The Rebellion

The First National HDBF Shotgun Championship

It is no secret that shotgunning is a very important part of my life and that I get really annoyed with activities that interfere with my shooting, be it bird hunting or clay shooting, even if I miss more than my share of both kind of birds, the soft feathery ones or the hard clay pigeons.

It also should be no secret that I have a "corporate life" (whatever that may be), and that this means substantial amount of traveling and meetings, but for the most part I was able to fit in some amount of shotgunning after working hours. During the short but great year that I lived in Torino, Italy, I was able with the help of my friends Pino Facchini and Vito Benevelli to do a lot of shooting and enjoy many great meals throughout the Piemonte, Lombardia and the Venetto.

My current job takes me multiple times a year to southern Brazil, and in Caxias do Sul - RS I found the fantastic Clube Caxiense de Caça e Tiro where I made good friends, was treat to more great meals, and found an infrastructure that second to none in Brazil and fully comparable to the clubs I used to visit in Italy.

I was even able to get some bird hunting during the odd business trip or even when getting acquainted with new business partneres, but the "places" that would keep me away from shotgunning were conventions and business forums, that apparently are (or were) totally committed to golf, for whatever reason this may be.

I've never played more than three of four golf games in my life, but to say that this so called sport frustrates me is a gross understatement. The last game that I was forced to play (yes, I was actually forced to participate in a "team building" event that took place in a golf course) frustrated me so much that I threw one of the clubs away in a swamp.

But in the last couple weeks things started to change! I attended two conferences back to back, first in Phoenix, Arizona and then in La Jolla, California, and the rebellion started at these places or events.

As an alternative to golf, in Arizona about 30% (around 65 people) of the participants elected to shoot Sporting Clays at the fantastic Ben Avery Shooting Facility"s Clay Target Center. We shot the "Roadrunner Course" which had some very challenging target presentations, especially if you add the forty mile an hour winds that made the desert even drier. The range provided Beretta A-391 semi-automatic shotguns and Fiocchi one ounce 12 gauge shells. Truly a great combination, and I was told that I shot a 38 out of 50 possible and that I was high gun for the day.

The following week in California I passed on the "opportunity" to play golf at Torrey Pines from where the players have a gorgeous view of the Pacific Ocean and instead got in a bus with a box lunch and eight other brave souls for the hour drive to the P2K Range in El Cajon.

When we got there we had to answer a safety questionaire (actually not a bad thing), rent shotguns, which were a mix and no match of everything from Caesar Guerini (at double the rent of the other guns), through Remingtons, Berettas, CZ's and a single Browning BT-99.

First we shot Trap and there Tim G. (the brave guy wearing a pink shirt in the center of the photo) demonstrated the capabilities of the classic BT-99 breaking 23 birds at trap. The pool shark later disclosed that he grew up on the birth place of modern trap shooting, the State of Ohio, and that at some time in his high school years he was Junior State Champion. Just another example of never to bet on a game unless you know all the players.

Then we shot Five Stand, which was a much more challenging course than I would have given credit to. As not all the shooters in our team were proficient with shotguns we decided to shoot single only and take only one shot per bird. Even with a very humbling 13 I was high gun under the hot and dry California afternoon.

On the way back to Torrey Pines instead of boxed lunches we made sure that we have enough cold beer to quench our thirst and divert our attention from the terrible traffic.

This is it. The rebellion has started. We may be few, but we know that we will prevail as palns are already in place for next year's events. Until there, keep on shooting!

Perfect Plan

A perfect plan for the one week in thirteen

A couple months ago I was seating in an airplane at the Detroit Metro Airport headed for Brazil on another business trip, and as more and more passengers boarded I could not avoid noticing a T-shirt that one of the passengers was wearing.

I had never met the gentleman before and I doubt that we will ever meet again, but I asked if I could take a picture of his T-shirt as it really reminded me of how my weeks should be.

The (sad) reality is that most people need to work 12 weeks to be able to enjoy and/or afford one week of vacations, and I believe these four weeks are so important because they do not happen every week.

To be very sincere, I will sharpen my knives, clean my guns, buy new gear and plan a hunting trip during a normal work week's nights, so I can savor every minute of a vacation week actually hunting.

I am scheduled for another bird hunting week in Uruguay in a couple months, and a lot of planning is already happening, but I still like the T-shirt.

