The Essence of Life

The Essence of Life

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Hampel's Gun Co.

Traverse City, 2nd December 2016



Hampel's Inc., a traditional family owned Michigan company established in 1919, has reached an agreement to sell its guns & gunsmithing business to Meirelles Industries LLC, effective 31st December 2016. The new entity will do business as Hampel's Gun Co. and will operate in the facility located at 104 Mackey Drive, Traverse City, MI.

Mr. Karl Hampel has successfully led Hampel’s Inc. since 1977 and will continue to participate in the future of Hampel’s Gun Co. in advisory and consulting roles.

Rodrigo Meirelles, president of Meirelles Industries LLC, will be leading day to day operations of Hampel’s Gun Co.

“Hampel’s Inc. has an impeccable reputation and is the oldest firearms retailer in continuous operation in North America. We believe that by combining the profound industry knowledge and extensive customer relationships of Hampel’s highly professional staff with our proven track record in marketing and business strategy we have a very robust business,” said Rodrigo Meirelles. “We are honored to have been selected by Karl Hampel and the Hampel family to lead Hampel’s guns & gunsmithing in its second century of successful operations.”



Karl Hampel                                                                            Rodrigo Meirelles
President                                                                                  President
Hampel’s Inc.                                                                           Meirelles Industries LLC

Friday, November 25, 2016

The Trespasser

Help me identify this trespasser and possibly poacher!

This morning my son and I spent a couple wet hours at Neverland, and decided to leave before we got really wet, but on the way out we stopped to remove the memory cards from a couple of trail cameras.

Once we arrived home we had some cassoulet to warm us up and I downloaded the pictures to my computer and as I moved through them, showing mostly smallish antlerless deer and a couple "illegal" bucks I came across the photo above that made me angry and upset.

Neverland is a small property, posted, and kept as undisturbed as possible. Except for some tree stands, one feeder, ten or twelve beehives and the bridge over the Mann creek, and of course the take of a couple deer each season, we let it be.

So, why would the trespasser in the photo think that he has the right to intrude in my domains and disturb my minuscule deer refuge, and that two days before Opening Day of gun season?

I found the following definitions at Google:

tres·pass·er
ˈtrespəsər,ˈtresˌpasər/
noun
  1. a person entering someone's land or property without permission.
    "a trespasser on his land"
    synonyms:intruderinterloper, unwelcome visitor, encroacher
    "trespassers will be prosecuted"

poach·er2
ˈpōCHər/
noun
  1. a person who hunts or catches game or fish illegally.

I am not sure when a trespasser becomes a poacher, but the person in the photo is carrying a gun, uninvited, in my property! So, Monday I will be filing a report both at the local Sheriff's Office and the DNR.

In the meantime, please, help me identify this trespasser and possibly poacher!

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

A Very Strange Opening Day

Del and his "monster" 9 pointer

Today is the most important unofficial holiday in Michigan, opening day of firearm's deer season, the Orange Day, when we are supposed to see hunter's clad in orange perched in tree stands all across the state.

Well, this was a very strange opening day.

Although I could not hunt the morning I was up quite early, and there was a dense fog covering Grand Traverse Bay, and maybe a lot of our northern lower peninsula, that could have come from one of the best Sherlock Holmes adventures, perhaps the Hound of the Baskervilles.

Sometime during early morning Del texted me BBD, which he translated as Big Buck Down. I told him I would help him drag it out later in the morning. When I drove from my home at Old Mission Peninsula to Neverland I could not see any activity in the new constructions and renovations, which would be an indication that people were out deer hunting.

After meeting Del he told me that according to Neverland tradition he shot his buck three times, the first shot at well under forty yards, and that apart from that deer and those shots he heard very little activity and saw nothing else.

We dragged the heavy monster through remains of last's year August storm, and eventually got back to our cars. Buck loaded Del drove home and went to my tree stand by the powerline. And then it started, or should I say, never started.

Initially the day was unseasonably warm, and even the sun showed up threatening to cook me inside my camouflage clothes, but eventually the wind turned one hundred eighty degrees, from a south to a north wind, and clouds obscured the sun and the temperature started dropping.

The only action I saw was when the crows discovered the gut pile, but at about 250 yards, it was a bit far away to partake in any details, and apparently they left rather soon.

And I waited, and waited, and waited, until the light gave away to darkness, when the clear shapes of the day are replaced by eerie and uncertain forms that shadows present us during twilight.

During the five or six hours that I afield I don't remember hearing a single shot or seeing another orange clad hunter perching from another tree. Since my first opening day in 2002, this is a first for me!

Maybe the fog combined with the on going Super Moon could explain some of today's almost unnatural weirdness.

Saturday, October 22, 2016

"The Heart Of The Hunter"

A book truly from the heart!

Last week Thursday I had a meeting in Kalamazoo, MI, and arriving too early I decided to go hunting...for hunting books, in used book stores, which is one of my favorite forms of prospecting for potentially forgotten gems.

At Bicentennial Bookshop Inc. (820 S. Westnedge Avenue, Kalamazoo, MI) I spent a good hour spot and stalking their overflowing shelves, and finally decided on taking three new specimens home and at least one (for I have not yet read the other two) proved to be a great trophy!

I had never heard of Edison Tesla Marshall (1894-1967) before, but after researching a bit I found him to be a prolific writer sold his first story to Argosy magazine while a freshman in college, giving him confidence to pursue writing as a career, and later in life "he traveled around the world and earned a reputation as a big game hunter and adventurer in search of story material." It looks to me that Mr. Marshall worked very hard to create and sell fantasy stories to others so he could live a full life as if in a fantasy story!

