offer shooters and hunters, visit www.nssf.org.

It was grandmother who said that we live our lives

between a laugh and a tear. But she didn’t say how small would become the

margin that lies in between.

By Mike Gaddis

i r s t L i g h tF

A man can’t afford to live but so long. The price gets too heavy.

I suppose it’s the toll we pay for the gift . . . and the curse . . . of conscience. The ability to perceive tomorrow, and to remember yesterday. The perception of present and past. The cognizance of joy and melancholy. The fragility of life, and the certainty of death. The velocity of time and the weight of eternity.

Being human may not be all the blessing we’re born believing it to be. Along with the intellect comes a fearful load. It grows with the years

and can never be unshouldered.A man can escape a lot of things,

but never himself.Truth is, in the ecological

world at large, a man can pretend arrogance only with his own kind. Nobody else cares. Sooner or later, a man is left to find he must suffer on his own. Unless he is totally insensitive to life and living, the cost of love and loss carries ultimately beyond his pretenses and layers heavily upon his heart.

The older I get, and the more time I’ve spent wild, the more I’m brought to believe that maybe it’s the rest of the


18

creatures in the kingdom that God loved best. So that He didn’t saddle them with too much memory, or curse them more than temporarily with the sense of loss, or see fit to constantly remind them with a chronograph or a calendar on the wall, of how much of life they have left to live.

Rather, He left them to fare within the moment, to worry only of the perils of the present, to accept and appreciate living as a spontaneity of unordained incidents. The sun rises and the sun sets, slumber is unblemished by nightmares, and tomorrow,

and the tomorrow after, is unburdened by anything beyond what’s ultimately important . . . the necessity of survival.

Ironically, within an existence of such unencumbered simplicity, the “lower” species have come to epitomize almost every value we hold of greatest esteem: heart, courage, resourcefulness, tenacity, fearlessness, devotion, fidelity.

Yes, their lives are often abbreviated, and they spend their entire existence in the tiny corner of the world they were born in. But the life they live is free of sorrow, and without the baggage

of tortured emotion.Would I trade? Give up the joys

of anticipation, sacrifice all the beautiful memories, all the pictures of the past a happy heart takes? Would I barter away the adventures of imagination, bargain away the ability to conjure a dream?

Comes square down to it, I guess not. But I’m not so damn cocksure and proud about it as maybe once I was.

The one thing I do know is that I don’t want to live forever. There’s not enough of me left to sustain that. I figure about 15, 20 years more, if I’m lucky, and


19sunday morning By lanford Monroe – courtesy chipper thoMpson

I’ll be just about spent. Ready to go.With everything and everybody I’ve

lost, I’ve buried a bit of me. Each time, I’m a little less than I started with. There’s another increment of sorrow to laden any given moment of joy.

Old folks, on the days they were down, not long before they would go, back when I was young and careless and would ask them why . . . would look off across the green meadows for a time and say, “I’m old, Boy, old and tired.”

I always thought physically, cause they were stooped and wrinkled.

Couldn’t do the things once they could. But that wasn’t the most of it. Now that I’m old, and a mite wrinkly too, I know better.

I’ve been a spite out of sorts with myself lately, and I’ve tried hard to figure out just why. Cause all my life I’ve been a more-than-willing man.

It’s just that, more now, some days aren’t as happy as others. It’s taken me 67 years, but now I think I’ve come to a thing I wish I hadn’t.

Happiness is of the moment, and sadness accrues. Sadness is like the

moss that grows on the north side of an evergreen. It thickens through the years, latches on and grows, until one day the tree isn’t so green anymore.

If that looms the secret of life, I’m almighty glad I didn’t discover it any sooner.

The bouts of sadness stage closer now it seems.

Too many folks, too many dogs, too many things that are the same as heart and home, are gone. Each layered another little chasm of loneliness, that nothing or nobody else can fill. Each kept a part of me I can never have back again.

I look down the narrowing road, and can see too many more to come.

In the greening beauty of each new spring I can find again an Old Granpa Graybeard in a white ash tree, but I can’t have back the softness of my mother’s eyes, when I was seven years old, and first she gave him to me. I have a Christmas tree each December, but I can’t have back my father’s pride, the year I found the Winchester 20 gauge under the one Mama decorated, when I was 13 and Daddy let me know I was coming a man.

I’ve killed a book whitetail, and I’ve killed a brown bear, a Cape buffalo and a kudu, but I can’t recover the exact same feeling I had with the Old Man who took me under wing when I was 16, showed me how, and stood silently beside me as I beamed over my first forkhorn. Or the completion we shared when he stood again in the shadow of an oak tree, when of my own, I weighed in my first ten-pound largemouth on the old Chantilly cradle scales behind the boathouse of City Lake #4.

I’ve had dogs since, and I’ll have dogs more, and it’s all been good . . . and if I was a-mind to, I could whelp another litter of pups in a lot better digs than once we did. But I can never have again the absolute joy and exhilaration of that first litter of setters we whelped, Loretta and I, in that two-by-twice, little, two-bitty shed in the backyard 40 years ago. Nor can I ever rein up my horse again at the gap of the finish at Rappahannock, no matter how many dogs I field, and feel the same exultation I did as I watched one of those same pups, in her prime – the greatest field trial dog of my life – top the far distant hill, two valleys over, carrying on and away.

She’s pointed Up There, somewhere. I know. Waiting for


22

me to come move her birds. I want someday sooner, now, to do so.

I’ve still got a few good friends, Thank God, but I can’t have back again the ones I shared many a rod or gun with, whose handshake would turn into an embrace come end of the day . . . who as Stonewall Jackson said, “have crossed the river, to rest in the shade of the trees on the other side.”

I try to be a boy again. Go squirrel hunting with the same little rifle I grew up on. But I can’t have back the man who helped steady it against my shoulder when I was six, the same one who told me in his 70s, while he was dying of Parkinson’s disease and a host of other ills, just before he willed his way on to join my Aunt . . . not a thing on God’s earth I could do to stop it . . . “Bout everything I had is gone, Jughead, and I ain’t never gonna have enough else. I’ve fished my last creek and treed my last squirrel.”

The bill of burden weighs on. Sum of it is, I can’t have back the lot of myself that was me. I can’t have back all the full-of-myself days when I was younger, and stronger, and quicker, and could do the things better that I can’t anymore. I can’t have back yesterday, and there’s a hell less assurance on tomorrow.

As painful as it is to admit it, I’m a lot older, and a little bit tired.

I’m not broke yet. I’ve still got some hope in my poke. And I’ll spend it both foolishly and wisely – like I always have – long as I can go the way.

But the circle goes unbroken. Things keep spinning back. My grandmother, when one day as a little man, I cried, when some small something happened and I tried so hard not too. She pulled me to her side, dabbed away the tears with her apron hem, said,

“One minute we smile. In another, we cry. We live our lives between a laugh and a tear.”

I think, now, it was out of kindness . . . she didn’t tell me, also . . . how small would become the margin that lies between.

Editor’s Note: Lanford Monroe’s painting on pages xx-xx is among 130 works in our acclaimed book, Homefields. We still have a few Deluxe edition copies of Homefields, each signed by the author, at the reduced price of $100. Call 800-849-1004.

he Tin Liz sighed, sank on her haunches, sighed again and expired. The Old Man got

out and looked at her innards suspiciously, crouched down to peer at her lower parts,

thumped her a couple of times, like you’d tap a melon to see if it was ripe, and then shrugged his shoulders. He had the yellow, red-headed kitchen match shoved into his pipe before he spoke. He got the pipe going and poked the stem at the rusty old car.

“Clearly a case of death due to old age,” he said. “Far as I can figure, she’s burnt her bearings, the piston rings are gone, the spring’s bested, the gas pump is clogged, the brake linings are burnt out, the axle’s sprung, the electric system’s finished, and I think somebody forgot to put the crank in. We might as well shoot her, like a foundered horse. We are plumb forgot and five miles from home. What do you suggest?”

“I guess we better pick up the guns and leash the dogs and go back,” I said. “We can maybe hitch a ride, and then we can go to Gus McNeill’s filling station and get him to send somebody out to pick her up and tow her in.”

The Old Man snarled slightly, the wind riffling his mustache. He gazed at nothing in particular.

“Now there is my brave pioneer lad, my young Dan’l Boone, the Kit Carson of tomorrow.” His voiced lifted in a sissified tone. “We can maybe hitch a ride, and then we can go to Gus McNeill’s filling station and get him to send somebody out to pick her up and tow her in.”

The Old Man spat. “And this is the one that’s going to

T shoot lions and elephants. What do you think the dogs will think of us if we hitchhike our way back to a filling station” – he sarcastically accented the words – “if we don’t give the dogs something to do to earn their keep.”

“Well, sir,” I said, “it’s a good six or eight miles to where we were headed. You going to walk all that way and then hunt all day, and then walk thirteen miles home?”

“I don’t see why not,” the Old Man said cheerfully. “Old and ugly and sick as I am, I recon I can keep pace with any product of the machine age whose legs are so atrophied he needs transportation to go to the store for a box of gingersnaps. And who ever said we had to hunt thataway?”

“Well, there’s no birds around here,” I said. “Look at it. Broom grass. Scrubby oak. Cut-down pine. Sparkleberry bushes. Gallberry bushes. Some chinquapin. And right on the highway. Nobody hunts here. It’s been shot out.”

Himself snorted. “Shot out, is it now? And why would it be shot out, me darlin’ lad?” The Irish used to come out of him when he was treading heavy on the sarcasm. “Me gay brothy boy, tell why it’d be shot out, as so ye say.”

“Too close to town. Too easy to get at. Too many cars stopping along to let the dogs loose and burn down the coveys. Too many turpentine camps and brush fires.”

“That’s better than I thought you’d do,” the Old Man said. “You’re right in all you say except in just one thing – the land has had a rest, and the birds have had

Broken Down and


25

ShOT OuTWhen the Tin Liz breaks down five miles from home,

the Old Man and the Boy discover a new way of bird-hunting. –A classic from the September, 1956 issue of Field & Stream.

by Robert Ruark

a rest with it. There’s no land on the face of the earth that doesn’t need a rest, whether you’re growing crops or birds or animals.

“The automobile is the curse of civilization, especially for the wildlife that lives by the side of the road, because any idiot can park his car by a field and, like you say, turn loose the dogs and slaughter a covey and be off with himself before the farmer that owns the fringes finds he’s shot a cow and two suckling pigs as well. The hit-and-run hunter doesn’t care about conserving the stuff for next year and for all the next years.”

The Old Man spat. “If one of these car-without-permission hunters found a covey running down a corn row, he’d shoot it all on the ground, and probably sell the birds to boot.”

I didn’t say anything. I went and let the dogs loose to life their legs, got the guns in their cases, the thermos bottle and prepared to march.

The Old Man started off again. “When you had

to walk five miles or drive in a buggy for half a day to get where you were going before you could hunt, appreciated what you were hunting, and took some care of it – which,” he emphasized, “had something to do with assuring the farmer you wouldn’t kill his best brood sow the first time she came at you out of a cornfield. You kind of watched out for your cigarette butt and matches, and tried not to burn his hayfields down, and you might also stop off

at the house and give him a couple brace of birds. In return for which he might tell you where he had some turkeys more or less baited, and ask you to spend the night so’s you could shoot one the next morning. But the automobile has ruined it. You can go a hundred miles

in three hours, and shoot half the way along.”The Old Man glanced at the stricken car. “Look at

that hunk of tin tragedy,” he said. “We are marooned as much as if we had just been cast ashore on a desert island. Henry Ford made it. All the knowledge of mankind is in it, and look at it. As useless as a busted buggy with a dead mule in the shafts.”

“How many birds would you say were in that covey,” I asked.“Less than a hundred thousand,” the Old Man replied.

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We started to walk down the road, heading home. The dogs had been circling, quartering and stopping as dogs will to carve their personal initials on the

likelier-looking bushes. All of a sudden I saw a patch of white where the liver-and-white setter, Sandy, had headed into bush. It refused to move, this white patch.

I said to the Old Man, “Either Sandy’s froze stiff, or he’s found a covey of birds. Look yonder.”

The Old Man snorted again. “Couldn’t be birds. This place is shot out. I got it on the best authority. Probably nothing but field larks. Sandy had a hot nose when I turned him loose this morning. Better unlimber the guns, though. Probably a rattler or a horse terrapin. Couldn’t be any birds along here. Too public. Where’s the shell bag?”

I was in a fever when I opened the cowhide cases and started to fit the guns. Maybe you remember, the Old Man had a real peculiarity about guns. He wouldn’t use one of those cases that took a whole gun. He said a broken gun never killed anybody, and he wouldn’t ride in a car with a gun that was all in one piece. While I was fumbling the guns together – and you can get the Old Man wasn’t helping me any – I kept one eye on that patch of white showing through the dark green of the gallberries, and it never looked like moving.

With shaky fingers I handed the Old Man a fitted-together shotgun and half a box of shells, and dropped the other half into my canvas hunting coat. We loaded as we walked up to the patch of white, and there was old Sandy, as stark as a statue, and old Frank, looking like a twin to a burnt stump, just behind him.

“I don’t think this would be larks,” the Old Man murmured. “Or a rattlesnake. Or a terrapin. Let’s us go see.”

We walked up to the dogs, walked past, scuffed the twisted low-broom, and what amounted to two million birds got up. I fired into the middle of the two million and saw nothing fall. The Old Man unleashed his ancient weapon, too, although I never heard it. I looked at him and he looked at me. I shrugged my shoulders and he shrugged his.

“Must have been snakes,” he said. “But have you got any idea where the single snakes went?”

“They looked like they were going down either into that patch of broom or off into those little scrubby oaks,” I said. “How many birds would you say were in that covey?”

“Less than a hundred thousand,” the Old Man replied, putting fresh shells in his gun. “Twenty-five at least. Looked like old birds, too. Let’s go see if the dogs can smell singles.”

We went to where the singles seemed to have lit, and


28

they stuck fast as glue. It was one of the few times we ever overshot a quota, but it seemed in the Old Man’s logic that a covey of 25 or 30 birds could spare eight, and eight was what we shot.

“Just like,” the Old Man said sternly, popping the proceeds of a neat double into his coat, “all the other roadside hunters. Game hogs.”

We walked along the road and waved the dogs from one side to the other.

In something less than five miles to the city limits, the dogs found five coveys, one of which was bivouacked in the front yard of a suburban friend. We did not shoot that covey, since it involved firing through the windows of the living room.

But we shot sufficient birds to have a heavy-hanging hunting coat by the time we approached the general vicinity of Gus McNeill’s filling station. I would like to tamper with the truth a little and say we filled our limit just abaft the gas pumps, but I cannot tell a lie. There were no birds in the vicinity, only Gus and a few shiftless friends.

“Where you-all been?” Gus asked as we trudged down the road, the dogs leashed again, both of us carrying a sheathed gun.

“Huntin’, the Old Man said dryly.“Huntin’ what?” Gus asked.“Birds.”“Get any?”“Some.”“Where’s your car?”“Back yonder apiece.”“How far?”“About five mile.”“How many birds?”“Twenty, more or less.”“The car broke down?”“Yep. Can you send somebody

to tow her home?”“Sure. Where’d you get the

birds? They’ve been kinda scarce lately.”

“Oh, we hunted up ’way ahead of the car. I got a couple of farms the folks let me use from time to time.

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30

You know the way it is.”The Old Man slipped me a wink.

Gus was a shotgun man, too.“You want to use the car tonight, or

will tomorrow be okay?” Gus inquired.“Tomorrow’ll do,” the Old Man

said. “But we would appreciate it if you’d give us a lift home now. My feet are killing me from pounding all this asphalt. Seems to me walking was easier when we had clay roads. At least they fit my feet better.”

We drove home and Gus let us out. I took the dogs to pen and came back to take the guns off the front porch to clean them, and then went back to where the Old Man had a rather massive pile of quail on the back steps.

“Some farms that folks let me use. Do not tell a lie,” I said reprovingly. “Never tell a lie. It says so in Sunday School.”

The Old Man was counting the little beautiful bobwhites. “Twenty-two,” he announced happily. “All out of a shot-out area. Now, what did I tell you about the curse of the machine age? If that Liz had held together, we would of run right past the birds, and probably come home with nothing. The auto is the curse of the hunting man. And just think all we had to do was walk down a road.”

“Do not tell a lie, like Miss Lottie says,” I said sternly, for me.

“Miss Lottie be blowed,” the Old Man said, still happy. “She never knew anything about quail hunting or game conservation. We are game conservationists, protecting the national resources from tourists. We are protecting them for ourselves, which is conservation of a sort, even if it’s selfish.”

“I suppose I’d better start cleaning them, like always,” I said.

“Tonight, I’ll help you,” the Old Man said, and I’d like to have dropped dead from shock. – Yr. Ob’t Sv’t Bob Ruark

© 1954 by Robert Ruark, renewed 1982 by the estate of Robert Ruark. Permission to reprint granted by Harold Matson Co., Inc.

By John Seerey-Lester

egends of the Hunt

Involving dozens of porters and other native helpers, the early safaris were lavish affairs that only the wealthiest

sportsmen could afford.

L

litz depicts one of these unexpected events that became all-too-familiar to early safari-goers. Indeed, even today dramas such as this are being played out in camps throughout the wilds of Africa.

B


33

T he safari began as an East African phenomenon. The word itself has an Arabic origin – safariya (a journey or

expedition) – and from this came the Swahili synonym, safari.

The first safaris were undertaken by Arab traders in the 18th century when their caravans crisscrossed the

African continent. These huge caravans carried such prized commodities as elephant ivory, rhino horn and, of course, slaves destined for Arabian, East Indian and Chinese markets.

The grisly slave-trading era ended when the British cut a deal with the Sultan of Zanzibar in 1890 to

establish a protectorate and better manage the land-grabbing that was rampant in the region.


35

In 1896 the British took control of the protectorate and laid the groundwork for a different kind of safari. That led to a new era in which the great hunting legends would emerge and a new kind of safari would come of age. Through the expeditions of European hunters such as Frederic Courteney Selous, William Cornwallis Harris and A. Blayeny Percival the first seeds of conservation ethic were sown.

The safari became the ultimate adventure and was romanticized by a multitude of writers, among them Rudyard Kipling and years later, Ernest Hemingway. But it was perhaps the writing of famous big game hunters such as Selous in his 1881 book, A Hunter’s Wanderings in Africa, which inspired many British and European sportsmen to discover Africa.

The safari as we know it today began just before the turn of the

19th century, but it wasn’t until 1904 that it became an organized and commercial enterprise.

Messers. Newland & Tarlton (N&T) and the Boma Outfitting Company were the most prominent organizers of early safaris. Their clients would travel by ship to the ancient coastal city of Mombasa, then journey by train to the then-frontier town of Nairobi, British East Africa. After getting organized at the newly opened Norfolk Hotel and picking up some last-minute items from local merchants, they headed out into the bush on foot, horse and oxen wagon to great fanfare. British and European sportsmen soon realized that Africa was a finite resource and arrived in droves to take advantage of hunting this pristine land.

Depending on the client’s budget, it was recommended that the average safari would need a minimum of 30 pagazi (porters) per sportsman, one neapara (headman), one m’pishi (cook), one tent boy, one gunbearer, two askaris (soldiers) and, of course, a professional white hunter. If the hunters were on horseback, then they would also need a syce (horse groom).

In 1909 the cost of a safari in

British or German East Africa ranged from $300 to $500 per month, excluding the white hunter’s fee. Food for the safari was selected by the client and would be brought in boxes, usually from the Army and Navy stores in London. Ammunition was another added expense and a hunting license would cost $250.

The British imposed a ten percent customs charge on all items brought into the protectorate. Altogether, these

goods and services quickly added up to an expensive adventure, one that only the wealthy could afford.