Controlling Sus scrofa

Last Friday César, Ivan, Ivandro and I left a business meeting in Bento Gonçalves under torrential rain and drove to Caxias do Sul where we would collect our gear (or better speaking, their gear since I had little more than my business clothes) and then drove, mostly under the same rain, the one hundred odd miles to a farm close to Bom Jesus to join the remaining of our group in a mission to help restore ecological balance in southern Brazil.

In the last several several years Brasil was invaded by a most dangerous, prolific and destructive alien species, Sus scrofa, also known as European boar. O as is the case in most other places invaded by swine, they play havoc with crops, carry or transmit disease to domestic animals, compete with native species, and by now there is at least one case of a boar killing a person, I believe in Minas Gerais state.

Currently in Brazil there is no open hunting season for any game animals, although there is a lot of subsistence hunting in many of the less developed regions of the country and a lot of poaching everywhere, with limited and ineffective control or enforcement of regulations, so it was very difficult for the "proper authorities" to come to conclusion that one of the only practical and affordable ways to control the invasive wild boards and their offsprings was to allow volunteers to locate, pursue and eventually terminate these animals.

And of course, in order not to offend sensitive (and mostly brainless) people, this would not be called hunting or even culling, but "controlling."

But I digressed. We arrived sometime past 9:00 PM and met several friends and made new acquaintances that would soon become friends as is common among hunters...pardon me...controllers. We were greeted with some libations and in no time I found my way to the improvised grill where a proper churrasco was being prepared over hot coals by Celso. Sausage and spring chicken were the appetizers and large amounts of beef made the main course.

After dinner most of us left in two trucks going different directions spot lighting for boar. As wild boars are invasive non-game animals they can be controlled all year around, day or night, by any means, except poison. During the two or three hours that we were out we saw no boars, but we spotted and left alone seven or eight deer, several graxain, which is similar to a fox, but is grey with an almost black back, and at least three very large European hares, another invasive species, but that is not subject to control at this point in time. The temperature was quite comfortable and there was only a light drizzle.

When we came back some people while the older and wiser stayed around the fireplace telling hunting stories and associated lies, sharing drinks and eating roasted pinhões, the delicious fruit to the Araucaria, a typical southern Brazil pine tree. And the stories, drinks and pinhões lasted a long time, as it was 2:30 AM before I found the couch where I was to sleep, gently volunteered by Nicolas, one of our younger controllers, so older men (that meaning me!) could sleep more comfortably.

In here late small hours the storm that we had left behind the previous night caught up with us and besides the heavy rain it brought severe winds which brought down a lot of branches and even some trees, and shook the frame of our old wooden house.

In the morning some of the late nighters had a rough time, but by 8:00 AM the pack of clearly mixed hounds was let loose most of the controllers followed it under an annoying rain. Since I had no gear to speak off and needed dry clothes for the return trip (at least that is my story and I will stick to it) I stayed behind with Ivan and Celso and we applied ourselves to swapping stories, turn the leftover churrasco into a carreterio (rice cooked with meat), and enjoying the contents César's bottle of Johnny Walker to the very last drop.

Around noon Ivandro came in and said that Gilmar had shot a nice boar, and that they were dragging it to a point where one of the trucks could retrieve it and some of the by now very tired hunters. Oops, my fault! I meant to say controllers. Gilmar hit the hog with three of four shots from his 308 rifle. The first shot effectively castrated the hog, the second and third hit it in the shoulder and around the jaw articulation, but I don't know in which order.

After lunch, the hog was weighted (65 Kg or 143 pounds gutted), pictures were taken, and five of us made our way back to Caxias do Sul where I had to attend a beneficent banquet with other friends from Clube Caxiense de Caça e Tiro. Life can be so demanding...

Shotgunning My Way

Today my new book "Shotgunning My Way" (ASIN: B00JIBGE20) was released for sale at Amazon Kindle Store.

"Shotgunning My Way" is a collection of short stories and commentaries (previously presented at my blog www.awildbeastatheart.blogspot.com) centered around bird hunting, shotgun shooting, good food and great friends.

At the release I noticed that there is an issue with the internal pictures, but I hope to be able to correct this soon.

I hope that you enjoy the book and appreciate if you help me to promote it.

Your reviews would be most welcome.

