A Professional Small Boy Christmas Gifts

My not so impractical Christmas gifts

While I may be a bit older than nine-year-old Ralphie Parker, who wanted only one thing for Christmas: "a Red Rider Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time," I am still enough of a Professional Small Boy (as coined by the great late Peter Hathaway Capstick) to not only want, but truly desire impractical things for Christmas.

As I've been married long enough to be a grandpa, my wife already gave up any attempt to make me grow up a long time ago, and we both understand that if I need something I will just go to a store and buy it, and that special ocasions like birthday and Christmas are for gifts so impractical that they may approach being useless.

But the truth is that the world is round and if you push too much into one direction you will come around the other extreme, and end up in the other end of scale, and that is what may have happened this Christmas, since my gifts may not be so impractical after all.

Our new "Up North" life in Traverse City is presenting us with a large amount of snow and somewhat colder temperatures than in in southern Michigan, and while I have enough coats and jackets, the ones that are not camouflage are a tone of green or brown, olive drab best describing the color, and so my wife used the opportunity to change my wardrobe with a very warm Cabela's red & black plaid coat. While it may be a big step away from my traditional hunter's colors, the red & black plaid is a traditional up north team, and I guess at during next hunting season I will be able to dress like Elmer Fudd.

Next comes a fantastic Helle Skala folding knife. I bought my first Helle during a long family weekend in Luxembourg, and soon learned to appreciate the clean design, excellent manufacturing and fantastic laminated blade, where a hard high carbon core is swanduiched between two layers of tough stainless stell. The laminating process is not too different from the technology used in classic Samurai swords, and when the blade is sharpened the harder high carbon core always make the cutting edge. The Skala is a beautiful folder and its only potentially impractical aspect is that I already have one hundred and fifty other blades or so. Well, one never knows when there will be a lot of butchering or whittling to be done.

And finally we come to my Christmas alternative to Ralphie's BB-gun, the Savage Model 99 lever action rifle. In my opinion, the best word to describe the Savage Model 99 is elegant, and I believe that the brainchild of Mr. Arthur William Savage is the quintessential lever rifle. 

While Winchester undisputedly built "the gun that won the West" following the pattern laid down by the Volcanic and Henry firearms, their success at the end was a hindrance for innovation and it took an outsider in the form of Kingston, Jamaica, native Mr. Savage to recreate the lever rifle and make it a relevant hunting rifle for the twentieth century.

The main differences between the Savage Model 99 and other lever rifles at the time that it was created are its ability to fire high-intensity cartridges with spire-point bullets (something that the Winchester 1895 can also do) with greater precision due to a much faster lock-time made possible by a very well built hamerless action. Additionally, the elegant rifle is highly ergonomic, and it can be equaly well used by either right hand or left hand shooter, a scope can be easily mounted due to angle ejection, and the quality of manufacturing is really good.

My particular rifle is chambered for the 300 Savage, a cartridge designed in 1920 to basically offer 30-06 performance level in a package that would fit the Model 99, and is available both with 150 and 180 grain bullets. Later on, the 300 Savage was used as the basis for the design of the 308 Winchester or 7,62x51 mm NATO. 

The Savage Model 99 in 300 caliber is an effective 300 yard rifle for deer-sized animal, and very few lever action rifles can claim that. A short time ago I was reading Jeff Cooper's Commentaires and while that he considered that there were only three modern interesting rifles, the Steyr Scout (308 Winchester), the Blaser R93 (30-06) and Jim West's Alaskan CoPilot (45-70), in several passages he mentioned the Savage Model 99 (in 300 Savage) as one rifle that could fit the role of the Scout, especially for left hand shooters. Knowing how calous Mr. Cooper could be, this is a great compliment to this old rifle.

And what will I do with my rifle? Well, right now I will play with it indoors, at least until my doctor releases me to shoot again. Then I just may load some Buck Shot rounds for it and take it squirrel or rabbit hunting in the Old Mission State Park, at which time I will be wearing a heavy red & black plaid coat and will be carrying a Helle Skala folding knife to help me skin any game I may eventually shoot.

Doesn't that sound like the kind of thing that a professional small boy would do in order to run away from the world?