Sportsmen were encouraged to use one of the established safari companies, such as N&T, but some of the more adventurous hunters organized their own. There were a limited number of merchants in Nairobi at the time, but a sportsman could get his khaki shooting clothes made to measure in a couple of days. The more essential items for


36

the expedition had to be brought in at great expense from England, Europe or America.

Sportsmen were advised to bring two pair of hobnail boots and extra nails for long safaris of several months or more. Puttees, or leggings, were recommended as were lightweight mosquito boots to wear at night. Saddles and bridles had to brought in, along with most of the camping equipment. At the time, Edgingtons of Duke Street in London was regarded as the supplier of the finest tropical green tents made from Egyptian cotton. The most popular size was 9- x 8- x 7 ½-foot. Safari-goers had to ship camp tables, canvas chairs and washbasins, their brown Jaeger blankets, hair mattresses, cots and pillows, and the ubiquitous hotwater bottles for chilly evenings. For the very discerning sportsman, it was essential to have caviar and the finest champagne along with silverware, crystal and china.

All safari supplies had to be carried by the pagazi (a limit of 60 pounds per man), so careful organization and packing were necessary. The massive caravans moved slowly over the Dark Continent’s difficult and varied terrain, but that mattered little because the sportsmen soon realized they’d arrived in a land unsurpassed for hunting big game.

LEGENDS OF THE HUNT This tale is among some 80 true-

life stories in John Seerey-Lester’s book, Legends of the Hunt. In more than 100 paintings and a fascinating text, the artist relives the adventures of the greatest early explorers and hunters.

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To order, call (800) 849-1004 or visit www.SportingClassics.com.


38

From the Deep


39

mONSTeRSet’s face it. You have to be

a more than a little nuts to fish for 2,000-pound white

sharks with rod and reel. The whole idea sounds insane,

rather like diving the Marianas Trench with mask and flippers or

hunting Siberian tigers with a squirt gun. Aficionados of the sport must be folks with histories of irrational behavior: former test pilots, say, or retired WWF champions. Putting aside for a moment the preposterous assumption that fish the size of trolley cars really can be battled into submission on wispy lines, what do you do with the damn things once they’re alongside the boat? Take a picture and hope they don’t respond by killing you and everyone you know? Put on a feed for the city of Cleveland? There are definitely some issues with the sport, but years ago it had its enthusiasts – and none were greater than Australian Alfred Dean.

D espite the white shark’s fearsome reputation as a man-eater, it’s in fact rather less impressive when hooked on sporting tackle. As a result, relatively few anglers have ever pursued the species with

much vigor. For his part, Alf Dean did not take up big-game fishing until after WWII when he was already middle aged.

Dean’s father was a legendary Aussie bushman who studied and emulated the techniques of local Aborigines. Alf grew up hunting and fishing, even keeping a gun in his locker at school so he could shoot ducks and rabbits after class. Once, when nabbed by an understanding warden with a brace of out-of-season ducks, he was released after pleading that he’d only fired in self-defense after being attacked by the berserk waterfowl. Clearly, this was a young man bound for shark-fishing greatness.

A citrus farmer and horticulturist by trade, Dean was a burly fellow with piercing eyes, protruding ears, a square chin and a nice head of sandy hair that turned white in later years. His oft-stated goal was to catch the largest fish in the sea. Since whale sharks and basking sharks are both filter- feeders and will not bite a baited hook, he turned to number three:

ramed by the massive jaws of his record white shark, Aussie Alfred Dean was a citrus farmer who set aside two weeks each year to pursue the giant predators. Opposite: This great white shattered the previous all-tackle record by more than 1,000 pounds.

F

From the DeepL

No other world record comes even close to Alf Dean’s great white shark.

But it’s the one that got away that captivated him the most.

by Mike Rivkin


40

efficacy of using sheep versus cattle meat, porpoise over seal. For his part, Dean was already among the elite of his

sport, having set three world records, the last an astonishing 2,536-pound white shark four years before. He’d lost even bigger fish and was eager to raise the bar again.

Armed with the requisite gore, Dean boarded Ken Puckridge’s charter boat Victory on a crisp autumn morning and off they went. The two men began fishing at Dangerous Reef off the coast of South Australia, an area noted for the long-time presence of a whaling station. On this trip, seal meat was the odor of choice, but for some reason it failed to work.

The men fished for nine days without a strike. Finally, at 4 a.m. on their last morning, a huge shadow slid under the boat just as Puckridge was down below brewing a fresh pot of coffee. Dean thought he felt a nudge on his line and tossed more offal

into the water. A few tense minutes passed and the fish reappeared – an enormous black silhouette nearly 17 feet long.

When the chum was removed from the water and a baited slab of Flipper meat presented in its place, the shark never hesitated and the battle was joined. The brute moved off down the coastline, but quickly tired under steady pressure. Remarkably, there were few tense moments and no near-disasters.

After barely an hour, punctuated by two spectacular leaps, the record-book shark was secured. The eight-mile tow back to Denial Bay for the weigh-in was slow but uneventful.

Alerted by ship-to-shore radio, a crowd had gathered on the dock to gape at the mammoth fish as it was hoisted from the water and weighed. The big scale read 1,208.38 kilograms, or 2,664 pounds.

Already recognized as “the world’s greatest shark fisherman,” Dean’s celebrity was ensured for all time with this singular catch. Of the thousand-plus species on the IGFA’s all-tackle record list, none has ever come within 750 pounds of his incredible record.

great white sharks (known as white pointers in Australia). Ultimately, of the seven largest sharks ever taken on conventional rod and reel – each weighing more than a ton – Dean would capture six. Pretty good for a fellow who fished only two weeks a year.

His success was no accident. Dean was meticulous about his tackle, trying and discarding gear from all the makers of the day. His preferred rig was all-American: huge Penn reel, stiff Silaflex rod and heavy Ashaway linen line. His hooks of choice were the largest available from Mustad of Norway – gigantic models that measured a full nine inches across. As Dean’s expertise grew, he commissioned local experts to build up his tackle to even more Herculean proportions: oversized reel seats, industrial strength roller guides and reinforced fighting chairs.

For monster sharks, Dean favored the time-honored bait-and-switch technique. Huge chunks of porpoise, seal or whale meat (Dean would later opine that great whites liked greasy food) would be left dangling in the water, only to be snatched away on the approach of a hungry shark. Once frenzied, the great beast would circle around and attack anything put in its path.

A lf Dean was well prepared on his record-setting day in the fall

of 1959. No fancy gear: just two enormous Mustad 18/0 hooks and a Penn 14/0 reel crammed with 130-pound test line. A steady drip of blood and whale oil over the side left a flavorful slick that drifted for miles. Partly as a result of its effectiveness, the use of mammal meat as bait or chum was subsequently banned by the IGFA, and remains so to this day. Nonetheless, these enticements were perfectly legal in Dean’s time, and charter captains often debated the

lf Dean poses with a 1,004-pound great white caught in November, 1953. The huge fish became the new IGFA record in the 50-pound line class.

A

D ean continued to fish for a few more years, but never bettered his own mark. By

the time of his dotage he had a million shark stories: how a shark he captured in 1960 still had Dean’s distinctive hook and leader embedded in its jaws from a battle two years before; how he’d lost an estimated 5,000-pounder in 1954 after a bruising five-and-a-half hours; how his first big shark was caught on a splintered cane rod stiffened with a broom handle; how one time he lost his balance in rough seas and wound up in the midst of his own bloody chum line. And then there was Barnacle Lil – the quintessential big one that got away.

According to legend, Barnacle Lil was the doyenne of white sharks, the mother of all mothers. She was originally tagged as Barnacle Bill, but Dean, who was a keen observer of gamefish, changed the name after identifying her as a female. An estimated 20 feet long and weighing more than 4,000 pounds, Lil was easily identified by a distinctively scarred gill cleft that was first noticed by local snapper fishermen who had lost many catches to the giant predator.

Dean hooked the shark in 1952 while fishing with his wife and a boatful of media people. Lured into taking a rigged bait, Lil fought for more than an hour before tiring near the boat. With the end almost at hand, Dean’s reel seized and the line popped like a firecracker. Lil slowly swam out of sight.

Dean saw the fish once more in the 1960s, but could not induce her to bite. In later years he would wax longingly about the huge shark and even penned a few engaging pages about their encounters in a 1966 book about angling in Australia.

ver his long angling career, Alf Dean caught six great white sharks weighing a half-ton or more. In 1963 he came close to beating his 1959 all-tackle record with this 2,312-pound giant.

O


45

D ean died in 1991, proud of his achievements, but quick to acknowledge that the circumstances

surrounding his records were no longer in place. The world had changed.

Indeed it has. In fact, the world has come to take a dim view of angling for white sharks. Despite its top-of-the-food-chain status, the species is both relatively rare and easily over-exploited. Furthermore, unlike mako and thresher sharks, there is little to be said for its fighting qualities or the edibility of its flesh.

Fishing for white sharks has since been banned in Australia, South Africa, the U.S. and elsewhere, once again allowing this ultimate predator to survive unfettered. In the end, some fish are best left un-caught.

GReATeST OF THe GReAT

P erhaps the best part of the IGFA’s grand angling museum in southeastern Florida is the Hall of Fishes,

a majestic space where viewers look up to view life-size mounts of many of the great world record fish. Dean’s 2,664-pound monster is ostensibly up there, menacing all the rest. However, when the display was being assembled, it was discovered that no true-to-size reproduction of his record catch had ever been made. As a result, inquiries were made of fisherman Frank Mundus of Jaws fame to see if the IGFA might borrow his 3,600-pound shark mount instead. He assented, and the much larger fish was hoisted in place. Shortly thereafter, the museum opened in 1999 with a gala reception attended by a host of angling celebrities, including Dean’s aging widow.

When Dean’s putative catch was pointed out to her, the ever-loyal spouse could only glance up and sniff, “It’s a big one alright, but of course my husband’s fish was much bigger than that.”

Editor’s Note: Mike Rivkin has written five books on the history and art of big-game fishing. He lives in San Diego where he fishes the Pacific waters nearby.


47

Frogs don’t carry swords or pistols, but they look

as though they wish they could.

Frogs are physically incapable of smiling, but they can look insufferably smug, as if they know something the rest of us don’t. Maybe they do. What I know is that frogs are biologically interesting, fun to fool with and utterly delicious to eat. As one predator to another, I tip my hat to them.

Sit by a pond or a lake on a summer night and you’ll likely hear the two principal stud ducks of North American frogdom. One will be the distinctive basso profundo of Rana catesbeiana, the American bullfrog – jug-a-rum, jug-a-rum. A loud, plosive chuk! means a green frog, Rana clamitans. Lay out one of each side by side and you can see a difference, but they’re more fun to distinguish by what they have to say.

dour and self-satisfied. Shooting frogs certainly is

effective, but not all that much fun, and I don’t care to shoot bullets around water. Gigging

requires a bit more skill and stealth; you don’t throw the gig like a spear, but rather reach out and stick them, so you have to get close. Grabbing can be hair-raising at times. More on that later. Force me to choose a single approach and I’d have to go for a fishing rod. More on that later, too.

However you do it, frogging is largely a nocturnal affair, at least in my mind. They’re out and about during the day, of course, but those are targets of opportunity. Serious frogging always raises for me images of clear, starry skies on sultry summer nights. In Missouri, where I lived for nearly 30 years, the frog

season opened on July 1. If there’s a more miserable time of year to be outdoors, I couldn’t name it. Heat and humidity do not combine into an environment that’s comfortable to me. But the prospect of frogs makesup for the sweat.

Froggy went a-courtin’ and he did ride, uh-huh.Froggy went a-courtin’ and he did ride, uh-huh.

Froggy went a-courtin’ and he did ride, a sword and a pistol by his side,Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. – Old American Folksong

By Michael McIntosh

ales to ellT T

I can’t decide whether to think about catching frogs as hunting, fishing or something else. There is more than one way to skin those particular cats. I’ve shot them with a .22, caught them on fishing rods, gigged them, and simply grabbed them as they sat looking

tucked in for the night. They blasted right up into my face, and it’s still a wonder to me why I didn’t blast off into my shorts. I decided right then that my frog-grabbing days were over.

I gigged them for a while after that, bought a two-piece bamboo pole and a three-tined gig head, trimmed the tip of the rod back to where the socket was a close fit and installed a safety line in case the tip should break. It worked well enough that I took home my fair share of frogs.

Still, nothing proved to be quite as much fun as catching them on a fishing rod. For that I came to prefer a stout, 9-foot fly rod and made up some 4-foot leaders with 20-pound tippets.

Frog flies are not complicated. Start with a No. 3 treble hook and simply knot on a narrow, three-inch strip of cloth. Or you can tie on a short length of orange or red yarn and comb it out into a fluff. Frogs don’t seem to care about the color; anything that might be an insect is likely to catch their interest. The action is more important than the pattern. You’re not dealing with keen intelligence or great wariness, only with an animal that’s willing to eat anything smaller than itself.

If you go a-frogging at night, you’ll want a good flashlight and perhaps a pair of Wellington boots. If you don’t mind getting your feet muddy or wet, the boots are optional. I suppose a headlamp would be useful, though I’ve never used one.

The technique is to stalk a shoreline, moving slowly and quietly, searching with your light. It’s much like catching nightcrawlers, where your advantage lies in keeping ground vibration to a minimum.

When you spot one sitting and looking as self-important as a banker or a Senator, ease up within the length of your rod and dangle the lure right in front of his nose. Often as not he’ll snap at it. If he doesn’t – and some don’t – lower the rod so the lure is under his chin, make a short, quick upward jerk (hence the treble hook), and you’ll have a frog on the line.

P robably the oldest form of frogging is simply grabbing them

as they sit on a riverbank or the shore of a pond. I’ve done it, though never with much satisfaction as a sporting pursuit. Their slick, moist skins are hard to hold onto, and they’re difficult to approach within arm’s length, either in a boat or walking the shore. But it can have its moments.

I was frogging one night in the shallows of Missouri’s Niangua River, wading wet and operating on the

theory that I might get closer if I came from the water instead of from the land. It worked okay. I didn’t like slogging through the mud, but I had a few frogs on the stringer clipped to my belt. I was in calf-deep water in a long, knee-high patch of water smartweed, playing my flashlight along the bank and paying no attention to where I was going. It wouldn’t have mattered much anyway. In the dark I blundered onto a pair of wood ducks that had


48

One thing I do recommend is that you conk him on the head before you unhook him. Chasing a frog in grass at night is the stuff of slapstick comedy and a game you’ll probably lose.

O nce home, fortified by a cool shower and an even cooler gin

and tonic, you’ll need to dress your game. It’s not difficult. The only really edible parts are the hind legs. Some highly skilled chefs might know ways of preparing the rest, but it never has struck me as being worth the trouble. Just cut the skin right above the pelvis, peel the legs with pliers, snip off the feet and you’re done.

The meat of frog legs is so white that it’s nearly translucent. Some years ago, as I was in the process of making a frog-leg dinner, a young friend called and asked what I was doing. Cooking frog legs. “Oh,” she said, “are they green?” Only when the skin’s still on, and I don’t eat the skin. “Oooh.” Never eaten frogs, eh?

You can separate the legs if you wish, or leave them attached at the pelvic bone. Either way, cook them with a light touch – no marinating, breading or burying them under seasoning. Despite what your mother or grandma might have said, frog legs don’t taste like chicken. Nothing tastes like chicken, except possibly library paste. Frog legs taste like frog legs, which is a wonderful, delicate flavor that’s too easily destroyed by over-cooking.

I prefer to saute them lightly in butter or olive oil with a dab of chopped garlic and a few drops of lemon juice and leave it at that. As frog season corresponds with the time when tomatoes are coming ripe, you can easily find a good complement to a feast. Back it with a glass of whatever white wine you like, served icy cold, and you’ll think you’ve died and gone to Heaven.

I have to assume there are bullfrogs and green frogs in Heaven. And I must also assume they’re available for the catching. If not, then to quote Mr. Browning, what’s a Heaven for?


50


51

T hey draw our eyes and envy like a brilliant diamond necklace on a tray of pearls, the long stretches of

five-star, ultra-private streams we see as we drive to some crowded Colorado public fishery.

You know the ones; streams that split lush meadows with untrampled banks, with sunlit riffles that dump into gorgeous pools dimpled by rising trout the size of small salmon.

They’re the places with signs like, “Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.” The kind of place we’d all love to buy until we hear they sell for up to $2,500 per yard of

river frontage.Well, last

summer I spent a

few

days fishing such wondrous waters and it was every bit as good as I’d dreamed. We caught rainbows up to 18 inches amid a nice caddis hatch a few minutes from the towns of Vail and Eagle. By four-wheel-drive and waders we accessed a high-country

stream five miles from the nearest road. There, what the trout lacked in size they made up for in a willingness to rise to hoppers. A few hours later we hiked groomed trails into a jagged gorge and cast to 20-inch cutthroats that rose to an assortment of dry flies.

The next morning we fished a middle-of-somewhere ranch with two miles of narrow stream where long casts were rare, but 30 takes in a

HomeWaters Club has reserved more than

35 miles of top-quality Colorado trout streams

for its fly-fishing members and their families.

ip Dellinger and his 7-year-old son Carson caught this rainbow on Troublesome Creek. Below: HomeWaters Guide John Jamison watches Jerrod Pearce cast to a rise on the Eagle River.

K

By Michael Pearce

e s t i n a t i o n sD

half-day were not. Next, we pulled sparrow-sized woolly buggers over a lake’s weedbeds for pig-shaped rainbows of 20-plus inches.

Too bad I didn’t have a few more weeks – or months! – to sample more of the HomeWaters Club’s 35 miles of great fly fishing streams.

C olorado’s best trout fishing club got its start in

Pennsylvania, of all places, with the Spring Ridge Club. Centered near the town of Spruce Creek, Spring

Ridge was formed by several avid sportsmen who wanted to ensure they and their families had high-quality waters to fly-fish for generations to come.

Special sections of Spruce, Penns, Yellow Creek and many other legendary waters were put under long-term lease or purchased outright until 30-plus miles were within the club. All of these five-star streams were within a few hours of Washington D.C., New York and several other eastern metroplexes.

After a few years the managers realized a high-percentage of members either owned vacation homes in Colorado or stayed there regularly. And so they set out to secure miles of mountain streams from Colorado landowners who were willing to open their property to the club and have their streams intensely managed for trout.

To date, HomeWaters has completed a number of habitat enhancement projects. Some areas have been left totally pristine while others have been heavily stocked. Where needed, access trails have been maintained for safe, easy walking. Ample room for backcasts was also a consideration.

Anglers on HomeWaters streams are accompanied by full-time, professional fly-fishers who are passionate about the sport. Rather than providing regular fishing hours, the guide may suggest four hours at dawn and another four toward dusk, on different rivers, to get clients into distinctly different hatches.

Anglers to whom size and challenge matter more than anything may be taken to a remote lake where submarine-sized ’bows and browns cruise near the surface to inhale tiny flies on miniscule tippets.

For those who want easier angling and lots of fish, such as a member introducing a guest or grandchild to the sport, the guides will lead them to can’t-miss holes, where they’ll show a mother’s patience with tangled lines and missed fish.

H omeWaters’ accommodations appeal to anglers and non-

anglers alike. Some stay in such trendy towns as Eagle and Steamboat Springs. Others might enjoy a family reunion at a ranchstead they have all to themselves.

For those unfortunate souls who don’t fish, there’s plenty of shopping, hiking, rafting, horsebacking and just lounging around. Most accommodations are mere minutes away from some of the state’s best ski runs for those who want to


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enjoy a winter or spring morning on the slopes and an afternoon on the rivers. It’s truly amazing how well the club has brought all these amenities and activities together in such a relatively short time.