A French Connection

A handful of French folding knives

There seams to be a very long love-hate relationship between two great nations, the United States of America and la République Française. Actually, our relationship goes back to well before there was a United States of America when French and English explorers started to compete for the fur trade in the Hudson Bay and Great Lakes regions of what would eventually become the USA and Canada, and some time later the French were cordial enough to support the Thirteen Colonies on the Revolutionary War against King George. Of course, a couple times during the XX century the United States gave a hand to the French to reclaim their country from recurring German invasions.

History aside, there is constant bickering over food, where the sophisticated Haute Cuisine is embattled against American classics like the hamburger, and no body can forget the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976 surprisingly won by California wines over traditional French wines on a blind tasting comparison done by an all French pannel.

And then there is the dispute over sporting guns, and the comment that French design is...well, French. But, we should not forget that the first modern breech loader shotgun and self-contained shell was French, designed and made by Casimir Lefaucheux. I have a 16-gauge Manufrance Robust that kills pheasants with definitive authority, even if some of its design features are clearly French.

But over the years I found that besides good wine (even if challenged by California), great food (which may be challenged by a great burger), and like the fantastic Mirage fighter, French folding knives design and manufacturing is second to none. They may be different, but different does not mean inferior.

My first French knife was a Laguiole Arbalète made by Genès David, a company that operates in Thiers, the traditional French cutlery centre, since 1810. The Laguiole is clearly inspired in the Spanish navaja, but it is a lot slimmer. Legend says that Napoleon commissioned the Laguiole knife both as a general purpose tool and as a last line of defense for the soldiers in the French Army. I don't know if that is true or not, but this superbly made knife is clearly up to the task. I bough my Laguiole in a Tobacco store just outside the Gare du Nord in Paris in 2003, if I am remember correctly. At first the large blade and the "rat tail" handle look strange, but when I was able to handle it the natural balance is apparent, be it for slicing a nice salami or piece of cheese or other less pleasant uses. When the blade is folded the large Laguiole just "disappears" inside a front pocket until you need it.

I don't recall when or where I bought my first Opinel, but the latest one (the one with orange died handle) I bought last month in Düsseldorf. While the Laguiole is a refined and somewhat pricey knife, the Opinel is an extremelly affordable working man's or peasant's knife. The Opinel simple and elegant design consists of a blade, wooden handle, stainless steel metal clamping band, stainless pivot pin (axle), and a stainless steel Virobloc locking collar, which locks the blade open or closed, and in 1985 the Victoria and Albert Museum in London selected the Opinel as part of an exhibit celebrating the “100 most beautiful products in the world”. The Opinel was also selected as one of the 999 classic designs in Phaidon Design Classics, and has been exhibited by the New York's Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) as a design masterpiece. This is quite an accomplishment for a low priced poor man's knife that has been around since the 1890's.

But I do recall very well that I bought my L'Ecureuil (the Squirrel), which is a nickel-plated version of the famous Douk-Douk all metal folding knife primarily market in France. I had a meeting with an editor in down-town Marshall, MI, and on my way back to my truck I saw the sign to a small knife shop down some stairs from the street level. I broused around for a while until I spotted the Douk-Douk decal and the L'Ecureuil. I first read the history or story of the Douk-Douk and its creator, Gaspard Cognet in Gérard Pacella's "100 Legendary Knives" ("100 Couteaux de légende). Like the Opinel, the Douk-Douk, in its many variations, is a simple, yet very well made, utility folding knife, intended to be a tool for the working man. In the case of the Douk-Douk it was originally designed for export markets formed by then French colonies around the world, but its inherit quality made it a success at the heart of the French empire and many other countries. When I was a child in Brazil the Douk-Douk design and manufacturing process was widely copied, although the quality was not the same.

I may not carry or use my French knives everyday, that is the privelege of my Swiss Army Huntsman and lately a CRKT Ken Onion Swindler, but I would feel very comfortable with either of these unique French knives. Vive la Différence!

Blix

An enjoyable and great read

Baron Bror Fredrik von Blixen-Finecke (25 July 1886 – 4 March 1946) is probably best remembered as being the unfaithful but likable husband of writer Karen Blixen in the movie "Out of Africa", but during his twenty-four years living in Africa he became highly respected professional hunter, or at it was known at those politically incorrect times, White Hunter.

Bror von Blixen was known to his friends simply as Blix, and we could say that he had a restless soul that demanded constant change and action and hated stability and repetition. Therefore, what better profession to suit a wanderer than a big game hunter, leading distinguished clients, such as Edward, Prince of Wales, after wandering and exotic dangerous animals through the heart of an Africa that was still savage.

