Sylas Slingshot

Sylas Slingshot (bottle cap for scale)

In general my blogs have no logical sequence and I just write about whatever I want or like, but it appears that events sometimes provides us eventual links.

My wife gave me a Savage Model 99 rifle for Christmas, and then I finished reading Jeff Cooper's Commentaires and found that he had great consideration for this rifle. Then, one of the quotes from Jeff Cooper that caught my attention was about the hunting instinct that can be demonstrated by a boy and his slingshot.

Well, last Saturday my mother arrived from Brazil to visit us here in Traverse City, and she brought a gift from my dear friend Nilson Araújo to my grandson Sylas. Nilson is an avid bird hunter, dedicated shotgunner, and renowned English Pointer breeder. If I am not mistaken, Nilson is now in the 27th generation of the same dog strain and has the records for all the lineage.

Nilson made a bespoken slingshot for Sylas, and as you can see from the photo above, it is just the right size for a very young hunter to be. He even sent a dozen hand selected pebbles to assure that Sylas would have premium ammunition for his initial outings.

As Sylas is already four months old, I hope that in less than a year he will be using his new primitive skills and survival weapon. I hope that Sylas practices enough in order to be able to hit both clay pigeons and live birds on the wing as Bob-white quail guide Melvin showed to me last year in Alabama. (See "Young at Heart in the Old South", April 2013)

A good slingshot is an asset almost as important as a good folding knife to any boy, and an important tool to help the hunter instinct to flourish.