Probably no place offers better proof of what HomeWaters can provide than Elk River Lodge near Steamboat Springs. Only a few steps from the luxurious lodge is the Elk River and more than a mile of club-only water filled with good-sized trout. And just a short drive away is an extensive portion of the Yampa, one of the prettiest trout streams in Colorado. A section of tail-race river, that portion of the Yampa pushes through a long meadow where the hatches attract dense schools of trout.

We hit the Yampa the last two hours of a summer day when the dimples from rising fish appeared like raindrops. The fish were mostly rainbows from 15 to 19 inches that jumped like gymnasts amid our joyful hoops and hollers. Several times passing cars slowed on the highway, no doubt carrying anglers who couldn’t help but notice trout rising all around us.

Amazingly, the best may be yet to come as HomeWaters leaders are already scouting other legendary waters in Jackson Hole, the Ozarks and even the Great Lakes region. As more members join, the club’s list of diamond fisheries will grow and glow brighter and brighter.

Author’s Note: Three- to six-day non-member fishing excursions are available for those who want to sample HomeWaters streams and services. A membership requires a refundable joining fee, regular dues and per-use costs. Sincere price breaks are given to members who bring their families. Memberships can be transferred to others in the family upon the passing of the original member.

For more information, visit www.HomeWatersClub.com or call Membership Director Mike Harpster at (814) 686-6214.


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The Au Sable springs from Otsego and Roscommon and then consolidates itself near Grayling before venturing

forth on its long ramble home to Lake Huron. Along its tangled edges the dark forest rises deep and verdant in random stands of popple and maple and birch. Rich, young pin oaks fill the myriad patches of overgrown clearcut, along with all the other new growth that together provide habitat for the grouse that brought Betsy and me here for so many years on our annual October odyssey.

For a little southern-born Brittany, it was at first an odd and capricious place. Yet throughout her life Betsy came to learn and love these great northern forests just as much she did those of her own country far to the south. And it was here on our first trip to Michigan that she met the grouse that forever changed her life.

I remember that grouse. At first, I

wasn’t quite sure what she had – especially after the incident earlier that morning with the snowshoe hare.

In her defense, Betsy was barely out of kindergarten and still trying to

figure out this business of being a bird dog. It was all strange country to her, with strange trees and strange smells and especially strange creatures – long-tailed pheasants bigger and more audacious than any grouse or quail she’d ever encountered, big prickly

porcupines unlike any groundhog she’d ever seen – and now this, a rabbit twice as saucy as the most insolent cottontail that had ever challenged her to a chase.

Yeah, I know . . . bird dogs aren’t supposed to pay attention to rabbits. But the country back home was overrun with rabbits, and she’d struggled with them from the time she was a pup when one had literally jumped up from beneath her nose.

Now so far from home, she had no way of knowing the difference between a cottontail rabbit and a snowshoe hare. All she knew for certain was that this was one very irreverent creature with the biggest, smelliest feet that had ever assaulted her senses, and before either of us could do anything about it, Brer’ Brittany and Brer’ Hare were off on

an impromptu frolic upriver, with me in hot pursuit using words and phrases she’d never heard before.


59

There was a time when she was the

absolute joy of his life. And now that she’s gone, she is still his

most pleasant memory.

etsy, the author’s young Brittany, barely out of kindergarten, just weeks before she met the grouse that changed her life.

B

By Michael Altizer

amb l i ng sR

burrowing deep into a dense stand of pin oaks as we topped out along a barely perceptible trail that led deep into the thickest tangle we’d seen so far.

She was close now; I could tell it in the way she moved and by her quivering little tail and the percussive beat of the crisp evening air sifting through her nostrils. The bird was quickly running out of options – I knew it, she knew it and he knew it – and suddenly Betsy circled left, broke from the trail and completely vanished.

I was stunned and for a moment disoriented and alone . . . where has she gone . . . where is the bird . . . where am I? And then she was there, poised dim and ghostly in the damask trail 20 feet ahead, locked up solid and pointing straight back toward me, tail high, head low, eyes large with her left front paw raised daintily to her quivering chin.

The little gun floated free and weightless at half-rise in front of me, my thumb positioned firmly atop the

small clearing before she nosed into a young fallen pine.

Twice she circled the downed pine, nose poking here, nose poking there, her little bobtail a blur until she finally determined that the bird was on the move. And so she started widening her circle and nearly stumbled as she pirouetted back on her own track where it crossed the grouse’s trail, bearing up and away from the river through a narrow crease to the high step above us.

She was now fully committed to the bird, as I was to her, and I knew it was simply a matter of time and persistence until she either caught up with him or bumped him and caused him to flush wild. She was absolutely on tiptoe as she worked her way up through the crease, making notes as she went. I followed as discreetly as possible, giving her plenty of time and room to figure things out as the grouse made his way higher into the thick birch and maple above us.

He was clearly on his home turf,

It had only taken her a few seconds to realize the error of her ways, but by then it was too late and she knew it. And when she returned a minute or so later she had a repentant, hang-dog look on her little freckled face, and we both took a few extra moments to catch our collective breath before agreeing to forget the whole incident.

B y late afternoon the day had turned into a real gem, the

autumn air crisp and clear and vibrant. We had bumped two grouse, both of them flushing wild, and I had resisted taking a shot at either lest Betsy get the idea that it was okay to chase birds.

But now her demeanor was entirely different, with the cool evening breezes fetching messages of promise as she started getting birdy. One step forward, two steps back, then a quick 180 before she began to get the full picture, and suddenly everything became clear as she threaded her way through the thick scrub, first left toward the river, then out across a

safety, my finger resting lightly aside the trigger, the air as still and pure and perfect as the moment trembling timelessly around us.

For 27 years I have held that moment as closely as Betsy held that bird. She hovered there, a pale apparition in the half-light, the unseen grouse as real a presence as my own pounding heart. I stood transfixed, awaiting the memory to come, until Time itself could no longer bear the strain and the bird rose from the forest floor between us in a thunderous rumble of leaves and dust, chestnut-flecked and dark-ruffed, tail ivory-rimmed and fanned wide, wings drumming, climbing, pleading for that singular cerulean patch of clear evening sky.

The little gun buried itself deep into my shoulder as the bird came clear, and backlit feathers filled the air as he tumbled into a remembrance as fresh on this cold winter night in Tennessee as it was on that warm autumn evening in Michigan.

We hunted the great Huron forest every year of her life for

as long as Betsy was able, but I never returned there after she died. She was the best friend I ever had. And now it surely speaks of preference and priority that such a little dog could have brought so much peace and contentment to one man’s life, along with the constant introspection I always felt when in her presence.

Her spirit was forthright and her affection unconditional, her greatest measure of devotion always free and sincere and for me alone. For it was I who carried her afield to hunt, I to whom she looked for love and play and a more-than-occasional egg or slice of toast to garnish her daily ration, by whose side she waited expectantly as I cleaned our birds and to whose lap she entrusted her weary head at day’s end.

Our life together was one of mutual admiration and dependence. I bore the gun, and she brought her nose and instincts. She swept the hollows and ridges and thickets, and I carried

her water and her biscuits and her bowl. Over the years I became more and more tolerant of her infrequent indiscretions and she of my increasingly recurrent pauses for rest.

We never asked perfection of one another, only understanding, each knowing the proper time to defer to the other’s gifts – I when to stop and give her time to do her work, and she when to cast a glance over her shoulder to check my proximity. And together we shared the fruits – the solitude and companionship, the occasions that brought us together to a far sweeter existence than either of us had alone.

We shared the same cup, ate the same bread, breathed the same air and drank from the same stream, our faces hard down in the water shoulder to shoulder, soul to soul. When quenched we would arise, and she would whine that we should be on our way and soon we’d again be deep in thought among the trees.

She got the livers and the hearts and left me the rest.

ven with 29-inch barrels, this exquisite little Garbi 28-gauge side-by-side weighs only 6 pounds 2 ounces.

E

I n terms of quality, side-by-side shotguns cover a very broad spectrum. They range from “junkers” that should be

avoided to exquisite Best English and Italian guns and even the best American and European shotguns.

Despite the hazards inherent to generalizing, and good judgment notwithstanding, I think it’s probably fair to say that current Spanish makers have staked a firm claim to the middle ground of quality. And since the middle ground is the natural habitat of the bargain, there are some good values to be found in Spanish guns today.

If you have a fondness for the side-by but can’t afford a Best-quality English or Italian gun, you might want to take a good look at some of the Spanish offerings. The heart of the Spanish trade is the sidelock on the pattern of the timeless Holland and Holland, and it’s a very good action. Most of the better sidelocks from Italy are also copies of the Holland.

The Holland-style sidelock is simple, reliable and works

extremely well. A new, good-quality Spanish gun may not display the absolute flawless perfection of workmanship that’s found in a Holland, but it will be quite good, and the difference will

not be nearly as great as the difference in price would suggest. If you are weighing the purchase of a new Spanish side-by-side against an older English or American gun, a modern Spanish shotgun will have the advantage of better metallurgy. Gun steels today are certainly better than the steel that was available to even Best-quality makers of a hundred years ago. In the balance, there is a strong argument to be made for buying a top-tier Spanish gun.

One of the nicer Spanish

offerings is produced by Armas Garbi. William Larkin Moore and Sons in Scottsdale is currently importing the Garbi line, and Dave Moore recently sent me a top-of-the-line 28-gauge ejector gun to try. Nicely

crafted, it had excellent wood and deeply cut “prestige” engraving that was attractively executed. The


63

A “sweet little gun,” the 28-bore Garbi sidelock performed flawlessly,

both on the clays range and in the quail fields.

terry allen

By Robert Matthews

h o t g un sS

locks and action body were coin finished, and the critical items of fit and finish were uniformly excellent. It had 29-inch barrels, weighed 6 pounds, 2 ounces, and balanced on the forward edge of the hinge pin. This gave the gun just enough forward bias to put some feel into the front hand, which is a good thing. The weight was just about perfect for any gunning that a 28 might be used for.

Surprisingly, one of the things I

liked most was that the gun was not too small or light. Twenty-eights are supposed to be small and light, but only to a certain point.

It seems that “true” 28 frames are all the rage these days. The problem is that what we commonly refer to as a “true” 28-gauge frame is tiny . . . so tiny, in fact that it’s hard for an adult to handle and to shoot well. A flyweight shotgun can be a wonderful toy, but you would probably starve to death if you had to feed yourself with one. While

the 28-bore Garbi is smaller than a 20 gauge, it’s not tiny and feels like a real gun rather than a toy.

If many 28s are too light, we can blame “the rule of 96,” which has been around for as long as there have been shotguns. W. W. Greener referred to it in his book, The Gun and Its Development, first published in 1881. The rule states that for recoil to be comfortable, a gun should weigh at least 96 times the weight of its shot charge. According to the rule, a 28 could weigh as little as 41/2 pounds. And a few of them do. The problem is that nobody can shoot a gun that light with any consistency. There are very few people who can shoot really well with a gun that weighs less than six pounds, regardless of its gauge. Six to six-and-a-half pounds is much better, even in a much-carried, seldom-shot upland gun.

At the time that I was testing the Garbi, I had

another side-by-side and an over-under to test as well, so I enlisted Chuck Wechsler and Mike Altizer to help me with the shooting and give me their impressions. Since Mike and I are both devotees of the side-by-side and Chuck fancies the over-under, I felt that we could get a fair assessment of the various guns’ capabilities. Together, we piled a whole truckload of guns into the old gray Tundra and hied ourselves off to Wynfield Plantation near Albany, Georgia, to do a little bird huntin’.

We arrived late in the day, and so we decided to shoot the guns on the clays range before taking to the fields. We weren’t expecting a lot, because even great field guns do not often make great clays guns. In that sense, the Garbi was a surprise. Functionally, it was flawless. The recoil was very pleasant, and the 29-inch barrels helped to give the gun a smooth, clean swing.


64


66

Not like an 8-pound clays model, mind you, but very smooth for a lightweight upland gun.

The next morning we piled into the jeep, loaded a passel of dogs and set out to hunt birds. For the whole day we pillaged Wynfield’s pinelands and food plots, promiscuously swapping guns on a whim, popping away with whatever gun fell to hand. The more I shot, the more I noticed that I gravitated toward the Garbi.

We found the last covey of the day in a scraggly tangle of plum about 50 yards from a small foodplot tucked among the sedge and pines. Chuck and I were up, and we took the flush just as the sun began to slide below the horizon. Most of the birds went somewhere else, but one bored straight away and tumbled to my first barrel. Another tarried a bit and came up late, curling to the left, rocking from side to side as he dodged between the pines. He tumbled to the Garbi’s left barrel. After picking up the fallen, a last quick cast in the dimming light produced one of the survivors, and he came up like a cock pheasant, climbing for the tops of the pines. When he fell, I wasn’t even aware of the shot or the lead or anything else except that I was intensely focused on the bird. And that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Recently, I’ve heard some speculation about how the best of the Spanish guns might be rising to the next level, perhaps even challenging some of the Italian guns for a higher spot in the “pecking order.” While only time will tell if it’s so, the verdict is in on the little Garbi. What a sweet little gun!

Editor’s Note: If you would like to know more about Garbi guns, visit www.williamlarkinmoore.com or contact William Larkin Moore and Sons, 16622 North 91st Street, Suite #103, Scottsdale, AZ 85260. Phone: 480-951-8913.


69

A reader asked me the other day why I write so infrequently about Labrador retrievers,

pointing out that not only are they the most popular gundog breed in America

the dog you share those interests with is a sturdily built, ruggedly athletic lad or lass wearing a weatherproof black, yellow or chocolate coat.

In any event, I replied that in fact I write about Labs all the time, just not all the time for this publication. I’m a columnist, you see, for Just Labs, an award-winning magazine spun off from the wildly successful Dale Spartas/Steve Smith book of the same name. With the exception of English setters (and possibly pointers), I’m probably more familiar with Labs –

Intelligent and adaptable, obedient and ruggedly

athletic – no wonder the Lab continues to be America’s most popular canine breed.

Out with the BOys – Black laBs by Rollie bRandt couRtesy wild wings

By tom Davis

und og sG

but the most popular breed, period. For the record, the Lab has been #1 in AKC registrations every year since 1991, and there are no indications it will relinquish that title any time soon.

I also saw a recent Field & Stream survey that, while admittedly not conducted with scientific rigor, yielded the fairly astonishing result that 41 percent of the gundogs owned by its readers are Labs. So if you’re a “typical” American outdoorsman – i.e., a generalist with a broad range of sporting interests – chances are


70

their history, development, strengths, etc. – than I am with any other breed.

That history is fascinating, and thanks to the tireless efforts of the late Richard Wolters, the flamboyant author, showman and bon vivant, we have a remarkably comprehensive picture of it. The record begins in 16th century France, where the monks at the Abbey of St. Hubert – the patron saint of hunting, not coincidentally – bred a black hound celebrated throughout Europe as a tracker and retriever nonpareil. The St. Hubert’s hound was also renowned, according to one source, for “fearing neither water not cold.”

Hmmm . . . What modern hunting breed does that sound like?

Cut to the early 1800s when the descendants of the St. Hubert’s dogs, having first found their way to Devon in the southwest of England, crossed the pond with English fishermen and became established on the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland. Known there as the St. John’s dog or the Newfoundland water dog, its duties included diving into the sea to retrieve fish that had come unhooked! Remember, we’re talking the North Atlantic here; the mere thought of those bone-chilling waters makes me want to reach for a Hudson’s Bay

blanket and a hot toddy.The term “Labrador” was first

used to describe this breed in 1814. That in itself is instructive regarding the rugged qualities it possessed, Labrador having been famously described by the explorer John Cabot as “the land that God gave Cain.” I’ve been there a couple times myself, and it remains the only place where, within a 24-hour period, I’ve baked in 90-degree sunshine and frozen my ass in a snowstorm.

The point is, these incredibly (if not insanely) demanding conditions cold-forged the Labrador type and endowed the breed with many of its sterling qualities. Its coat, for example. Short, slick and superbly water-repellant, with an outer “shell” of glossy guard hairs and a “lining” of dense underfur – like a waxed-cotton jacket over a wool sweater – it affords a combination of high protection and low maintenance that few if any other breeds can match. It’s the original “shake dry” garment – although why the owners of this garment invariably shake dry while standing next to their owners remains a question in search of an answer.

The Lab is also endowed with a comparatively generous layer of

he usual suspects is by Minnesota artist Joshua spies. For prints, visit Joshuaspies.comT


71

subcutaneous fat, which serves the dual purpose of further insulating it from the cold and giving it an added measure of buoyancy in the water. This comes at a price, however: a predisposition to obesity and the litany of health problems associated with it. I suspect that there’s a deeply rooted connection between the Lab’s fat layer and its voracious eating habits, habits so frightening in their rapacity that even Dr. Temple Grandin, the well-known animal behaviorist, is at a loss to explain them.

In her insightful book, Animals in Translation, Grandin characterizes the Lab as “a compulsive overeater,” but adds “I don’t think anyone knows why.”

Other adaptations for water-work include webbed feet and the Lab’s distinctive “otter” tail. Designed as a rudder, it’s proved a lifesaver to more than one duck hunter who found himself bobbing in icy water after his skiff capsized and survived only by grabbing his Lab’s stout tail and getting a tow to terra firma.

Still, were it not for the single-minded devotion of a trio of 19th century British aristocrats – Lord Buccleuch and the Earls of Malmsbury and Home, respectively – the Lab might have passed from the scene. Building on the foundation they’d inherited in the St. John’s dog, they selectively bred toward the goal of a producing a keen but biddable retriever of game – a dog that was trainable and obedient, but once slipped, was relentless in its quest to find and recover birds. To say they succeeded hardly does justice to their achievement, and to them goes the lion’s share of the credit for endowing the Lab with the prodigious intelligence and psychological soundness that make the breed so versatile, so adaptable, and such a favorite among so many different “user groups.”

One of the great examples of the Lab’s versatility is the way it took to

American pheasant hunting. In Britain the Lab was used primarily as a non-slip retriever, and rarely if ever as a flushing dog. Soon after its importation to the U.S., however (the AKC registered its


72

first Lab in 1917), sportsmen began to discover, to their surprise and delight, that the Lab excelled in this role. It had the nose, it had the desire, it had the athleticism, and it also had the size and strength to bust heavy cover and put skulking roosters to wing. Plus, its retrieving acumen made it just the dog you wanted when that rooster hit the ground – and in particular if it hit the ground running.

A close-working, cover-busting flushing dog that’s hell on cripples: If your goal is tailfeathers sprouting from your game pocket, that’s pretty much the perfect recipe. No one disputes the Lab’s status as the duck dog par excellence, but I think a strong case can be made that the pheasant ultimately played an equally important role in contributing to its popularity here in the Colonies.

The Lab is one of only a handful of breeds characterized as “low fear, low aggression.” Typically a breed that’s low in one is high in the other, and vice-versa. While I suspect that most of the sporting breeds fall into this category (although I have my doubts about a couple), the Lab is clearly the paradigm. Low fear-low aggression translates into a dog that’s wonderful with children, keeps its cool in stressful situations, and is simply a good all-around canine citizen. The Lab’s probably not the best choice for guarding the junkyard, but there has to be something useful that all those pits, Rotts and Dobies can do.

Of course, popularity in dog breeds is always a double-edged sword, as it invariably leads to a spate of indiscriminate breeding that dilutes the gene pool and mass-produces dogs that may look like Labs but don’t have the temperament, trainability and hard-wired behaviors that a Lab’s supposed to have. This is why it’s critically important, regardless of the role you want your Lab to play, to do your homework and deal with a reputable breeder. Even if that pup you have your heart set on will never get its mouth around a mallard, it should have the desire to hunt and to retrieve. If it doesn’t, it’s just not a Lab.