But the same need to wander would eventually take Blix from Kenya to Cuba to go deep sea fishing in a boat name Pillar with a certain Ernest Hemingway, who he describes as "a gigantic fellow weighting, I am sure" over a hundred and ninety pounds with shoulders like a wrestler and a chest like Hercules."

In return Hemingway said that "The Baron was not a man that you forget", and to make sure about that he used Blixen as the inspiration for professional hunter Robert Wilson in the unparalleled short-story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." It is important to mention that although Mr. Wilson is inspired in Bror von Blixen, the story's love triangle and its outcome is really based on events of the life of John Henry Patterson, writer and slayer of "The Man-eaters of Tsavo," but that is another story.

During some of his elephant hunting years Blix had a close association with another fantastic and larger than life Africana figure, Beryl Markham, writer of "West with the Night" and the first person to fly across the Atlantic from East to West. Anyhow, Miss Markham used her light Gipsy Moss airplane to scout for elephant, which Blix and his clients would them pursuit on foot.

About those times Miss Markham would later say "Six feet of amiable Swede and, to my knowledge, the toughest, most durable White Hunter ever to snicker at the fanfare of safari or to shoot a charging buffalo between the eyes while debating whether his sundown drink will be gin or whisky.”

Blix left Africa, never to return, in 1938 following the accidental death of his third wife, Swedish adventuress Eva Dickson, moving first to the United States of America and then back to Sweden where he took a field hospital during World War II.

His book "African Hunter" was also translated to English in year of his exodus, and it is an insightful and entertaining book, that any professional small boy will devour, be it in the confines or a jet plane during a business trip, or by the dim light of a dying flashlight under the canopy formed by a light blanket out over the head, so your parents cannot see that you are way past your sleeping hour.

I believe that some the best compliment to Blix came from his first wife, Karen, who is reported to having said shortly before her death that "If I could wish anything back of my life, it would be to go on safari once again with Bror..."

A True Masterpiece

First group from my new Smith & Wesson K-22

Some weeks ago my wife was gracious enough to allow me to acquire a new piece that will enhance my humble collection and also provide me with long periods of relaxation at my indoor range.

As you will immediatelly tell from the picture above the new old Smith & Wesson K-22, or more precisely a Model 17-3 made around 1971 according to the serial number, is in pristine shape, and the first (and so far only) off-hand five-shot group at 10 meters demonstrates that purebred target precision is clearly alive and well.

The roots of the K-22 can be traced back to 1899 when Smith & Wesson introduced what would become the gold standard to which all revolvers are compared, the .38 Hand Ejector Military & Police Model revolver, built in the then new K-frame. By 1913 the adjustable sight configuration, the .38 Hand Ejector Military & Police Target model (eventually called K-38) held 24 of 40 all-time records of the U.S. Revolver Association.

But the .38 Military & Police was not only popular with target shooter, it also became the virtual standard police handgun, not only in the United States of America, but either as original Smith & Wesson or unauthorized copies in countries that issued wheel-guns to its police forces.

And due to the massive popularity and constant use of the .38 Military & Polcie, both target shooter and police department started claiming for a revolver with same handling carachteristics od the K-38, but that would shoot the much lower cost .22 rimfire ammunition (and by this time the .22 Long Rifle had already become the de-facto standard).

In order to provide the same handling, the new .22 revolver had the same loaded weight as the K-38, and to allow for the same handling the center of gravity had to be the same, and threfore the .22 barrel is slightly taped towards the muzzle. And in keeping with its competition roots, Smith & Wesson guaranteed that the new K-22 would group five shots under 1 1/2 inches at 50 yards.

From 1931 to 1939 this fantastic .22 revolver was called the K-22 Outsdoorman, and from that point, after incorporating a new micrometer-adjustable rear sight it became the Smith & Wesson Masterpiece, and I cannot think of a better name to christen the best .22 revolver ever made.

In 1957 Smith & Wesson introduced model numbers to replace the model names, and the K-38 became the Model 14, while the K-22 became the Model 17. Why they did not became the Models 38 and 22 I will never understand!

In order to really pair my new K-22 and my old K-38 I need to find some original grips to replace the aftermarket combat grips of the latter, but that is neither hard nor expensive, and in a short time I should have a perfect pair of target revolvers.