Sasha Siemel and the Pantanal

Jaguar, Zagaia, 357 S&W Magnum and Mr. Siemel

The first time that I ever heard about Sasha Siemel was on an article at Guns & Ammo HANDGUNS 1990 ANNUAL titled "The First Magnum", by Roy Jinks. The article tells the story of the development and launch of the Smith & Wesson 357 Magnum cartridge and revolver, but in the lower left corner of a page it presents the picture above with the following legend: "Sasha Siemel hunted the big cats of the Amazon with a spear. His backup was a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum, wearing registration #10."

Later on in the article, a table informs that revolver S&W 357 Magnum registration No. 10, barrel lenght 8 3/4 inches was delivered to Sasha A. Siemel, Big-Game Hunter From South America, on April 26 1935.

I must say that at that time I was more focused on firearms than on hunting, and it would be some more years before I would learn about Mr. Siemel and his fantastic adventures in the Brazilian hinterlands and how imprecise Mr. Jinks was about where Sasha Siemel hunted.

Almost a decade later I had the pleasure and privilege of proof reading my friend's John Coningham Netto fantastic and epic book, "BODOQUENA - Uma Odisséia no Pantanal" where the main character, Jari Carreiro, or Mr. John himself, is quite saddened by the news of the passing of the famous professional jaguar hunter Sasha Siemel in cold Pennsylvania, a half world and another half century away from the Pantanal do Mato Grosso where he made his fame.

The Pantanal is located aproximately in the geographocal center of South America, and is one of the world's largest tropical wetlands areas, and is located mostly within the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, but it extends into Mato Grosso and portions of Bolivia and Paraguay. It sprawls over an area estimated at between 140,000 and 195,000 square kilometers (54,000 and 75,000 square miles). To the south and west the Brazilian Pantanal morphs into the Paraguayan and Bolivian Chaco. About 80% of the Pantanal floodplains are submerged during the rainey season, nurturing an astonishing biologically diverse collection of acquatic plants and helping support a dense array of animal species.

In the early XX century cattle ranch and fur trading were the cornerstones of Matto Grosso state (before 1977 Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul were a single state and it was spelled Matto Grosso) and the Pantanal was the heart of these industries. The rich floodplains provided fantastic and extensive grazing during the winter (which is the dry season) and the cattle industry flourished after the Paraguayan War, rivaling that of the southern Pampas.

But there was one element that intimately linked the cattle industry and the fur trade, the big cats: Jaguar or Onça-Pintada (Panthera onca), the world's third largest cat, and the its smaller relative the Suçuarana, Onça-Parda, Cougar or Mountain Lion (Puma concolor).

And once the cattle herd proliferated to great numbers it did not take long for the smart cats to realize that cattle provides a much easier meal than the fleeting cervo-do-pantanal, the dangerous queixada, the crusty cayman, the somewhat ugly capybara or the invasive porco-monteiro.

And once again, as the jaguar and the cougar started to charge the ranchers a steep price for the use of their original habitat, nothing more natural that these ranchers should rebel and fight back, and in order to do so they hired Zagaieros or Zagayeros, brave hunters that used a heavy lance, similar to the European boar spears and packs of hounds to pursue and kill cattle killing cats.

After several adventures in unhealthy Brazilian diamond boom towns Sasha Siemel changed his focus to the more exciting, but probably less dangerous, pursuit of the onça-pintada and suçuarana, and that made him a larger than life person in his own time. Just to give an idea of how famous Mr. Siemel was, Smith & Wesson shipped 357 Magnum revolver serial No. 1 to FBI's J. Edgar Hoover on April 17, 1935, and nine days later, shipped serial No. 10 to Sasha A. Siemel, big-bame hunter from South America.

"Tigrero", published in 1953, is Sasha Siemel's fascinating recounting of his life and adventures in Brazil, and besides dangerous big-game encounters it also provides a picture of life in the Brazilian frontier in the first half of the XX century, and it appeared to be a lot more wild than the United Stated Old West.

Master Shotgunner

Fábio Dartora, the author, Luiz Roberto Viganó

Last week I was working at my company's headquarters in Caxias do Sul (RS), Brasil, and as I have done since my first visit to Caxias in July 2012, I spent some quality time at Clube Caxiense de Caça e Tiro (www.clubecaxiensecacaetiro.com.br) or CCCT.