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D own at the Plaza de Mayo, the Argentines are beating each other with sticks. The

Peronists have stormed their own headquarters and will not come out until they call a bomb threat on themselves. We are a couple of miles away at El Aeroparque Jorge Newberry, and the pilots are on strike.

Argentine pilots have not been paid in two weeks, but we are flying LAN Chile. There is no great love lost between the nations. Argentines tell you they are the steak and Chile is the bone for the dogs. If I told you what the Chileans say about Argentines, they would not print it here. So LAN will keep flying, but late. Instead of shooting birds in Cordoba, we are wishing it wasn’t too early for Senor Jack Daniels.

Me and Claudette, my second trip, her third. Two hours later there is a stirring at the gate, an Airbus making ready to load. No jetway here, downstairs, across the tarmac and up a ladder. The guncase goes up the conveyor and thumps into the cargo bay.

Bringing your guns to Argentina? Not for the harried, hurried or the faint of heart. You send your outfitter the numbers six weeks in advance and he

coups, keep a close eye on guns coming into the country.

We have a side-by-side and an over-under, two high-grade Merkel 20s. Merkel was among the German gunmakers who wound up on the wrong side of

the Iron Curtain. The Reds consolidated all the companies into one grand firearms collective to make shotguns for high-rolling Comrade Commissars. When the wall came down, Merkel reorganized and moved into the western market. And that’s where we come in. We’re taking Merkels to a land where Benellis and Berettas rule. We will see how they hold up.

But we have to get there first. A bus from the estancia meets us at the Cordoba airport. We are late, but earlier than the sole Argentine flight, which delivers a contingent of Texans.

“What yall got in the box?” one wants to know.

“Merkels,” I say.“Myrtles?”

T his country looks like eastern Montana, broad flat fields,

checkerboarded by fencerows and hedgerows with a line of ragged blue hills in the distance, but the cowboys hanging around

he author with a Merkel 2000 CL over-and-under, and his Argentina bird boys, Juan and Hugo Mantilla.

T


75

A little money, a little Spanish, a little patience,

and a great sense of humor – all you need to survive

the storms of doves in Argentina.

o r i z on sH By Roger Pinckney

generates the papers on his end. Somebody meets you at the gate and escorts you to an office where special police check serial numbers and collect a hundred bucks a gun, more if they feel like it. A deal if you figure it by the page, the artistic flairing fancy wristwork in stamp, stamp, stamping each individual sheet half a dozen times. Argentines, weary of coups and threats of

the crossroad cantinas wear berets, not Stetsons.

One town short, there is a barricade of tires, pallets and sections of drag-harrow, teeth up. Dour campesinos are standing around with sticks.

“Do not worry, senores,” the driver says, “it is only the farm protest.”

The campesinos thrust leaflets through the windows, wave us on.

We arrive at Estancia Los Chanares in time for lunch. Lunch is a serious undertaking in Argentina and will burn up about two hours. Fresh bread, an extravagance of salad, potatoes, steaks, ribs, dove breasts, wine, wine, wine and finally homemade ice cream and fruit cobbler. We waddle from the table and get introduced around.

Alex, a Columbian and lifelong hunting guide, runs the lodge. His wife, Jessica, a veteran restauranteur from Buenos Aries, runs the kitchen. Martin organizes the shoots, ramrods the bird boys and fixes the guns when they need fixing, which is more often than you might expect.

Most estancias offer shooting wintertimes to help spread out the pesos – and to thin flocks that can easily flatten a grainfield in an afternoon. But Estancia los Chanares manages crops for the birds, instead. The lodge is grand enough for any exiled ex-presidente, white stucco, fireplaces everywhere, formal gardens, swimming pool, red tile roof and red tile floors. The fields are angular and irregular, troublesome for agriculture but perfect for food plots. All around are rotten stone hills of impenetrable thornbushes – chanares – hence the name of this distant, obscure and excellent place.

We meet our bird boys at the first stop, Hugo and Juan, brothers in their early 20s, swarthy, beady-eyed and diligent. Two cases of


76

shells, two field-seats, two coolers of water and Quilmes, the favored local brew, feed sacks for the birds and the empty shells.

They lead us to a makeshift blind strung between two thorn trees. They break out the shells – Orbeas made right up the road in Tucuman – and we break out the guns. Hugo and Juan tip boxes and the shells rattle into our vest pockets.

I learn a lot that day. You can only shoot one bird at a time.


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A ventilated rib is a radiator. Your gun will cool faster open and propped vertically against a convenient tree. Finally, don’t forget your shooting gloves. Splat – blood across my glasses. The new checkering has worn the hide right off my thumb.

“You boys got any band aids?” “No, senor, but Martin will have

them when he brings more shells.” “More shells?” “Si, senor, these two cases will

not last you so long.”

W inter daylight comes late in these latitudes. Reveille

at eight, a bounteous breakfast at 8:30. Alex and I linger over coffee. “How many birds do you have?”

He smiles. “Twenty millions? Forty millions? Who knows? We have the largest dove roost in all of Argentina.”

We ride to the morning shoot with a new arrival, Harvey Alexander from London. He’s ecstatic. “I can fly first class from London to Buenos Aires and shoot here for less than it costs me to shoot driven grouse in England!”

We find Hugo and Juan on a foot-trail atop the brow of a long hogback ridge. There is a brightening field on one side, thornbush tangle on the other. After the pickup rattles away we notice a sound persistent as distant surf, as if the earth itself is breathing. Millions upon countless millions of doves are cooing up the morning. Already the air is full of them and the green hills echo with the crackle of gunfire.

But how many doves can a man shoot? How many birds does a man want to shoot? Last year another Texan tried to figure it out. He shot 6,016 doves in 11 hours using three extended magazine Benellis. He kept three bird boys busy, two loading, one counting. Not sure of his shell bill, his hospital bill either.

A couple of hours into it, Claudette cusses. A fine screw in the forend hardware has worked itself loose.

“Y’all got a screwdriver?”“No, senor, Martin will bring

when he brings more shells.”I sit crosslegged in tall grass and pull

the forearm off the gun. The screw retains a cam that cocks the top barrel ejector. “If we can’t get us a screwdriver, we won’t need more shells.”

“No problemo, senor,” Hugo says and pulls a battered jack knife from his jeans.

I baby the screw with a thumbnail instead. My nail splits, but the gun will shoot.

We break for lunch, I peel the forend again and pass it to Martin. He returns it with ceremonial flourish right at the table, along with

Silver Pigeon 28. It’s only a year old, the checkering has worn right off the stock, but it functions flawlessly. And Brothers and Sisters, I am here to testify that you can kill the hell out of doves with a 28. I drop the first 16 straight. I tell you this not to brag, but only so you can share my astonishment. Forty yards, sixty yards, doesn’t matter. Deadly beyond belief.

Claudette is shooting the Merkel over-under and besides having to keep after the troublesome screw, she is dropping birds left and right. But the wind is still ripping. We are shooting from a hole hacked out of the thornbushes halfway down a steep ridge. Birds careening downwind are just an impossible blur. Upwind it’s a little better. Upwind or down, the birds can’t see us until they are right on top of us. But we can’t see them either and have only about two seconds to mount, swing and fire. Maybe you never reckoned wingshooting an endurance sport, but here in Argentina it is. Three days and it shows.

rounds been through that gun?”He shrugs. “In two years,

maybe fifty thousand.”“Fifty thousand? How do your

over-unders stand up?”“They break hammers around

sixty thousand. I can adjust them, but then they break springs.”

“What’s the absolutely toughest gun?”

“The Browning Citori, senor. But the firing pins erode . . .”

C lang, clang, bang. A wind is roaring down the Andes and

every rattly piece of metal, every gate, every loose board for a hundred miles is picking up the lunatic rhythm. Clang, clang, clang. I ease out of bed and pad down to the great room looking for coffee. Harvey Alexander, the wandering Britt, is hooked over a Cuban cigar and his cell phone. The cigar works, the phone doesn’t.

I leave my doubling Merkel on the gunrack and hornswoggle Martin out of one of the house guns, a Beretta

an eyeglass screwdriver, custom ground to fit the fine Merkel screw. Back in business, for awhile anyway.

A couple dozen boxes into the afternoon shoot, the double bellers and slaps my already pulverized shoulder twice as hard as expected. I reckon somebody in Tucuman got careless with his powder dipper. Juan comes to my side, looks over my battered shoulder as I puzzle over the gun.

“It has fired twice, senor.”He’s right. “Martin!”On our way out of the fields, we

pick up one of the Texans holding what’s left of a semi-auto. The receiver literally fell apart in his hands. “I was hoping to shoot a thousand birds today,” he bemoans, “but damnit, all I got was seven-fifty.”

Nothing serious. An aluminum receiver with egged-out holes. The pins that secure the trigger group fell into the thorn tree leaves. Martin has a zip-lock of them back at the estancia.

I quiz Martin. “How many

Poor us, too tired to shoot anymore. We let the guns cool down one last time, crack a Quilmes. Back at the estancia, they have a fire roaring in the outside pit and the liquor is going down.

“The girls are coming out from Cordoba,” Alex announces.

“Who wants a massage?”Eighteen hands in the air.

T he bus is idling in the driveway. We powwow with Alex and settle

our shell bill, painful at ten bucks a box. That’s the way they do it down here, turn you loose in a blizzard of birds and keep careful count. Between the two of us, we have downed a thousand birds, an affront, an insult, a mockery. But Alex acknowledges our sensibilities.

“We have a couple from Sweden who come every year. They enjoy themselves but will only shoot five hundred birds each,” he pauses, then adds, “a day.”

Halfway to the airport, there is a monumental jam of trucks and cars

and buses. The campesinos are still at it. Our driver hooks a hard right and takes us cross-country. After three or four miles eating dust, we are clear of the campesinos and on the main road again.

Back at our Buenos Aires hotel we are met by a harried bell captain who passes us a printed notice: “There are some issues of local concern that have prompted rallies at the Plaza de Mayo . . . ”

We wake next morning to a rumble as pervasive as ten million doves cooing, heady as a wind coming off the Andes. Fifty thousand campesinos have bolted the pampas and are heading to the Plaza de Mayo. Busloads after countless busloads. Musicians on the back of flatbed field trucks. Funky little Fiat sedans with blaring loudspeakers big as the cars. Meanwhile, the government has laid off their legions of clerks, paid them 200 pesos each to go protest the protestors.

Claudette considers the proceedings and then glances at the

clock. “We have a couple of hours to kill. Let’s slip off to some sidewalk cafe and get us one good last meal before things bust loose.”

Just a snack, a dozen poached shrimp on a bed of lettuce, tomatoes and avocadoes, home-baked bread and the obligatory local wine. Then a series of low concussive thumps comes rolling over the rooftops.

“Hey waiter, what’s all the racket?”He wrings his hands, mops his brow

and looks uneasily off into middle distance. “Please do not worry, senor. It is only the tear gas bombs.”

Ah Argentina, I have what it takes to love you, a little money, a little Spanish, a little patience, and a great sense of humor . . .

Editor’s Note: Roger Pinckney happily reports a drop of lock-tight fixed the over-under and there was nothing at all wrong with the side-by-side. His hand was so swollen, it crowded the selector button to middle position allowing both barrels to fire simultaneously.

r a f t smenC By Matt Coffey

S porting Classics has long been known for providing exceptional, unique products. From our

limited edition Ancient Cypress Turkey Calls, to our annual Knife of the Year, there’s an unmistakable quality to Sporting Classics’ offerings. So it only makes sense that our latest product be of fitting quality and uniqueness.

Wanting to do something a little different to commemorate our 30th anniversary, we approached a local master bowyer – a legend really – about the possibility of building a limited-edition series of traditional recurves. What he came up with is remarkable.

Among his many achievements and advancements, Jeffery has built bows for the President of Mexico, the King of Bhutan and even the movie industry. Jeffery was also one of the forward thinkers who realized stabilizers were an important part of archery, having the foresight to use C-clamps in different places on a bow to improve stabilization and accuracy. Throughout his tenured career, Jeffery estimates he’s built or overseen the production of more than 300,000 bows. In short, if you use a bow of any kind right now, chances are Owen Jeffery had something to do with the origins of it.

“I started using a bow to hunt around 1935 and there weren’t any compounds around then,” he said. “And I’ve been at it ever since. Using traditional equipment just seems like the way it ought to be.”

Jeffery, 86, and his son, Tom, now run an archery shop a mere 20 minutes from Sporting Classics’ headquarters in Columbia, South Carolina, where they offer not only custom-made traditional archery

Don’t miss your chance to own a piece of history with Sporting Classics’ 30th Anniversary bow crafted by

legendary master bowyer Owen Jeffery.

The bowyer is none other than Owen Jeffery, a man who is known to those in archery circles as one of the original masters, and whose resume reads like a Who’s Who in the stick-and-string world. He started with Hoyt in 1949 and was the designer for their famous Pro Medalist competition recurve. After his 16-year stint at Hoyt, Jeffery moved to Bear Archery in 1966 – back when Fred Bear still sat at the head of the conference table – where he was the vice president of manufacturing and was responsible for the redesign of all Bear recurves in 1967. He even built the bow Fred Bear used to kill a 9,000-pound elephant – a 69-pound recurve.

aster bowyer Owen Jeffery designed our 30th Anniversary recurve with a zebrawood handle and darker zebrawood limbs, gold inlay and Eagle’s Flight quiver with four cedar arrows, two of which have been inverted to show the fletching.

M


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equipment, but more mainstream compound bows and accessories. While the newer bows are a mainstay of business, it’s the designing and crafting of the traditional equipment that makes the Jeffery shop unique.

For our Sporting Classics’ bow, the Jefferys pulled out all the stops. A zebrawood riser combined with darker zebrawood limbs make up the basis for the beautiful bow. The limited-edition recurve is strung with a Flemish-style string, adding to the aesthetics, and comes with four cedar arrows. To hold the arrows, the package includes an Eagle’s Flight 4-arrow quiver with “Sporting Classics” stamped on the hood. A circular gold inlay is fitted into the riser, and around the larger “SC” in the middle of the logo, the text reads: “Sporting Classics * Established 1981 * One of Thirty.”

“Our Sporting Classics’ bow is exactly like what I personally use to hunt,” Tom Jeffery said. “The longer limbs and shorter handle on the bow equate to a smoother draw on a lighter frame. This particular piece is also unique because of the way it showcases the natural curl of the wood grain. It’s a smooth, quiet and stable bow. It just happens to be one of the most beautiful bows you can put your hands on.”

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For only $925, you can own a piece of history made by a true archery legend and presented to you through the nation’s finest hunting and fishing magazine. The edition is limited to 30 bows, so don’t delay. Call (800) 849-1004 to order.


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ven now, I can feel the lucid silence of a cedar swamp – tomblike, tangled,

ancient as the Book. And above the swamp the brown ridge rests in perpetual peace. This is the

ridge eastward of peeled spruce cabin, whose walls blend more and

more with the surroundings as the seasons mellow them.

Forty-one steps from the cabin door the waters of Third Chain Lake have washed the stones and lapped at the cedar roots for centuries. Evening and morning in November the white mist coils to catch the sun. You breathe its almost tangible humidity. You hear the hum of silence – so imperious that you shame at the drip of your own paddle or the damp splutter of your pipe.

Across the lake is the greatest of the long brown ridges – Duck Lake Mountain; and another to the north; and only to southwest is the skyline low, where the carry leads to Unknown.

We built the cabin with our own hands in a virgin

E stand of pine; and in a northwest wind the great trees rub against one another, moaning in their topmost branches, and keeping us fitful in our bunks, thinking of a headwind paddle next day. We built that cabin – H. and Roy, and an unknown Indian and I. Particularly, therefore, are we endeared to the creaky floor, the tar-smell of the caulking and the graying logs of its walls. Because always men have pondered preciously the graces of their own handiwork.

If anyone may be said singly to possess the cabin, it is H. That is to say, he paid for it. Yet he would hardly claim it as his own. On the contrary, it possesses him. H. is older than the rest of us. He is 60, and the wake he has left behind him in his life is as impressive as the white track behind a liner. H. is a grandfather, and a great deal of wisdom has gathered in his head. His interest in all things on earth is insatiable, and he can love a cloud, a cardinal flower or a human being – and sometimes he can almost explain them. He loves to hew with an axe, and loudly he berates himself when he cuts his knee. He paddles his own canoe, totes a lion’s share on the carries,

Lo, the Long Brown RidgesLo, the Long Brown RidgesTo the deer hunter, sometimes black is white and up is down. It all depends on your point of view. by Edmund Ware Smith

Pals IV-Thanks DaD by thomas Woskia – courtesy Wild Wings


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Lo, the Long Brown RidgesLo, the Long Brown RidgesTo the deer hunter, sometimes black is white and up is down. It all depends on your point of view. by Edmund Ware Smith


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“No, I didn’t shoot.“Well, what did you do?”“I pointed my finger at it!” said H., dramatically.

“Now – do you call that chance? Or purpose?”I hung my rifle muzzle on a wall peg. “I take it you intended

to shoot the deer?” I said. “But some purpose from a great exterior stayed your hand, so you pointed your finger instead?”

“Precisely,” H. chuckled. “Absolutely.”“Huh,” said Roy dryly. “Buck fever, an’ at your age!”“Indigestion,” said I.These were lame explanations, and besides we felt there

was considerable more back of the story than met the ear. Recently, H. figured up from old diaries the number of trips he had taken to this country. Counting camping trips, fishing and hunting trips,

they totaled 80! He had been deer hunting 30 different seasons, and his record was impressive. Furthermore, he had never in his life complained of indigestion. He was evidently getting us into a prearranged corner.

“You claim,” he went on, “that my experience with the deer this afternoon was an effect, not a cause.”

“Sure it was,” Roy said, nervous to hear the rest.“Well, it wasn’t,” H. said. “It was both. Moreover, all causes

can be effects, all effects causes.”Roy turned his wet socks on the rafter so as to dry their other

sides. “It’s all runnin’ off of me like rain off a roof,” he protested.“It’s getting pretty swampy, at that,” I agreed. “Darn

you H., anyway!”“On the contrary,” he continued, taking his own time,

“everything becomes quite simple at this point.” Here he began to make those marvelously expressive gestures with his hands, lean, squarish hands, which you remember always when you think of H.

“I pointed at that deer,” he said, “and since you so desire, we’ll call my gesture an effect produced by cause or causes unknown. Yet I propose to demonstrate that the effect shall be proved a cause – you see, it caused me not to shoot that deer, and it causes us now to sit here pondering the subject.”

In the face of this, Roy and I cheerfully admitted that black was white and up was down, depending on the point of view. And we went to our bunks in the shelter of the long brown ridges, little dreaming of the chain of events crawling toward us from the future.

But I did dream, just a little. At first I could not get to sleep. The pine boughs sang above the cabin roof like remote ’cellos. I thought I heard a porcupine prowling in front of the cabin, and an old doe snorted on the ridge toward Killman Pond. I fell to pondering our oblique conversation of a moment before. H.’s pointing his finger at a buck deer was

and he hunts the long brown ridges alone. He asserts that his miles-per-hour, or his heavy pavement-tread in the timber, would gutter the chances of a companion in getting a shot at a deer. But actually, he likes to come single-handed against the wilderness. Alone, he treads on no one’s heels, nor waits for the man behind him.

But in hunting alone, H. denies the rest of us the pleasure of his conversation. We look forward to evenings in the cabin, wondering what thoughts he may have had during the day’s hunt.

I believe,” said H., one last night in camp while the rain dripped sleepily on the roof . . . “I believe in a Unity of Things.”

“Why?” I asked. If you have had no formal training in philosophy, the word “why” gives you a chance to array your thoughts. Without further prompting, H. enlarged upon his theme.

“Everything dovetails too perfectly for chance,” he said, “running smoothly and perpetually in the river of cause and effect. For example, I cannot be satisfied that the great ice sheet, which formed these lakes and ridges a million years ago, came at the whim of chance. Either the mind of man was fashioned purposely to regard the lakes and ridges as perfect, or the lakes and ridges came last, perfectly formed to man’s eyes. In either case, you have a sort of Unity.”

Roy hung a pair of damp socks on a rafter and got out his corncob. “I never looked at it like that,” he said. “But I see how you mean, H. You mean a thing don’t happen just to suit you, because you might of happened just to suit it, an’ there’s no telling which.”

I drew an oily rag through the barrel of my Winchester and tried to think of some argument for the opposition. To me, it was merely the ancient problem of which came first, the hen or the egg. But H.’s mind was opening up as free and hopeful as wind on a hill. His idea of Unity was pleasant to contemplate, but like all universal speculators, he was merely taking a shot in the dark at Truth.

“I don’t believe the Unity idea,” I said. “It’s too neat. The precepts of chance suit me as well. And chance preëmpts purpose. The whole works just happened, and so did we. Where’s the need of any ultimate purpose anyway, so long as each individual clings to his puny private one?”

H. grinned, and I guessed he had been laying a complicated trap for us, which would gradually lead us into an illustration from his day’s hunting. Roy drew audibly on his corncob, and H. smacked his lips, preparing to pounce from the abstract to the concrete.

“Chance!” he said. “Why, man! If there were any probability in chance, I would have shot a deer today!”

“Did you?” I said.“No. But I saw one.”“Didn’t you shoot?” asked Roy, his pipe forgotten.

I squeezed the trigger, holding my breath until I thought my lungs would explode. With the discharge, the rifle jumped in my hands and the buck vanished into thin air.

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unusual. At least he had made it sound so; and I knew he felt it so himself. I set it down as a continuation of the hard luck that had dogged him through the last three deer seasons. I still believed in luck, especially in connection with deer hunting, but I hadn’t reached the point of calling it Fate.

Four seasons ago H. had finished building himself a home. The dining room is dominated by a huge brick fireplace, and even a glance at it warms you. The room is paneled with Pennsylvania chestnut, and the ceiling beams are hand-hewn, solid and convincing. Above the fireplace is a rectangle of sacred space, a space where the master of the house would hang his finest oil painting – if he were a sportsman he would hope for a Benson or a Winslow Homer. But in H.’s house, for some seasons, the space had remained vacant.

“I’ll get a buck this fall,” he would say. “I’ll have it mounted by the finest taxidermist in the world, and I’ll hang it there to last me when I’m really old and begin to write a book about myself.”

Lying in my bunk, listening to the clumsy maraudings of the porcupine, I remembered H. standing in front of that fireplace and staring at the vacant space above the hewn mantle. One subsequent fall he had stepped on a dead spruce twig, and his buck had got away clean. The November after that he had come upon an old gray monarch on the slope of Dark Cove Mountain when his glasses were so steamed he couldn’t see to shoot. Last season he had seen only does, and this year he had pointed his finger! If my belief in luck were even partly valid, I felt that H. was due for a standing shot at something weighing close to 300 pounds, with horns to match.

That night in the cabin, when I finally dozed off I dreamed very dimly of a great-antlered buck in a key-road. Dreams, I have thought, result from some digestive menace, and are nothing upon which to base a prognosis. I had eaten some mince pie of my own devising, which may be reason enough to cause a dream. When I awoke, it retreated before the more essential fragrance of the coffee pot.

A fter breakfast we settled on the day’s hunting territory. H. guessed he would hunt the base of the big ridge to the northwest, and Roy decided he would take me over toward the Second Chain

burn. We separated long before the sun had melted the white furry frost from the beech leaves underfoot, long before the old gray trunks had taken on form and substance.

Roy is a native guide, and he can concentrate on deer for hours. I can’t. Sometimes, looking through the silence at a spruce tree, I see beneath the bark to the wood, see through the wood into its fibrovascular bundles, see beyond that toward infinite divisibility – and this fruitless imagining makes me a poor deer hunter. This time I came back to earth at a signal from Roy.

“Sh-h-h! I hear one.”I listened, trembling a little, watching Roy’s lynx eyes search

the thickets. What he heard turned out to be a carousing red squirrel. Roy knows how to keep a hunter hunting!

At the edge of the Second Chain burn, we stopped. This was my only day in camp, and truly I neither deserved nor expected to shoot a deer. I carried a rifle for the form of the thing, and expected to shoot nothing but a porcupine or a roosting partridge.

“I’m hungry,” I said. It was barely ten o’clock.“Hungry!” glared Roy. “Hungry! You got a gander-gut!”

“Yes.”“Well,” he said. “What do you

say we work back to Killman Pond brook?”

“Are you thirsty?” I asked.“No, I ain’t. Just seemed

better to eat handy to water. But I ain’t fussy.”

So we sat together on a double spruce blowdown and

from our hunting shirt pockets removed two huge liver sandwiches. They were as thick as sofa pillows. I took a bite and began to chew industriously.

Roy, too, was in the middle of a mouthful when his eyes suddenly turned a shade darker. His jaws stopped working. He braced himself without apparent movement, other than a slight stiffening of his body. “What was that?”

“I didn’t hear a thing,” I said, my voice muffled by a full mouth.

“I heard a deer!”Eighty yards away the spruce bushes trembled. I

concentrated so intensely on the spot that my eyes watered. Presently the bushes moved again, and a buck stepped into view, stopped with fore-feet braced, head high and magnificently alert. He pranced sideways, placing himself between two small beeches. He was facing me squarely.

“I can see him,” I whispered. “Shall I shoot?”“Yes,” Roy whispered.As I reached down for my rifle, I knocked the liver

sandwich off the blowdown. It fell silently, coming apart on the moss. I cuddled the rifle stock against my cheek and drew the ivory bead down fine into the rear sight notch. I squeezed the trigger, holding my breath until I thought my lungs would explode. With the discharge, the rifle jumped in my hands, and the buck vanished into thin air.

“Never touched him,” I said.“You got him,” said Roy.My nostrils twitched at the whiff of powder smoke. I

drew down the lever of my rifle and jacked in another cartridge. Lifting our feet high, like a couple of old cock partridges, we moved cautiously toward where the buck had been standing. He lay stone dead underneath the beech trees, and I don’t think he had taken a single step after I fired.

Roy stood looking down at the deer. “I haven’t seen a

It seemed scarcely sporting to have shot a buck as handsome as this after having been in the woods only four hours. I wished H.

could have been standing in my moccasins.


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better head come out of the woods in ten seasons,” he said. The spikes were unusually long, the horns and points well formed, and not so symmetrical as to be uninteresting. But I was thinking of chance, or luck if you prefer. A woods appetite at ten in the morning had been in charge of things – not a trained still-hunter. It seemed scarcely sporting to have shot a buck as handsome as this after having been in the woods only four hours. H. had been in for two weeks, and I wished he could have been standing in my moccasins. This buck deserved that space above his fireplace.

“Roy,” I said, as we lashed the deer to a couple of dry spruce poles, “a fellow with my luck doesn’t have much use for brains, does he?”

“No,” he replied, unhesitatingly. “You don’t even see a buck like this once in five years, let alone a standing shot!” He finished a complicated knot in the lashings and strapped on his belt axe.

“I wish H. had been here. I’d have passed him my rifle, honest I would.”

“He wouldn’t of took it,” Roy said. “He’d ruther you got a deer than to get one himself. That’s his way.”

“But he’s had four years of hard luck.”“His luck’ll turn,” said Roy. “You

mind what I say.” We got the sling poles to our

shoulders and toted the deer down along the ridge toward camp. It was two o’clock when we got in. We were pretty well fagged. H. was waiting for us – empty-handed. His eyes danced with delight as he helped us down with the deer. He fingered the horns and counted the points.

“Great work! Oh, simply great!” We told our tale, and H. beamed,

and I had no heart to ask him about his day on the big ridge to the northwest. He saved me the trouble by saying he hadn’t seen hide, hoof or hair. It didn’t seem to bother him in the least. He spoke of the beauty of the long brown ridges, and never mentioned luck. We got a late lunch, and made it a kind of banquet. It was the last day of hunting.


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T hat afternoon Roy stayed in the cabin to pack up, and H. asked me to go with him for the last two hours of daylight. He knew I didn’t like to hunt alone. We took a canoe and crossed the lake

toward the great ridge beyond which vanishes the sun in fall. We hauled the canoe into the brush over the seawall and struck out afoot through the darkling cedars.

There’s something sobering about the last afternoon of the last day in camp. There are long-fingered shadows, and a hovering chill, which remind you that your freedom here is at an end. A hint of the first big snow loiters in the vault above, and on the deadwaters the black ice lies sinister. Another week, another day, and the forest will be smothered white and lonely in deep snow, without a man-track on its vastness. You long to stay, but may not. You want to desert, but something mocks you, daring you to stay and try your steel.

I could see H.’s breath puffing white over the shoulder of his faded hunting shirt. I could see the little white circle on the receiver of his rifle, where Roy had wound the sling ring with twine so that it wouldn’t jingle. H. tested the wind, looked at his compass, and jacked a cartridge into the chamber of his rifle. He let the hammer down to half-cock, and went on. I followed closely. H. could talk all he wished of cause and effect and Unity. But when a good hunter goes four years without one good chance, he’s under the spell of foul fortune.

We struck a key-road, long years abandoned by lumbermen, and turned north by west, upwind. There was ritual in this last short hour of hunting. I felt a faint shame at deserting the tired old forest just when winter was preparing a siege. I can see it all as plain as writing: a winding trail, interrupted by mouldering blowdowns, untracked by human feet. On one side the trail was flanked by a sepulchral cedar swamp extending back to the seawall; on the other by regiments of spruce and beech – the sloping forefoot of Duck Lake Mountain. Deep in here the sun had vanished, challenged and beaten by shadow – all except one urchin shaft of gold, which had tunneled a rift in the cedars. As I watched, the shaft appeared to flicker, and I stopped in my tracks. There was no wind to wave the dead ferns at the edge of the trail where the light had fallen!

H., too, saw the motion. His left hand stiffened toward me, commanding silence. We knelt there on a little knoll, and watched the most magnificent buck step into view. I suddenly remembered my dream of a buck in a key-road, and my scalp prickled. Could I have dreamed this creature into reality? He was near enough for me to count his points and guess a mammoth spread, and he stood so that the shaft of sunlight drew a gold halation around him.

H. brought his rifle to his shoulder, and I waited for the

report. Plenty of time – an easy, standing shot of less than 60 yards. My head was inches from H.’s right ear. “Go ahead and shoot!” I whispered.

H. lifted his cheek off the stock, looked long at the buck, and smiled. He brought the rifle into position again, and still the deer didn’t know we were there!

“Hurry!” I hissed, as quietly as possible. I was shaking, as Roy expresses it, like a chicken’s foot in the mud.

H. was grinning quite broadly now – and again he had taken the rifle from firing position. My heart whacked hard

against my ribs. I was panicky, then dumbfounded as H. let the hammer down to half cock, deliberately raised his right arm – and pointed his finger at the buck!

Oh vacant place above the chestnut mantel! Oh chance, Oh luck, beyond wildest imaginings! Who would have passed it up so serenely, but H.? The buck caught

the motion of H.’s arm in a flash. His head jerked toward us, high, startled, fine. We took each a breath-halting swallow of his majesty before he cleared an eight-foot blowdown and was gone, flying his flag in our faces!

“What the devil ails you, H.?” I cried. “You’ll never see another like that in a lifetime!”

“It was too far,” said H. softly.“It was an easy shot, and you know it!” I wanted to take off

my hat and jump on it.“I might have missed,” said H.“You couldn’t have missed!”“Well,” he chuckled, “I did!” “But, H.! He belonged over your fireplace.”“You know,” he said. “I’m not so sure. I think he belongs

right here – where he is. I simply couldn’t bear to change the picture of him here. I don’t know why. I never will – except that trophies at my age are not so much to brag about, as to remember by. And I’ll remember that old fellow, just as we saw him. Never fear.”

I understood. All I had to do was look around me at the darker twilight in the cedars, the sky at peace with everything under it, the gray moss bearding the trees with prehistoric gravity, the glow on the lake that lingered rather than depart. This was where the buck with the gold light over him belonged.

But I got a fine taxidermist to mount the head of my buck from the Second Chain burn, and I gave the mount to H. It hangs over his mantel in the dining room.

Editor’s Note: “Lo, the Long Brown Ridges” is from A Tomato Can Chronicle by Edmund Ware Smith, first published in 1937 and reprinted in 1991 by The Derrydale Press. This material is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Published by permission of The Derrydale Press.

A wonderful read from cover to cover, the ’91 reprint of A Tomato Can Chronicle is still available. To order, call 800-462-6420 or visit www.rlpgtrade.com.

I suddenly remembered my dream of a buck in a key-road, and my scalp prickled. Could I have dreamed this creature into reality?


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imber’s lovely, lively Model 84L Classic Select Grade, offered in calibers such as .270 Win. and .30-06 Spfd., weighs just 6 pounds, 2 ounces.

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ur mates are probably correct. We don’t need a new rifle. But that’s not the point. It’s not a question of need. It’s

fulfillment of desire. Some people enjoy model trains and golf. They don’t stop with one engine and one club. Bikers

don’t pedal the same Trek they bought 30 years ago. Rifles change, improve. We change with them.

B. Searcy & Co. Always expensive, complex and strong,

the 1879 Rigby/Bissel “rising bite” locking action for double rifles hasn’t been manufactured since 1920 – unless you count the sidelock .470 NE Butch Searcy built and displayed at the 2010 SCI show in Reno last January. The rifle sports a third fastener, a top bite that minimizes the effects of torque, which can eventually cause gapping between action face and barrel with high-pressure cartridges. The Bissel top bite provides lateral stability to prevent this. Searcy reverse engineered an original Rigby/Bissel to program his CAM machine for cutting the new action. The first rifle is being retained as a pattern, but the next one out of the blocks and for sale is a .450 NE. To follow will be custom orders in your choice of .375 H&H Flanged, .450 NE, .450/400 3-inch, .470 NE and .500 NE 3- and 3¼-inch. All rifles will feature monoblock construction, double triggers, non-automatic safety and ejectors, and 24- or 26-inch barrels. Chopper lump barrels available at additional charge.

Benelli. Winchester rifles got all the attention, but Colt also made lever-actions in the late 1800s. Well, one rifle. It was the 1879 patent Burgess Model 1883, quite good and quite similar to the Winchesters of the time. But only 6,400 were ever made. Until now. Benelli’s Uberti division now offers the M1883 Colt Burgess in

TrendsettersThe latest lineup of sporting rifles and ammo target hunters’ concerns for the ultimate in

accuracy and dependability.

TrendsettersThe latest lineup of sporting rifles and ammo targets hunters’ concerns for the ultimate in

accuracy and dependability.

By Ron SpomerO


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.45 Long Colt with 20- or 25.5-inch octagonal barrel, steel adjustable buckhorn rear sight, A-grade walnut stock and case-colored receiver. The magazine holds 10 or 13 rounds, based on barrel length. The rifles weigh 7.6 and 8.1 pounds.

It was rumored back in 1883 that Winchester threatened to build revolvers if Colt didn’t stop making lever actions, but it’s equally likely that Colt decided the lever market was saturated. Shortly after stopping production of the Burgess, it announced its slide-action Lightning rifle. Uberti builds new versions of those, too.

Also new is the reproduction M1871 Rolling Block first made by Remington in 1867. It’s referred to as the 1871, because that’s when Springfield began making them for the U.S. military. Uberti’s rifles are one-third smaller in size and weight than the originals, thanks to today’s better steels. The rifles are strong enough to use with today’s higher pressure, smokeless powder loads in .45-70, .30-30 and .38-55. The single-shot sports a case-colored receiver mated to a 20-inch round barrel and A-grade walnut stock. Weight is just 4.4 pounds!

Benelli’s new MR1, chambered in 5.56mm (.223 Rem.), features the ultra-reliable ARGO (Auto-Regulating-Gas-Operated) system. All steel parts are black phosphated, while aluminum parts are hard-anodized in a matte finish. The MR1 comes with a 5-round magazine, but it can accept standard M16/AR15 magazines. A Picatinny rail allows mounting of both conventional and night-vision sights.

Best of the West/Gunwerks. I thought Gunwerks’ shooting system was as gimmicky as its name when I first saw it in 2006. But it’s not. Those boys in Burlington, Wyoming, know their ballistics, rifles and ammunition. And they know how to make it all work

as a smooth unit in their long-range shooting system rifles and scopes. The flagship LR-1000 rifle is a complete shooting system with a custom-tuned, match grade, synthetic-stocked bolt action fitted with a Huskemaw 5-20X50mm scope with custom turret dials matched to the trajectory of that rifle/cartridge/bullet. The Gunwerks builders break in the barrels and gather actual ballistics/trajectory data in the field to create the custom BDC turrets to fit your handloads or their Long Range ammunition.

In addition to the LR-1000 rifles, there is the LR-Carbon version with carbon fiber barrel that knocks two pounds off overall weight. The LR-Rem. Shooting System starts with a Remington M700 action blueprinted and fitted with match barrel, trigger and H-S Precision stock. Coming soon: long-range rimfire rifle, Ultimate Lightweight Long Range rifle and even a 500-yard muzzleloader system.

Blaser/Sauer/Mauser. The R8 is the trendsetter at Blaser this year. It’s a beefed up, improved R-93 with some significant changes. We’ll be reviewing the rifle in detail soon, so we’ll keep this brief. The R8 has better lines, a stronger radial locking action, the same fast, straight pull and an increased modular design. The entire trigger group can be dropped out along with the magazine for easy loading and complete safety. And it’s an excellent, adjustable trigger that breaks crisply and consistently. A test model on hand is shooting ½ MOA with factory ammunition.

Sauer is singing the praises of its weatherproof S202 Yukon and Polar models. Both are based on the standard 202 six-lug, 60-degree-lift bolt action mated to 20- or 22-inch barrels, fluted or standard without open sights chambered in .270 Win., 7x64, .308 Win, .30-06, 8x57 and 9.3x62. The weatherproofing comes in the form of synthetic stocks and a unique Camoflon coating. This coating is sprayed on, then baked to an impervious hardness to protect the metal underneath. The stocks feature a Monte Carlo comb and anti-slip “Soft Touch” coating. Realtree AP and AP Snow are


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the two available patterns. If you’ve heard rumors that Mauser no longer even builds

rifles on the Mauser 98 action, forget them. The Mauser 98 is alive and well, just built with modern steels and modern machinery for better performance than ever. The M98s come in walnut and blued steel with three locking lugs (one at the rear below the bolt handle), 3-position wing safety, claw extractor, blade ejector, double square bridge and all the rest.

The reason the rumors began is because Mauser has been pushing its modern Model 03 action, a modular system in which barrels and bolt heads can easily be exchanged for increased versatility. A six-lug lock-up provides a short 60-degree bolt lift. A 2-position wing safety actually takes the rifle from uncocked to cocked status, so it’s more than a safety. The newest M 03 is the Extreme with plasma-nitrated steel mated to a high-density, shatter-free synthetic stock with stippled elastic inlays for a secure grip in any weather.