CCCT is located on a beautiful mountain top and its fantastic infrastructure and cultural environment reminds me of some of the clubs that I used to visit in northern Italy during the brief one year period that I lived in Torino. As Caxias do Sul was colonized by Italian immigrants the similarity is not surprising, and it is also includes great food, ever available wine and the love for bird hunting.

From my first visit to CCCT I felt completely at home, enjoying many delicious meals, that spanned from fantastic and authentic churrasco gaucho to the delicious tortei, a local dish that combines the Italian ravioli pasta with the Brazilian pumpkin for a filling.

But the members make the real difference at CCCT. There is always a shotgun available if you want to shoot, and several occasions I was handled Borsoi's Franchi, Viganó's Beretta, or Gasperin's, the club president, Perazzi.

CCCT offers Bunker or Olympic Trap, American Trap, International Skeet, Sporting Clays, as well as pistol, rifle and archery ranges, and holds several tournaments during the year. In the last month CCCT held the finals for both Rio Grande do Sul state and Brazilian trap championships, and in one of the finals over three hundred athletes attended and around 60,000 clays were launched. In order to feed this small army the club grilled over seven hundred pounds of beef, pork and primo canto chicken.

Last Saturday afternoon CCCT held a very special tournament, the Master Shotgunner ("Mestre Atirador") which consists of a total of 45 clay pigeons equally divided among Bunker Trap, American Trap and International Skeet. As I was scheduled to start my trip back home just after lunch on Saturday I would not be able to participate, but during the Wednesday Fábio Dartora - Trap Director and CCCT president Mr. Gasperin invited me to shoot the tournament in the morning.

That being agreed, on Saturday morning Fábio and my wild boar hunting friend Luiz Roberto "Gordo" Viganó picked me up at the hotel and drove me to CCCT where using Viganó's Beretta 682 I proceeded to shoot a total score of 36. At the end of the day, when I was already far away, the winner was Jonata Penz scoring 38.

Being an accomplished shotgunner I can come up with any number of excuses to justify my poor performance like shooting with a borrowed gun, not having shot International Skeet in over four or five years, never having shot trap at CCCT, being particularly stressed by shooting all by myself (all other competitors shot in the afternoon), having traveled all the way from Traverse City, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera…

But rather than come up with new and creative excuses I just would like to thank all my friends at Clube Caxiense de Caça e Tiro and congratulate them on maintaining and managing a world class shotgunning club in Brasil.

Blue Racer

Del and a looong Blue Racer

During the last weekend of woodcock season Del and I went out to bid goodbye for the nice little up side down brain birds until next year, and maybe, just maybe, invite a couple of them for supper. Well, it happened that all representatives of Scolopax minor had already packed and headed south, but eventually we met some of them during a pheasant hunt a week later, but good bye was all you could wish them at the time.

Anyhow, we walked some nice but demanding hilly terrain and Gina pointed several time, but we had no flushes. The soul of a bird hunter rides the nose of a bird dog, and at every point our hearts bit faster, adrenaline flushed, and upon walking the fruitless point disappointment settled in place of the earlier excitement and hope. But such is the life of all bird hunters.

On the way back to the car Gina pointed again, in a very intense way. We followed her beeping colar and as in the earlier points no birds flushed, but there was something else there.

Gina was pointing a curled long snake bluish in color and quite lazzy due to the cool, but not yet cold, temperature. I grew up in Brazil where snakes are not only bad, but really dangerous, but i really contained myself and did not shoot it on first sight, specially because Gina was way too close.

Del recognized the snake as a Blue Racer (Coluber constrictor foxi), a nonvenomous snake that is endemic to North America. As you can see by the photo above Del's snake was about four feet long, and it was unusually docile, maybe because of the rather cool weather. Anyhow, I think it did not enjoy being handled that much as it soon released a very foul smell that encouraged Del to return it to the Michigan fall woods.

When we came back to Del's home and told the story about the snake to his wife Chris, she asked me if about my experience with snakes in Brazil. I told her that the only nonvenomous snakes that I had experience with would happily eat your (see "Monster Still Exist" from January, 2012), so I really did not care to being to friendly to any snakes, blue or other color.

I hope that the endangered Blue Racer found a nice nest to hibernate during the long cold winter that already set over the land and that when it wakes up in the spring it will feast on rodents and leave upland bird chicks, specially woodcock and grouse, alone.