Browning. The company’s new X-Bolt line will be expanded with the White Gold model. It features a stainless steel receiver

rom top: Remington’s classic Model 700 CDL SF Limited Edition is chambered in .280 Rem. and features the X-Mark Pro adjustable trigger. • Sauer’s S202 Yukon can be ordered with either 20- or 22-inch barrels and Realtree’s AP pattern. • The White Gold, available in 14 different calibers, is the newest addition to Browning’s popular X-Bolt line. • Based on a Remington 700 SCRII action, Hill Country’s Harvester is fully accurized and is pillar and glass bedded. • Kilimanjaro chambers its new custom Doctari safari rifle in .416 Rigby, .450 Rigby, .458 Lott and .505 Gibbs. • Blaser’s R8 is a beefed up R-93 but with better lines and a stronger radial locking action. • Jarrett Rifles is offering its Windwalker and several other custom models in a new Tri-Lock left-hand version.

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with polished finish that will include scroll engraving on front and rear of the receiver. The barrel is also stainless steel with gloss finish and target crown. The Monte Carlo-style stock is gloss-finished, checkered walnut with rosewood fore-end grip and pistol grip cap. Available in 14 popular calibers from .243 Win. through .338 Win. Mag. and weighing from 6.5 to 7 pounds.

The X-Bolt hasn’t put its predecessor out to pasture by any means. It’s been 25 years since Browning unveiled the A-Bolt, so they’re celebrating with a limited number of commemorative 25th Anniversary A-Bolts adorned with a special engraving on the floorplate. A complete line of standard A-Bolts is still offered, with the newest being a sweet 5.5-pound Mountain Ti in Mossy Oak Break-Up camo over a Bell and Carlson synthetic stock covered in Dura-Touch armor coating. A stainless steel barrel on the titanium action makes this an ideal nasty weather tool. Available in seven calibers.

When it comes to modern lever-actions, Browning leads the field with its stacked magazine BLR series chambered for cartridges from .223 Rem. to .300 Win. Mag. This year the Lightweight ’81 Stainless Takedown model features an aircraft-grade alloy receiver in satin nickel finish matched to a matte-finished stainless steel barrel, and a satin finished, gray laminated stock. For traditionalists, there’s a walnut-stocked version. The rifles weigh from 6.5 to 7.7 ounces.

Detachable magazines hold four to five rounds, depending on caliber. The 20- to 24-inch barrels are fitted with Truglo/Marble’s fiber-optic sights. Receivers are ready for scope mounts.

Cooper Firearms. Within a relatively short two decades of existence, Cooper Firearms of Montana has established itself as one of the leaders in the design and production of exceptionally high-quality rifles. Located in the small western town of Stevensville, the company’s primary goal has always been to produce rifles that were pleasing to the eye, while being the most accurate production rifles in the U.S.

Their newest design is the Cooper Model 54 repeater, dedicated to the .243/22-250 family of cartridges. Chambered in .22-250, the rifle is styled along the lines of the Cooper Varminter.

After firing hundreds of rounds with his Model 54, international gunwriter Thomas C. Tabor wrote: “I have no hesitation in saying that this rifle is one of the best varmint rifles I have ever shot or owned.”

Empire Rifles. A custom maker of premium hunting rifles, Empire is

his Verney-Carron AZUR Eloge side-by-side, which was awaiting final touches at this writing, can be ordered with Damascus steel. • B. Searcy built this .470 NE sidelock using the Rigby/Bissel “rising bite” locking action.

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now offering the 99 Carbine, built with a reworked vintage Savage 99 lever action. It’s available in modern calibers, including .250-3000, 7mm-08, .308 and .338 Federal.

Empire cleans, polishes and trues each 99 action, then adds a beautiful stock handcrafted to your specifications. Empire Rifles has improved stock dimensions, raising the comb for proper sight alignment and enhanced aesthetics.

Standard features include deluxe walnut stock, cheekpiece with shadowline, 24 LPI checkering, match grade barrel, weatherproof coating on metal and case-colored lever. Options include different sights, bluing and engraving. All 99 Carbines are guaranteed to place three shots of factory hunting ammo under 1 inch at 100 yards.

Griffin & Howe. Steeped in history and tradition, Griffin & Howe’s custom rifle designs have proven to be the industry standard for the past 87 years. Last year’s creation, No. 2381, was unveiled – and quickly purchased – at the Dallas Safari Club exhibition.

Griffin & Howe’s newest rifle will be built on an original Mauser-Werke A:G Oberndorf action in .250 Savage. No. 2382 will debut at the Dallas Safari Club show on January 6. Like its predecessors, the rifle will showcase the talents of

artisans who are proud of their long association with the iconic company.

The new rifle will have a meticulously fitted 22-inch Douglas premium barrel, hand-stippled G&H ¼ rib, and one standing, two folding leaf express sights regulated to 100, 200 and 300 yards. Other features include: barrel band, banded ramp front sight with hood, quick-release trigger guard, polished slow rust bluing, burnished bolt knob follower, raceway pistol grip cap and G&H Quick Detachable mount. The classic stock will be fine walnut with a cheekpiece, Best London oil finish and 22 lines-per-inch checkering. The G&H checkered 5-panel bolt knob will be beautifully engraved with rose petals and the fore-end will be ebony-tipped. The buyer will have his choice of scope.

Henry Repeating Arms. In honor of America’s servicemen and women, Henry is offering the commemorative Golden Boy “Military Service” Tribute Edition. This beautiful, heirloom-quality rifle features a polished nickel-plated receiver adorned with deeply etched, patriotically themed scrollwork. The right side showcases intricate scrolling and the American bald eagle in 24-karat gold as well as a shield bearing the inscription: “In Recognition of Military Service to

Our Great Country.” The left side is embellished with the Statue of

Liberty and the Liberty Bell, also in gold. The Stars and

Stripes and a golden banner with the words “God

Bless America” are laser etched into

estley Richards has introduced this .577 3-inch to its line of double rifles. Already available are .470 and .500 3-inch. • Krieghoff’s new Essencia single-shot features a lovely case-color hardened finish and fine Turkish walnut.

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BOGgear 1-3 vert for Sporting Classics.indd 1 5/20/10 3:39:24 PM

the American walnut stock and hand-painted in brilliant red, white and blue. The seals of the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard are inscribed into the forearm and hand-painted with gold fill. The 6 ¾-pound rifle is designed for .22 Short, Long and Long Rifle.

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of each rifle will be donated to the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Wounded Warrior Project and the Fisher House for military families.

Hill Country Rifles. Wood-stocked rifles, synthetic-stocked rifles, fully custom rifles, accurizing services – for 60 years Hill Country Rifles has done it all, and they aren’t slowing down. You need a trigger tuned, a new stock, muzzlebrake, blueprinting job or an entire custom rifle, their talented smiths can do it.

For 2010, Hill Country has expanded its economical Harvester lineup to include sporting, tactical and dangerous game rifles. The Harvester rifle combines factory-barreled actions with a wide range of McMillan stocks. The rifle is based on a Remington 700 XCRII with a rust-proof black Trynite metal finish. It’s fully accurized, with aluminum pillar and glass bedding, 3.0-pound trigger, barrel break-in, and is guaranteed to shoot 3-shot, sub-inch groups at 100 yards with factory ammunition. At $1,895, the Harvester delivers custom rifle accuracy at a more economical cost.

Holland & Holland. You have to look long and hard to find a cartridge that has spawned more offshoots then the .375 H&H.

From it have come the .264, .300 and .338 Winchester Magnums; 6.5, 7mm and .350 Remington Magnums, many of the Weatherby Magnums and more. Not bad progeny for a cartridge born in 1912.

To commemorate this venerable round, H&H is offering its “1912-2012 Centenary Model” limited-edition bolt-action rifle series, serial numbers 4901-4925. These will be takedown models built on the Mauser 98-style action with 3-position wing safety, H&H trigger, 24-inch barrels with ¾ Spearpoint Rib and fore-sight block with folding protector. The rear sight will be a fixed blade for 100 yards and two folding leaves for 200 and 300 yards. Stocks will be carved from deluxe grade walnut with classic grip and ebony fore-end tip. The Spearpoint block and barrel will be engraved with deluxe fine scroll and the Holland & Holland name and address, caliber, and a brief description of the commemorative rifle, all inlaid in gold. The serial number will also be inlaid with gold on the trigger guard, and the rear sights will feature inlaid gold pyramid aiming points. The entire rifle will be presented in a traditional dark brown oak and leather case complete with H&H cleaning tools.

Jarrett Rifles. The smooth, quick Jarrett Tri-Lock receiver/actions are now being offered in a “mirror image” left-hand version, including left-hand cocking shroud threads for smooth cocking and de-cocking. Southpaws can now enjoy the superior design, materials and workmanship of a Jarrett Tri-Lock bolt-action with its 60-degree bolt throw. Three lugs make the short throw possible. The new left-handed Tri-Locks can be had on all Signature, RidgeWalker, WindWalker and Professional Hunter rifles, and all come with the Jarrett guarantee: Inspect and use the rifle for 30 days. If not pleased, return for a full refund.

rom top: Turnbull Manufacturing Co. restored this exquisite Winchester Model 1886, which showcases the original #6 factory engraving pattern. • Henry Repeating Arms is offering this stunning Golden Boy “Military Service” Tribute Edition rifle with gold inlays. • Benelli’s Uberti Division chambers its new M1871 Rolling Block in .45-70, .30-30 and .38-55. • Rossi’s new .30-30 Rio Grande features authentic buckhorn sights.

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izzini USA builds its new Express 90L from high-tensile steel that can withstand the pressures of modern cartridges. • The new Mauser M 03 “Big Five” is decorated with arabesque engravings on the action and with beautifully engraved dangerous game animals on the floorplate.

Kilimanjaro. Since taking over Serengeti Rifles and changing the name to Kilimanjaro, President Erik Eike remains committed to producing the finest custom rifles possible, and he has the same laminated Stealth Stock technology that made Serengeti rifles so strong, gorgeous and dependable. Completely new is the Doctari, the ultimate safari rifle with stock geometry by Kevin “Doctari” Robertson of Africa. It’s chambered in .416 Rigby, .450 Rigby, .458 Lott and .505 Gibbs. Meanwhile, progress continues on Kilimanjaro’s new proprietary bolt actions expected to be officially released at the 2011 SHOT and SCI shows. Stay tuned.

Kimber. Elegant, lovely, trim, lively. Take your pick when describing the new Kimber Model 84L. At a mere 6 pounds, 2 ounces, this is no stub of a rifle, but a full, 24-inch barreled shooter in .270 Win. or .30-06. That long tube twists extra feet-per-second from every round. Beautiful, but not extravagant, straight-grained, hand-rubbed oil-finished AA-grade French walnut in the Classic Select Grade with ebony fore-end tip and 20 LPI hand-cut checkering contrast with the matte blued barrel-action to make this one of those instant classics. Most impressive to this reviewer was the rifle’s balance and feel. It carries easily, rises to the shoulder naturally and points effortlessly. And you give up nothing in firepower. The staggered magazine holds five rounds.

Like all Kimber M84s, it has the controlled-round feed action with the big Mauser-style claw extractor and fixed blade ejector, 3-position wing safety, aluminum pillar and glass bedding, and free-floating match barrels. The straight stock lines and 1-inch Pachmayr Decelerator pad tame recoil beautifully, even with full-house 180-grain .30-06 loads.

Krieghoff. Single-shot rifles may never replace repeaters on the pop charts – except in the hearts of those who’ve tried them. Something about the simplicity, elegance and challenge of the single-shot rifle makes them beloved of discerning shooters and consummate game-stalkers. A perfect, one-shot kill is their goal, and the single-shot rifle is their badge of commitment.

The new Essencia Single-shot combines tradition, elegance and premium quality in a break-action rifle. Designed on the elegant Essencia Genuine 28-gauge frame, the newest addition to Krieghoff’s Hunting Gun line features distinctive fine English scroll engraving on a lovely case-colored hardened finish.

Lightweight and sleek, the Essencia features sidelock construction and an octagonal barrel. It’s available in standard calibers ranging from .22-250 Rem. to .30-06 and European calibers ranging from 6.5x65R to 9.3x74R. Stocked with fine Turkish walnut with cheekpiece and splinter Schnabel fore-end, this elegant beauty makes a fine addition to any gun collection.

Legacy Sports. Dangerous game rifles haven’t traditionally been available at entry-level prices, but the Howa/Hogue .375 Ruger Rifle is. Just $550 gets you a basic, blued chromoly barrel M1500 with push-feed action with 20- or 24-inch barrel chambered for Ruger’s standard-length answer to the .375 H&H Magnum. A stainless steel barrel pushes the price up $100. The rifle’s .30-06-length action easily handles this nifty new round, which duplicates or slightly exceeds .375 H&H performance. The rifle comes drilled and tapped for scope-mounting, but also sports Hi-Vis No. 3 rear and front sights. The substantial stock comes in black or green, both with that famous Hogue non-slip grip. The rifles have already been proven on North American bison and elk.

Replacing the old TH Varminter Supreme is the Howa Thumbhole Varminter. This is the M1500 barreled action set in an S&K Gunstocks laminated,

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skeletonized thumbhole stock with wide, flat fore-end and two front studs for attaching both sling and bipod. Barrels are 24 inches, chromoly or stainless steel in .204 Ruger, .223 Rem., .22-.250 Rem., .243 Win. and .308 Win. A skeletonized thumbhole with more traditional fore-end is mated to a sporter-weight barreled action in the new 8-pound Thumbhole Sporter models. Available in 13 calibers.

Mossberg. Mossberg has been doing well with its 4x4 and 100ATR bolt-action rifles. This year they should do even better because they’re offering fluted barrels, muzzlebrakes and three new WSM calibers: .270, 7mm and .300 Winchester Short Magnum. The fluted and braked barrels are available on most models, but the short-mag. chamberings are limited to a few Sculpted Stock and Skeletonized Stock models. The rifles weigh between 6.75 and 7 pounds, and barrels run 22 or 24 inches. All are come with Weaver-Style scope mount bases and the excellent LBA adjustable trigger. Four-by-four models use a detachable box magazine and ATR models a blind magazine.

Remington. The new Model 700 CDL SF Limited Edition in .280 Remington isn’t in keeping with today’s fashion for high tech and “tactical” everything, but it is in keeping with classic bolt-action design, slightly updated for performance, rather than cosmetics. The rifle consists of a classically shaped, satin-finished walnut stock with tasteful checkering, ebony fore-end and hinged floorplate. The stainless steel, fluted barrel and X-Mark Pro adjustable trigger are Remington’s nod to modernity. Everything else is pretty much classic Remington M700. The magazine holds three rounds of one of the most efficient 7mm cartridges ever produced, and the 24-inch barrel will wring out virtually all of its velocity potential.

Another Remington newcomer is the Model 700 XCR II, an upgrade on the original XCR. Again, here is the venerable M700 action, the X-Mark Pro trigger, the hinged floorplate magazine and everything else you expect in a M700, but the barreled action is treated with Big Green’s proprietary TriNyte Corrosion Control System. This means the already weather-resistant, stainless steel action and barrel are further protected by a matte black TriNyte finish. Not only does this dull the stainless flash, but actually exceeds its corrosion and scratch resistance. Fittingly, this is all screwed to a synthetic O.D. green stock with Hogue over-molding grips. The rifles are chambered for a wide range of cartridges, from .25-06 Rem.

mpire Rifles builds its new 99 Carbine on a reworked vintage Savage 99 lever action. It’s available in several modern calibers.

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riffin & Howe’s No. 2381 (top) earned rave reviews at last year’s Dallas Safari Club show. This year’s custom rifle, No. 2382, was still in the white when this issue went to press. It’s built on an original Mauser-Werke A:G Oberndorf action and features a 22-inch Douglas premium barrel with one standing and two folding leaf express sights.

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through .375 Rem. Ultra Mag. My third pick of the litter is the M700 VTR A-TACS with

its unique camo pattern and wild triangular barrel. The barrel is reportedly as stiff as standard barrels, but lighter. An integral, top-venting brake minimizes muzzle jump of the 22-inch barrel in .223 Rem. and .308 Win. The synthetic stock has the wide, flat fore-end with cooling vents and two swivel mounts.

Rizzini USA. The new Express 90L rifle is made from high-tensile steel designed to withstand the pressures of modern cartridges. Hand-finished and properly regulated, the rifle features a stock of select European walnut with a shadow cheekpiece and barrels that are drilled and tapped for scope mounts. The 90L, which has a single trigger, automatic ejectors, a rubber recoil pad and pierced top lever, comes in 7x65 R, 8x57 JRS, 9.3x74 R, .30-06, .308 Win, .444 Marlin and .30 R Blaser.

Backed by more than 30 years of experience, B. Rizzini USA builds every gun part to withstand the most demanding hunting situations.

Rossi. The Winchester Model 92 lives again at Rossi in a variety of styles and finishes. The sweet-handling lever actions are offered in walnut with blued steel action/barrel or stainless action/barrel. All butts are crescent and capped with a steel plate. Ramped rear and blade front sights are standard, but barrels come in 16 or 20 inches for quick work in heavy cover. Calibers include .38/.357, .44 Rem. Mag., .45 Colt, .44-40 Win. and .454 Casull. The big Casull features an optional magazine-tube loading port and a recoil pad.

New this year is Rossi’s high-performance Rio Grande in .30-30 Win., a 6+1 lever action with authentic buckhorn sights and a beautiful hardwood finish. The rifle’s side ejection port allows the scope to be mounted in the natural position, and the scope mount base and hammer extension are included. These hand-


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assembled and tuned rifles are available in deep blue or polished stainless steel, in addition to Realtree APG HD camo.

The company is now offering a free one-year NRA Junior Membership with the purchase of any Rossi youth model.

Savage. Savage continues to release more rifles in its revolutionary AccuStock handles. This year a 9-pound varmint rifle, the Model 12 FCV in .204 Ruger, .223 Remington and .22-250 Remington, all with 22-inch, heavy-contour barrels, rides the impressive AccuStock. What makes it accurate is a wedge that tightens the recoil lug into an aluminum rail embedded the length of the fore-end of the synthetic stock. The barrel itself is free floating. The wedge tightens the barreled action consistently in all directions, not just up and down as in traditional recoil/action bolts. The M12 FCV also uses the superb AccuTrigger, which can be user-adjusted down to as little as 6 ounces in target models.

The Model 10 Predator is now offered in an AccuStock, Accutrigger, short action, detachable magazine format with Advantage Max 1 synthetic stock and medium-contour, fluted, 22 inch barrel.

For some serious, long-range fun, try the new M110 BA in the Law Enforcement series. Chambered in .300 Win. Mag. and .338 Lapua, this is one big, clunky, ugly rifle – until you shoot it. Then it performs beautifully. Adjustable butt and comb, extended pistol grip, 5-round detachable magazine, all-aluminum AccuStock, AccuTrigger and enough Picatinny rails to build a model railroad. This is your rifle for 1,000-yard targets.

If you’re into rimfires and racy stocks, check out the Mark II BSEV with its wild, parti-colored laminated stock and fluted stainless barrel in .22 LR. The Model 93 is its spittin’ image in .22 Magnum.

Turnbull Manufacturing Co. Something different has always been the way, the truth and the life at Doug Turnbull Restoration Inc., which recently changed its name as above. Rather than build from scratch, Doug and his crew painstakingly restore classics, especially lever actions, to better-than-new quality. To see a fully turned out Turnbull lever action is to behold the pinnacle of lever-


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rifle creation. They look better than they work and they work to perfection. This year they begin “Extreme Makovers” of recent vintage USRAC M92 lever guns, just as they did with the M86 last year. They’ll use original Winchester Highly Finished Arms engraving patterns. See ’em to believe ’em.

Verney-Carron. The oldest gunmaker in France continues to expand and improve its line of made-to order-rifles with new calibers, actions and expanded options.

New calibers include the .303 British and the innovative .375R Verney-Carron for SXS Safari series rifles. The .375R V-C offers improved extraction/ejection with a rimmed case, and significantly improves both velocity and energy when compared with the rimless, belted .375 H&H case. The SX line of over-and-under rifles will also be offered in .450-400 3-inch NE.

A set trigger and a stalking/bolted safety can now be special-ordered for the AZUR Model SXS rifle. Modern Damascus steel, combining both beauty

and strength is available.Verney-Carron’s new bolt-action

Safari rifle can be ordered in .416 Rigby and other calibers on request. Made of the finest modern materials, the rifle replicates the pre-war Mauser double square bridge action that over time has become the standard that other bolt action systems are measured against.

The AZUR triple lock action is now available in a traditional single-shot, break-action stalking rifle. It’s offered with a traditional safety with ejector, or with extractors and a manual cocking device located on the top tang, in the position usually occupied by a conventional safety.

Westley Richards. New this year are the first of the .470 NE sidelock ejector double rifles. These incorporate Westley Richards’ distinctive lever work and model C Doll’s head top fastener. All the desired features of a heavy-recoiling double rifle are included: intercepting safeties, articulated front trigger, selective ejectors and standing express sight with one folding leaf regulated at 50/100 yards. The fore-end is attached via a Deeley catch. As one would expect from a “Best” sidelock double rifle, these will feature deluxe wood, fine scroll engraving, extended top strap and that famous Westley Richards double gun accuracy. Calibers up to .600 NE. are optional.

Also new is a fixed lock double rifle in .577 with 3-inch chambering. These less expensive fixed locks still have selective ejectors, Deely fore-end attachment, express sights with one folding leaf and many options, but the actions do not include intercepting safeties nor articulated front trigger.

Winchester Repeating Arms. The line of “new” Model 70s has grown

with the addition of the Safari Express rifle in .375 H&H, .416 Remington Magnum and .458 Winchester Magnum. This is essentially the Model 70 that made the .458 Win. Mag. the most widely used dangerous game round in the world after its introduction in 1956.

The matte blued, 24-inch barrel sports a front band swivel mount; ramped, hooded front sight; block rear express sight; and a secondary recoil lug under the sight. Both the barrel lug and


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wift has created a colorful package design for its A-Frame bullets that compliments the blue-and-silver graphics on Scirocco boxes. S he Federal Premium line now includes Trophy Bonded

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action recoil lug are bedded in fiberglass/epoxy. The satin-finished walnut stock has a high, straight comb, cheekpiece, black Pachmayr Decelerator recoil pad, one-piece steel floorplate/trigger bow, and two crossbolts for additional strength. I see only two things on the new M70s that are significantly different from the pre-64s: the adjustable M.O.A. trigger and better overall quality. This is everything one needs in a dangerous game bolt-action.

Other big news is the return of the lever actions, specifically the Model 94, Model 1895 and Model 1886. The M94, the most popular rifle in history, is offered in two Limited Edition models that commemorate the 200th anniversary of Oliver F.

Winchester’s birth in New England in 1810. A Model 1894 Custom Grade and Model 1894 High Grade will be offered in .30-30 Winchester. Both models will have full engraving on receivers, 24-inch half-round, half-octagon deeply blued barrels and high-grade walnut stocks. Only 500 Custom Grade rifles in sets with the High Grade model will be offered. A limited quantity of High Grade models will be sold individually.

The M1895 Grade I lever action with 24-inch barrel will be offered in .405 Win., .30-06 Springfield and .30-40 Krag. The Model 1886 Extra Light Grade I lever action will be offered in .45-70 Govt. with a 22-inch barrel.

AMMUNITIONBarnes. Long a purveyor of deadly and dependable big game, dangerous game and varmint bullets, Barnes just announced it will now sell its own loaded ammunition, the VOR-TX line featuring Barnes Triple Shock, Tipped Triple Shock and Triple Shock Flat Nose bullets. At least that’s all for this year. It seems only natural that the company’s various other bullets, from Varmint Grenades to Banded Solids, will soon follow. Watch for VOR-TX ammo in gold and bronze boxes on dealer shelves. You should find it in several popular cartridges from .223 Rem. through .338 Win. Mag.

Federal. We’ll give Federal our “most visually disturbing catalog” award for the decade. Tiny lettering on a variably black background intersected with endless avenues of white dots makes it challenging to find anything. But we’ve mucked through for you, gentle reader, and discovered they’ve improved lots of dangerous game bullets and loads.

First, the Trophy Bonded Bear Claw has been graced with pressure relief grooves, nickel plating and an improved manufacturing process that enhances accuracy. The Trophy Bonded Sledgehammer Solid got similar treatment minus the nickel plating. Look for both new bullets across the Cape-Shok line. Also, the proven Swift A-Frame has been added to the line in .370 Sako Magnum through .500 Nitro Express. Barnes Triple Shock X-Bullets now ride atop 9.3x62 Mauser, 9.3x74R, .470 NE and .500 NE loads. Finally, in an impressive effort to provide for the Africa hunter, there are nine dangerous game loads now topped with the Barnes Banded Solid.

At the other end of the spectrum, there is a 50-grain Sierra BlitzKing load in .220 Swift and non-leaded TNT Green bullets atop a .204 Ruger and .22 Hornet. The excellent Trophy Bonded Tip bullet in 140 grain and 160 grain now rides atop 7mm Rem. Mag., 7mm STW and 7mm WSM loads. The .22-250 Rem.

becomes an even deadlier deer round with the 50-grain Barnes Triple Shock X-Bullet, and the 6.5x55 Swedish picks up speed and accuracy with Sierra MatchKing BTHP bullets in 93 and 123 grains. Finally, there’s a 250-grain MatchKing aboard a .338 Lapua, the current darling of extreme range shooting. I believe this is the first .338 Lapua offering from Federal, but it won’t be the last.

Hornady. Well, what do you know. It is rocket science after all. In their clever ads, Hornady claims the gains in velocity they’ve made with their new Superformance ammunition is rocket science. Thanks to a new blend of Superformance powders, they’ve increased velocities 100 to 200 fps over conventional ammunition. And without increasing felt recoil. Personally, I doubt I could feel any recoil difference from an additional 200 fps. But that’s okay. It’s the velocity I’d be after. Increase a .30-06 by 200 fps and you’re approaching the performance of a .300 Win. Mag. Superformance ammo is reportedly temperature insensitive. The ammunition showed consistent velocities in temperatures from minus 15 to 140 degrees F, and that’s a useful attribute. Packaged in colorful red boxes, Superformance ammunition can be found in a wide variety of cartridges from .243 Win. through .338 Win. Mag.

To meet the demands of handloaders, Hornady has added four more component bullets to its GMX (Gilding Metal eXpanding) line. They include: 6mm, 80 grains; .25 caliber, 110 grains; 6.5mm, 120 grains; and .338, 185 grains. Gilding Metal is harder and tougher than solid copper and does not foul or increase pressure. Hornady engineers designed the GMX to perform across a wide range of velocities, from 2000 fps to 3400 fps. The bullets expand to 1.5 times their original diameter and retain 95 percent of their original weight.

InterLock and FMJ (Full Metal Jacket) bullets have reached legendary status among safari hunters, but that hasn’t stopped Hornady from raising the bar again. Their new DGS (Dangerous


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Game Solid) and DGX (Dangerous Game eXpanding) bullets are made with a hard lead/antimony alloy cone surrounded by a copper clad steel jacket. The bullets feature a flat meplat for straighter penetration and create more energy transfer than a simple round profile bullet. Calibers range from .375 on up to .500.

Hornady’s Dangerous Game Series includes the 270-grain InterLock Spire Point-Recoil Proof, as well as the new DGS and DGX bullets. Meticulous attention was devoted to ensure that DGS ammunition like the .450/400 Nitro Express 3-inch and .450 Nitro Express 3 1/4-inch regulate properly in both classic doubles and in newer rifles.

Remington. As the country’s number one seller of ammunition, Remington doesn’t seem to need new stuff, but creates it nonetheless. This year they’ve added several loads to the Premier Copper-Solid (really a tipped, hollow-point, all-copper bullet). They include: .30-30 Win., 150 grains; .30-06, 165 grains; .300 Win. Mag., 165 grains; and .300 Rem. Ultra Mag. 165 grains.

AR rifle shooters get a fourth load for the newest .30 caliber on the block. A 150-grain Core-Lokt pointed spire point is now available in the .30 Remington AR cartridge. It should start life at 2,575 fps, right between the .30-30 Win. and .308 Win.

Finally, in their efforts to supply shooters with an ever-widening selection of cartridges, Remington now loads the .338 Marlin with a 250-grain softpoint and the .450 Bushmaster with a thumping 260-grain AccuTip.

Sierra. No new bullets from Sierra this year, but they’ve got a hot new Infinity Mobile Version 1 ballistic software program out that works on handheld computers using Windows Mobile Operating system, version 5.0 and higher. In case you’re still shooting in the dark ages, our high tech, long-range tactical shooters now use computer number crunching to compute hold-over and windage compensation based on distance to target, angle, temperature, humidity level, altitude, wind direction and speed. There may or may not be corrections for the Coriolis Effect and gyroscopic drift. In short, with this Sierra software one of those new mini-computer cell phones does the hard mental work for you while you concentrate on good form.

Swift Bullets. The innovative bullet company from out on the Kansas prairie has introduced new packaging and graphics

for its popular A-Frame line. The new red and gold graphics are compatible with the Scirocco in blue and silver.

For this year, Swift has introduced a 9.3 caliber in 286 grains, a .500 in 570 grains and a .505 Gibbs also in 570. Federal Cartridge Company will load from 9.3 through .500 in its Vital Shock line of ammunition.

Swift now has a full line of Heavy Revolver hunting bullets in A-Frame Bonded. This year they’ve introduced a .357 in 158 and 180 grains, a .41 caliber in 210, and a .500 caliber in 325. These bullets, in addition to the .44s and .45s already being manufactured, round out the full Heavy Revolver Line. Federal is loading all of these bullets in their Vital Shock line.

The company is also offering two new Sciroccos: a 6mm or .243 diameter 90-grain and a .338 in 210 grain. The computer-designed shape of the .243 includes a boat tail base, long frontal profile and pointed tip that pierces the air at high velocity. Wind deflection is hardly a factor, because the bullet gets down range in a short flight time.

The new .338 can enhance the long range, game-taking ability of the .338 Win. Mag., .338 Ultra Mag. and .340 Weatherby. Its lead core is welded to a thick jacket wall by a proprietary bonding process. This thick base also assures that the bullet will withstand the high-pressure thrust and acceleration from big-cased and high-intensity cartridges without excessive deformation. At the same time, the polymer tip and jacket design assure positive expansion at extreme range.

Winchester. Big Red follows up last year’s release of the Power Max Bonded bullet with additional loadings. New are Power Max Bonded ammunition in .243 Win., 7mm Rem. Mag., 7mm WSM, .30-06, .300 WSM and .300 Win. Mag. Its Pointed Hollow Point has a lead core welded to the jacket for controlled expansion and excellent weight retention.

In varmint ammo, look for new Lead Free Ballistic Silvertips. These are like the lead-core BTs built by Nosler, except the core is compressed copper particles that explode from the thin jacket on impact. They’re offered in .223 Rem. and .22-250 Rem.

ornady’s new Superformance powders increase bullet velocities by 100 to 200 fps over conventional ammunition, but without increasing felt recoil.

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The Traveling SporTSman

Gamebirds &Gundogs

Gamebirds &Gundogs

The Traveling SporTSmanThe Traveling SporTSmanLODGES, GUIDES & OUTFITTERS

S p o r T i n g C l a S S i C S

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group limit of mallards. New for the 2009-2010 season are

pheasant tower shoots for groups of 10 to 20 people, to create another unforgettable experience!

Unmatched pheasant, chukar, Hungarian partridge, wild turkey, doves, trophy whitetails and catch-and-release bass fishing are available. Call toll free, (888) 875-3000, or visit www.deercreeklodge.net.

Joshua Creek RanchJoshua Creek Ranch recently

earned the designation as a Beretta Trident Lodge for excellence in upland bird hunting. The Beretta Trident affiliation ensures the shooting sportsman that the lodges receiving “Tridents” are the very best venues for high-quality hunting experiences.

Located in the beautiful Texas Hill Country, Joshua Creek Ranch is nestled on an isolated stretch of the pristine Guadalupe River – a mere 40 minutes northwest of San Antonio. The ranch’s diverse terrain is perfect habitat for the

ine Hill Plantation’s mule-drawn wagon rolls through the longleaf pine forest.P

Pine Hill PlantationIf quail hunting is anything, it is

driven by tradition. And for those who believe in traditions, there is only one way to hunt quail . . . from horseback and mule-drawn wagon. Quail hunting from horseback is as deeply imbedded in the Southern plantation psyche as grits and cornbread, and the mule-drawn wagon is an iconic symbol of the grand plantation bird-hunting experience. With extensive habitat management on more than 6,000 acres of longleaf pine forest, coveys of quail flush as wild as they did in the golden days of vintage Georgia bobwhite hunting.

Groups can enjoy the comfort of their own lodge with their own personal house staff. With its timeless Southern style, private lodges, genteel decor and traditional horseback and mule-drawn wagon hunt, Pine Hill Plantation is south Georgia’s finest vintage quail hunting destination. Call (229) 758-2464 or visit www.pinehillplantation.com.

lhew Barningham recently produced five beautiful pups. E

Elhew KennelsThe excitement level at Elhew

Kennels is very high right now, with three great litters this spring and summer, one of which was sired by Elhew Snakefoot.

Through frozen sperm, we were able to breed Elhew Barningham and she produced five beautiful pups; four females and one male. Martha and I will be taking a long look at this litter.

We are planning to upgrade our Web site, www.elhewkennels.org, with pictures of new sires and dams in the near future. Please be patient with me, because I am being dragged into the 21st century kicking and screaming.

As always, visitors are welcome. Just let us know when you will be in the area. Thank you. Call (508) 393-9238 or visit www.elhewkennels.org.

Deer Creek LodgeEstablished in 1978, Deer Creek

is widely recognized as the highest volume, one-fee wingshooting operation in the nation. Guests can expect opportunities at upwards of 200 quail per day or opt to substitute a morning or afternoon of upland birds for a 25-bird

uests at Deer Creek Lodge can enjoy rustic elegance and exceptional comfort.

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oshua Creek Ranch offers superb hunting near the Guadalupe River in the Texas Hill Country.

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best quail hunting in Texas, with the added bonus of pheasant and partridge.

Joshua Creek offers walk-up hunts behind exceptional pointing and flushing dogs with experienced, professional guides in addition to continental shoots or European-style driven pheasant shoots. Hunting enthusiasts can also enjoy fly fishing for trout and gunning on three automatic, state-of-the-art clay-shooting courses. Gourmet dining and lodging with spectacular views top off the ultimate outdoor experience at Joshua Creek Ranch, celebrating 20 years of superior service to sportsmen. Call (830) 537-5090 or visit www.joshuacreek.com.

The Sawbriar The Sawbriar provides an unsurpassed

wingshooting experience for the discriminating sportsman in the heart of Tennessee’s Upper Cumberland Plateau. Hunting bobwhite quail and pheasants over world-class pointers and retrievers, or enjoy one of our English-style tower shoots, all in Tennessee’s most intensively managed upland habitat.

We’re located adjacent to the 125,000-acre Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, so activities

abound for non-hunting guests as well. The collaboration of lifelong friends and wildlife biologists Dr. Frederick Moody and John Burrell, The Sawbriar is a meticulously developed shooting property specifically designed for the shotgunner. Their shared love for the covey rise, the cackle of a big rooster pheasant and the point of a classy bird dog – all consistently guided their single-minded efforts to develop a truly world-class sporting destination.

Contact The Sawbriar at (800) 999-7180; www.sawbriarhunting.com.

The High Lonesome RanchThe High Lonesome Ranch sits in

a fertile valley on the Western Slope of the Colorado Rockies. With more than 300 square miles of deeded and permitted access, the ranch is a half-hour drive from Grand Junction’s Walker Field Airport.

Hunt wheat and rye fields, creek bottoms, and sage and oak-brush flats for five species of wild and early release gamebirds. In addition to pheasant,

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icole Whitelaw and Maggie are all set for a day of quail shooting at The Sawbriar in Tennessee’s Upper Cumberland Plateau.

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chukar and Hungarian partridge, you’ll also find scaled and Gambel’s quail.

The kennel at The High Lonesome Ranch is home of nationally renowned Brett and Robbie Arnold’s High Country Sporting Dogs’ training program. Dog training and handling workshops are conducted in winter, spring and fall for dogs and handlers of all abilities.

All hunting guides are NSCA Level 1 certified shooting instructors. Pre-hunt warm-ups are at the Five Stand, Pheasant Walk, Quail Walk or Flurry shooting courses. Take advantage of our popular fall cast-and-blast, spring turkey trout, or summer fish and chips (fishing and golf) packages. Shotgun rentals are available.

The master suites have private bathrooms, and the ranch offers a state-of-the-art conference center. Non-hunting guests can enjoy horseback riding, hiking and mountain biking among other activities. Our award-winning chef prepares contemporary ranch cuisine each evening and pairs entrees with an appropriate selection of local wines. Airport pickups can be arranged. Call (970) 283-9420 or visit www.thehighlonesomeranch.com.


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pair of high-tailed pointers pin down yet a nother covey of birds at High Lonesome Ranch.

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Sarahsetter KennelsSarahsetter Kennels, located in

Aiken, South Carolina, was founded on rare principles back in 1991 – to train dogs without the use of punishment by using behavioral training methods, including positive and negative reinforcement. Mark Fulmer founded Sarahsetter kennels and has worked to find new and exciting ways to develop and train very young puppies to become great dogs.

Sarahsetter’s Progressive Early Natural Development (S.P.E.N.D.) program for puppies is unparalleled in the sporting dog world. Research into the early development of children and animals has made tremendous advances in recent years, and Mark is constantly searching for new research to build on this amazing program. Sarahsetter Kennels’ goals are to breed highly intelligent bird dogs through intensive management of the mother and puppies’ environmental and nutritional influencers.

We have taken advantage of this research to produce the best birddog puppies available anywhere in the world. All Sarahsetter puppies at 12 weeks point and back in the field, and most retrieve. They know their names, simple commands and how to walk on a lead without pulling.

Sarahsetter kennels will always be looking for innovative ways to make it easier for your dog to learn and retain his training. Call (803) 649-6492 or visit www.sarahsetter.com.

Where 44 years of Experience combined with Perfection produces Top Quality Gun Dogs. We offer The Best in Training and care of your dog. We train all pointers and retrieving breeds.

Davis’ Five Star KennelsContact: Bob E. Davis • 8253 N. Nason Lane, Mt. Vernon, IL 62864 (618) 242-3409

Davis’ Five Star Kennels arahsetter Kennels uses the latest research to train dogs without using punishment. S

www.sarahsetter.com • 803 649-6492 • Aiken, SC

Sarahsetter KennelsThe Behavioral Trainer • Training all Breeds • English Setters • Boykin Spaniels • Red Setters

Fall Puppies

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• Retriever training for upland game birds, waterfowl and hunt tests• Convenient Midwest location with airport service available• Excellent kennel facilities

Pleasant Hill RetrieversContact: Gene & Mary Jane Deutsch(H) 812-985-0006 (C) 812- 457-0784 e-mail: [email protected] www.phrdogs.com

Pleasant Hill Retrievers unters at Burnt Pine can expect great dog-work and plenty of wingshooting fun.

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Burnt Pine PlantationGeorgia is famous for quail, and

at Burnt Pine Plantation you will experience quail hunting at its finest. With more than 4,000 acres of planted and natural cover, there is plenty of bird-hunting habitat and outstanding wingshooting action. Supplemental stocking assures several large covey rises on each hunt. In addition to quail, pheasants and chukar are available.

Our new 13,000-square-foot lodge, with 12 in-suite rooms, houses up to 24 guests in relaxing comfort. Burnt Pine is a complete up-market package with gracious hospitality and gourmet food to match the excellent hunting.

When you combine professional guides, prime habitat and an abundance of large coveys with a fine brace of dogs, you have hunting the way it was intended to be. Burnt Pine offers more than great bird-shooting, as we also hunt trophy whitetails and turkeys during their seasons. Located just one hour east of Atlanta. Contact Burnt Pine at (706) 557-0407; www.burntpine.com.

Quail Hollow KennelsThe classic American Brittany,

line-bred for more than 50 years, is a natural pointer, ideal for the sportsman who hunts pheasant, quail, grouse and woodcock.

For the last 25 years, Quail Hollow has carefully incorporated bloodlines

uail Hollow trains their Brittainies to be natural retrievers and good field companions.

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to create a natural retriever and perfect hunting companion. We sell Brittany pups, started and trained. We also offer training for all pointing breeds to be developed into a personal shooting dog in three to four months and a B&B service for your pampered feather-finder.

Centrally located in the woodcock flyway, we offer woodcock training for the second-season bird dog from mid-October to mid-January. Call (856) 935-3459 or visit www.quailhollowkennel.com.

Rio Piedra PlantationFor the third time Rio Piedra

Plantation has been named the Orvis Wingshooting Lodge of the Year, an honor no one else has received more than once. Combine this with also having been named Sporting Classics’ Hunting Lodge of the Year for 2009 - 2010, and it’s easy to see why Rio Piedra is so extraordinary.

Located in the very heart of the classic Southern Plantation Belt that stretches across south Georgia and into northern Florida, Rio Piedra harkens back to a finer, gentler era when the quail were your longstanding neighbors, the coveys all had names, and the hunting was relaxed and unconfined.

Some days the birds are easy to find, and some days they are shy and mysterious. That’s what makes it all so perfect, with everything set in an atmosphere of casual 5-star elegance that provides a wingshooting experience unlike any you’ve ever encountered. Call (229) 336-1677 or visit www.RioPiedraPlantation.com.

hese prestigious awards from Orvis and Sporting Classics testify to the superb wingshooting experience at Rio Piedra.

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Dorchester Shooting PreserveAt Dorchester Shooting Preserve we

believe that personal service, hard-flying quail, well-trained bird dogs/guides, comfortable beds and good food are all equally important. That’s why we try to be the very best at every one of these.

You will always be personally greeted by the owners before settling into your cabin adjacent to our new 10,000-square-foot lodge. Your coastal Georgia hunt takes place on beautiful quail habitat in pine plantations full of native grasses and live oaks draped with Spanish moss. Our early release/wild birds are the best in the business. Come join us for an experience that’s second to none! Call (912) 884-6999 or visit www.huntdsp.com.

The Lodge at ChamaLong a world-renowned destination

for elk, mule deer and incredible trophy trout fishing, the Lodge and Ranch at Chama is also a prime location for blue grouse and Merriam’s turkeys.

The blue grouse is an oversize western gamebird that is something of a cross between a grouse and a surface-to-air missile that can leave your nerves shattered as it rockets from cover. But not to worry, for at day’s end you will relax in the lap of luxury in the 27,000-square foot, award- winning lodge with its opulent accommodations and fine dining. Call (575) 756-2133 or visit www.LodgeAtChama.com.

rieven-Sungold has been breeding superb gundogs for nearly 45 years. T

Trieven-Sungold Kennels At Trieven-Sungold, we hunt our

dogs, and breed for the type of dog we want to hunt behind and live with!

Our FC-AFC Misty’s Sungold Lad was the first golden retriever elected to the RFTHF. The Sungold name is in the pedigrees of the best-field golden retrievers. We breed for field-ability, intelligence, looks and soundness.

Trieven labs appear in the best-field pedigree and are the only kennel breeding pointing labs who have also produced/had more than 40 FC/AFC, NFCs and have 3 in the RFTH Hall of Fame! Call (307) 548-7546 or visit www.trieven-sungold.com.

reat hunting and accommodations await sportsmen at Dorchester Shooting Preserve.

G he Lodge at Chama is one of the largest and most beautiful lodges in the U.S.

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Skeeter Branch Hunting LodgeSkeeter Branch is in the northeast

corner of Georgia just minutes from Hartwell Lake and the Savannah River. Its flooded corn, millet and wild rice fields include 11 ponds up to 12 acres in size. Skeeter Branch’s mallard release program guarantees a duck hunt of a lifetime.

Bob Cathey envisioned a hunter’s paradise when he, his wife Leila, and his son Daniel founded Skeeter Branch in 1985. Resting on 250 acres, Skeeter Branch offers comfortable lodging for up to 16 people, home cooking, dog accommodations, guides and calling in an atmosphere that is second to none. Call (864) 224-0401 or (864) 303-8203, or visit www.huntmallards.com.

Hilltop Meadows Gun ClubHilltop Meadows has been described

by its guests as a cross between South Dakota and the English countryside. High praise indeed for this little corner of northwest Illinois, nestled along the Mississippi River Valley just two hours from the Chicago area.

Unique to the hunting preserve experience, there are no time constraints or limits on birds at Hilltop. Plentiful, hard-running, fast-flying pheasants, partridge and quail challenge the best bird dog and hunter, exactly the way it should be.

Combined with a challenging five stand course, attentive service and private accommodations, you have everything you need for a truly great hunting experience. Call Mike at (815) 535-1056 or visit www.hilltopmeadowshuntclub.com.

Bear Mountain LLCThe “Autumn Rut” is for the

discriminating sportsman who dreams of pursuing authentic Russian boar. You can now hunt this legendary beast in the United States. Enter the dark forest and challenge your skills at super-slow still-hunting, classic spot-and-stalk or traditional ambush.

Russian boar hunting in the far north

reystone Castle sits on 5,000 acres of prime hunting land a mere 90 miles from the Dallas/Fort Worth airport.

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Greystone Castle Located 90 miles west of the Dallas/

Fort Worth airport, Greystone Castle rises from the valley overlooking a magnificent 5,000-acre property.

An elegant, 24-room English-style castle, Greystone is an Orvis Endorsed Wing Shooting lodge that offers pheasant, quail, chukar and Hungarian partridge as well as European pheasant shoots and mallard duck hunts.

Greystone also has trophy white-tailed deer and Rio Grande turkey, along with exotic hunts for more than 40 different species. From fine dining to exquisite lodging, Greystone Castle offers something for everyone. Call (254) 672-5927 or visit us at www.greystonecastle.com.

keeter Branch owners Bob and Daniel Cathey offer second-to-none duck hunting.S reat hunting and great cover set Hilltop

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is not for the faint-of-heart. Discover how easy it is to turn your fall fantasy into a first-class reality. If you desire to hunt what others only dream of experiencing, then explore the Hunting Resource Center at www.SCIBoarHunter.com and investigate real Russian Boar Hunting. You may also call (800) 676-9821, and one of our knowledgeable guides will provide you with a complimentary Russian Boar Hunting Adventure Kit.

Tumbleweed LodgeRecently recognized as one

of the Top 10 Greatest Hunting Lodges in the world on the Outdoor Channel and one of the Top 20 Wing Shooting Destinations by outdoor writer Steve Smith, Tumbleweed Lodge’s family oriented atmosphere has been offering traditional upland game hunts to discerning sportsman of all ages for more than 25 years.

Tumbleweed Lodge spans more than 12,000 acres and is the ultimate location to hunt the Grand Slam of the Dakotas – pheasants, sharptail grouse, prairie chickens and Hungarian partridge.

Your hunting experience is heightened by the camaraderie shared among friends in our luxurious 18,000-

hoot your gamebird Grand Slam of the Dakotas at Tumbleweed Lodge.

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ear Mountain offers one-of-a-kind Russian boar hunting in the United States.

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square-foot lodge, including indoor spa, steam room, cigar room and multiple lounge areas. Our chef and lodge staff are professional and courteous and strive to provide a 5-star atmosphere. Call Michael at (605) 875-3440 or visit www.tumbleweedlodge.com.

Flying B RanchIt’s time to start planning your fall

hunting trips, and we recommend that your first call be to the Flying B Ranch.

Known as one of the most versatile outfitters in the country, the Flying B offers destination wingshooting, big game hunting and fishing opportunities for those who want to experience a real customized sporting package. Six species of upland game, along with world-class steelhead fishing, puts their cast-and-blast trips into a whole other league from the competition.

Whether your quest is for a mule deer with archery gear or you’re looking to get your friends out for upland hunting, the Flying B has hunting opportunities that are second to none. It would also be a shame not to mention the Flying B’s head chef, Ryan Nelson, and his culinary expertise as he prepares succulent dishes that top off the Flying B experience. Visit www.flyingbranch.com for a detailed list of adventures.

German shorthair holds steady as a Flying B Ranch guest spins into shooting position.A


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lodges, guides & outfitter Web SitesALASKA

Alaska Sportsman’s Lodge – www.alaskasportsmanslodge.comKulik Lodge – www.kuliklodge.com

BELIZETurneffe Flats – www.tflats.com

COLORADOThe High Lonesome Ranch – www.thehighlonesomeranch.com

GEORGIADorchester Shooting Preserve – www.huntdsp.comPine Hill Plantation – www.pinehillplantation.com

Rio Piedra Plantation – www.riopiedraplantation.comRiverview Plantation – www.riverviewplantation.com

Skeeter Branch Hunting Preserve – www.huntmallards.comINTERNATIONAL

Bob Kern’s Hunting Consortium, Ltd. – www.huntcon.comThe Detail Company – www.detailcompany.com

J/B Adventures & Safaris – www.jbsafari.comIDAHO

Flying B Ranch – www.flyingbranch.comILLINOIS

Hilltop Meadows Hunt Club, LLC – www.hilltopmeadowshuntclub.com

INDIANAPleasant Hill Retrievers – www.phrdogs.com

KANSASSagebrush Hunts – www.sagebrushhunts.com

KENTUCKYDeer Creek Lodge – www.deercreeklodge.net

MASSACHUSETTSElhew Kennels – www.elhewkennels.com

MEXICOBaja Hunting – www.bajahunting.com

MICHIGANBear Mountain LLC/Russian Boar – www.sciboarhunter.com

Redpine Whitetails, Inc. – www.redpinewhitetails.comSanctuary – www.sanctuary-ranch.com

MISSOURIOak Creek Whitetail Ranch – www.oakcreekwhitetailranch.com

NEW MEXICOLodge at Chama – www.lodgeatchama.com

Quinlan Ranches – www.quinlanranchesnewmexico.comNEW JERSEY

Quail Hollow Kennel & Woodcock Guide Service – www.quailhollowkennel.com

NEW YORKBattenkill Lodge – www.battenkilllodge.com

Bay View Registered Setters – www.bayviewuplandsetters.comSOUTH CAROLINA

Deerfield Plantation – www.huntersnet.com/deerfieldMoree’s Sportsman’s Preserve – www.moreespreserve.com

Riverbend Resort – www.rvrbend.comSarahsetter Kennels – www.sarahsetter.com

SOUTH DAKOTACheyenne Ridge Signature Lodge – www.signaturelodge.com

Timber Lake Elk Ranch – www.timberlakeelkranch.comTumbleweed Lodge – www.tumbleweedlodge.com

TEXASGreystone Castle Sporting Club – www.greystonecastle.com

Joshua Creek Ranch – www.joshuacreek.comRio Brazos Outfitting – www.riobrazosoutfitters.com

Southwest Trophy Hunts – www.swhunts.comThe Maurin Ranch – www.maurinranch.com

U.S./CANADAHigh Adventure Company – www.whitetaildestinations.com

WYOMINGTrieven-Sungold Kennels and Hunt Club, LLC –

www.trieven-sungold.com

We have been absent from most ads and the Internet for some time now. Shame on us…

As Mark Twain said. “The rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated”

I’m excited to be back.

See a current listing of all our guns on my website. Also, call or write for a list.

606 Ninth Street, Terrell, TX 75160972/563-7577 Fax 972/563-7578


St. Croix RodsWhen I decided to start fly fishing again, I was advised to get in touch with

the people at St. Croix rods. Boy, am I glad I did. I hadn’t done much fly fishing since I was a kid, so I needed every advantage I could muster. I got two rods, a Legend Elite series 9-foot, 8-weight for bass and an Imperial series 8-foot, 4-weight for stream fishing. I’ve used them both exclusively this summer and they make my casting look good. I’ve beaten them up and neither has shown the slightest bit of wear. I have even used the 4-weight as a limb grabber – seeing as how I spend a lot of time hung up in trees – and to my amazement, it still casts like it did straight out of the box. Coupled with Lamson Waterworks reels topped with Sharkskin line, I may not be the best caster on the water, but I look good doing it! Whether you’re in the market for a new fly rod or if you need a new saltwater outfit, you definitely need to check out St. Croix Rods. Call (800) 826-7042 or visit www.stcroixrods.com – Matt Coffey, Managing Editor.

Le Chameau’s New Global TrackerLe Chameau, known for its leather-lined Chasseur and technically lined

rubber boots designed for comfort, now offers the new Global Tracker. This lightweight hiking boot features abrasion-resistant leather and is suitable for the toughest conditions. The inside of the boot stays dry and cool thanks to an innovative lining featuring Le Chameau’s patented Air Confort technology, which pulls heat and moisture away from the foot. A shock absorber in the heel of the rugged rubber sole makes it perfect for any terrain.

“My Le Chameau Global Tracker boots have worked for me from the African bush to my farm in Kansas and all points in between. Lightweight, breathable, tough and with zero break-in time, they are the most comfortable boots I have ever owned.” – Craig Boddington

Visit www.LeChameauUSA.com for a retailer near you.

Zeiss Victory DiaScope The new DiaScope spotting scopes from Carl Zeiss feature a

revolutionary Dual Speed Focus (DSF) system that combines fast and fine focusing in a single control. The sleek, rubber-armored exterior improves the feel and protection of the highly durable magnesium/aluminum housing, and the exceptional optical performance of its FL lens system produces sharp and brilliant images, even in the most demanding conditions.

Additional enhancements include the new Vario D 15-56x / 20-75x eyepiece, the most powerful and versatile eyepiece on the market. All DiaScope eyepieces feature Carl Zeiss’ LotuTec water repellent coating, and the new bayonet system securely locks the eyepieces onto the scope, yet allows for quick and easy changing. Available in 65mm or 85mm models, straight or angled. Visit zeiss.com/sports or call (800) 441-3005.

Proven Products

o p Sh e l fT


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Dea Small-Gauge Shotgun by FaustiThe Fausti Dea and Dea Duetto small-frame shotguns provide

a new alternative to small-gauge shooting enthusiasts. The Dea is made on a scaled frame, 28-gauge action. The

patented ejector system allows the action to be made to scale and is available in 28 and .410 bore with either 28- or 30-inch barrels. The Dea Duetto two-gauge set is available in 28 gauge and .410 bore, with 28-inch barrels.

Being a true scaled-frame action, the Dea 28 weighs 4.95 pounds, while the .410 model weighs 5.1 pounds. A hand-rubbed oil finish enhances the highly figured Turkish walnut stock and fore-end. The long trigger guard is elegantly detailed and the exquisite scroll engraving and richly blued barrels show off this petite shotgun.

Whether following a covey of bobwhites through the pines of a Georgia plantation or along a logging road in Maine in search of grouse, the Dea’s small frame, light weight and superior shoot-ability allow you to hunt comfortably all day. Call Fausti USA at (540) 371-3287 or visit www.faustiusa.com.

Muzzle Brakes by Vais ArmsVais Arms celebrated ten years of customer service this year and now has two full-time gunsmiths with more

than 80 years combined experience. Vais specializes in the manufacture and installation of the Vais Muzzle Brake, in addition to re-barreling and accuracy testing of most bolt-action rifles.

Randy Williams of Bar-W Groundwater Exploration in Austin, Texas, wrote the following about his recent hunt in South Africa:

“Thanks for your excellent work on my .375. It performed very well and did everything asked of it! The trigger is light but controllable, and after the re-crown and bedding, the accuracy is phenomenal and the brake is incredible. The reduction in recoil and muzzle-rise allowed me to watch animals drop to the shot. The PHs were impressed with the accuracy and one liked it so much he couldn’t seem to put it down!” Call (830) 741-7167 or visit http://muzzlebrakes.com/.

Real Men...Wear Waders

If you read my post titled “Cold Feet…Literally,” you’ll notice I got a “great deal” on a pair of waders. Only now do I know that the man who sold me the waders laughed all the way tothe bank. But he’s not the only one laughing now. So are the guys at Dan Bailey Fly Fishing, most of my friends who have been informed and even my wife. And you will be, too, I’m sure, if you read the storybelow.

You see, the waders I was sold were defective. I’m sure the guy who sold them to me didn’t know this, as they had never been used, so I donknow this, as they had never been used, so I don’t hold him accountable for that. I used the waders about half a dozen times and realized they were leaking. So I called the manufacturer of my waders, Dan Bailey, and to my surprise, they said, “Send them on in. We’ll either fix them or send you a new pair. Either way, they won’t leak when you get them back.” So I did.

It was when a new pair were returned to me that my folly of purchase was pointed out. In big,bold, letters on the outside of the box.

And on the invoice.

And in the description of the waders on the invoice.And in the description of the waders on the invoice.

Here, exactly, is what I saw on the box when I opened the nondescript, brown paper wrapping the waders were sent in: “WOMEN’S XL WADERS.” To drive home the point they were “WOMEN’S XL WADERS” there was even a color picture of a definitely not “XL” woman on the top of the box fishing a beautiful stream out West. In waders. Just like mine.

Huh.

Interesting.Interesting.


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Hart Rifle Barrels Established in 1953, each Hart Rifle Barrel is handcrafted and

hand-lapped to the customer’s specifications. Using only the highest quality stainless steel, Hart offers barrels in .375, .358, .338, .30, 7mm, .270, 6.5, .25, 6mm, and both .22 center- and rimfire. They also provide AR-15 and 10/22 ready-to-install barrels as well as contoured barrel blanks. Custom rifles with Hart barrels are widely used in competitive shooting events as well as hunting. Hart barrels hold several World Shooting Records in various disciplines. Call (315)677-9841 or visit [email protected].

Kenetrek Hardscrabble Light The new Kenetrek Hardscrabble Light is

a lightweight yet tough and durable hiking boot with a combination leather and Cordura upper that is double- and triple-stitched in high-wear areas. Extra-padded soft collars along with a special flex notch upper design provide incredible support and flexibility. Steel shanks fused into the nylon midsoles, combined with the K-Talon outsoles, provide unparalleled traction on rough terrain. The waterproof, breathable, Wind-Tex membranes keep your feet completely dry. Reinforced rubber sole guards give the leather uppers added protection against abrasion above the soles, an area that often fails boots. All of this support and comfort can be found in a boot that weighs only 3.4 pounds per pair. Made in Italy. Call (800) 232-6064 or visit www.kenetrek.com.

E.A.R. Inc. Custom Electronic ModelsE.A.R. Inc.’s HearPlugz-DF recently won the Occupational

Health and Safety Product of the Year Award. HearPlugz-DF is the first and only product to offer the flexibility of two levels of hearing protection and the ability to integrate with radio communications. They are specifically designed to help you hear critical sounds like speech, while filtering out loud or harmful noises.

The new model offers advanced filtering technology to improve hearing without any distortion or muffling effect and can be used with one or two filters. The filters are breathable and allow for pressure equalization, while attenuation increases as noise increases.

This new technology is now available as an option in E.A.R. Inc’s electronic models. With this option, the user can turn off the electronic unit and sound reduction is provided by the dual filters. The exterior filter can be easily removed if less attenuation is desired. Visit http://earinc.com/ or call (800) 525-2690.

sporting classics magazine september/october 2010 issue

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