There is no bravado in "The Heart of the Hunter," but an honest discussion of the anguishes and contradictions of the chase, the pursuit of big and many times dangerous game, the excitement and fear, but never cowardice. Mr. Marshall takes us from his native Indiana where he first started hunting small game with a .22 rifle he received as a birthday gift in the first decade of the XX century, and moving to Oregon, to where his family relocated in 1907, and where he fell in love with ducks, which he hunted with an old Winchester hammer pump gun, the same gun with which he accidentally shot himself losing his left hand thumb and a piece of his left ear. According to him "Ducks are the big game of small game."

He started his big game adventures in the Yukon and Alaska, where in three different trips he hunted caribou, moose and grizzly and brown bear in ever more desolated and wild places. For all his hunts in the Northern Wilds Marshall used a Springfield 30-06, which he called .30 U.S.

After that he traveled to then British East Africa on safari with the famous expatriated American white hunter Bwana Cottar with whom he hunted "plains game," rhino, buffalo, leopard and lion, but not elephant as he considered the fifty pound extra license fee as so high. To The Whispering Veld he took the Springfield and a 9,5x57mm Mannlicher-Schönauer that he had won on a bet. He clearly did not like the later rifle due to his fierce recoil, and eventually used Cottar's Winchester 1895 in .405 for much of the dangerous game hunting. During his African safari Marshall starts to question his quest for big game trophies and his passion for conservation, leading to discussions and potentially disagreements with Bwana Cottar.

A couple years after Africa Marshall travelled virtually halfway around the world to the Big Jungles of French Indochina to where he took a Mauser .404 Jeffery, "shooting sixty grains of cordite and a four-hundred-grain bullet - much more powerful than Cottar's lever-action .405, well-balanced, stoutly fashioned, and one of the most positive if not foolproof arms I had ever put to my shoulder." In the luxuriant jungles of Indochina Marshall hunted for saladang, water buffalo, sambar deer, wild boar - as big, if not bigger, than the ones that destroyed the fields of France - leopard and his special kind of Golden Fleece, the tiger! "Without tigers it could not fill the bill. Tigers were the incarnation, the titulary goldhead, of the jungle." Besides the .404 Mauser, he also took a Remington .35 pump-action rifle, Model 14, as requested by "an American manufacturer."

Two years after his return from IndoChina, he traveled overland from the Gulf of Tonkin all the way down to Bangkok, and two years after that he arrived at the Jungle of Mowgli, where he hunted the Duars of Bhutan specially for tiger, sitting for countless hours over malodorous baits, and not shooting from the back of trained elephants while local villagers drove fields and forests., but also for water buffalo and other smaller antlered game.

Twenty two months afterwards he returned in the Pursuit of the Giants, hunting not the younger jungle tigers, but older and bigger tigers that grew to heavy to hunt wild game and now feasted on domestic livestock and eventually on their herdsmen in the fallow fields around villages. In pursuing this most dangerous game he again brought the .404 Mauser, but also another rifle. "This was no less than the double-barreled .470, made by the great George Gibbs of Bristol, and the grandest piece of ironmongery I had ever seen. Its long cartridge contained a five-hundred-grain bullet propelled ninety grains of cordite."

During this shikari Mr. Marshall first shot a smaller jungle tigress, and then a gigantic Grandfather of Tigers that measured a full ten feet in between pegs, as large as the famous Bachelor of Powalgarh, hunted by the dean of all tiger hunters, Jim Corbett. He shot another male tiger almost as large, and then during a drive for deer and boar a tiger - Kala Bagh, the black tiger, so called because of his black soul for he always killed the herdsmen prior to killing the cattle - appeared from nowhere and mauled one of the beaters, that probably had his life saved by Marshall due to the first aid provided and him taking to a hospital for treatment.

Marshall then had to travel to Burma where he was unable to collect much material for his book, but where he hunted a gigantic rogue elephant that was fully ten feet tall and had twenty inches tracks. Its broken tusks were eighteen inches in circumference and weighed just short of sixty pounds apiece.

He then returned to India, to find that during the previous five weeks Kala Bagh had set a blood record, killing six cattle, one buffalo, one pony, and oddly enough, three goats in the same night, and probably in the same minute. "And the great tigers of the grasslands had been piling up that kind of slaughter for years." Eventually both hunters met in a fierce battle.

Edison Marshall in Indochina with a "small" tiger (1931)

I am not sure if Mr. Marshall ever met Robert Ruark (1915-1965), both being accomplished writers as well as hunters, but both had enough sense to use enough gun. By the end of "The Heart of the Hunter" Edison Marshall writes the following: "I had hunted enough big game that when I told of it, or wrote of it, I would receive a respectful hearing. Never again would I remain silent when hunters urged the adequacy of light rifles against heavy game. These made for straighter shooting at long ranges. But let the hunter take more time and care in the stalk; and then hit as hard as he can, for surely noble quarry deserves a quick dispatch. This is the least we can give."

I had great pleasure reading "The Heart of the Hunter," even if I know that am unable to write nearly as well as Edison Marshall did and I am certain that in our rather stupid times I will never hunt the beautiful and elusive tiger, but I can at least try to live as full a life, turning my dreams and fantasies into reality.

Saturday, October 15, 2016

In Bocca al Lupo

In loving memory of Vito Benevelli (1949 - 2016)

I first met my friend Vito Benevelli when during a brief visit to Torino, Italy, my friend and work colleague Giorgio Mallia took me to his restaurant Frandin da Vito in San Mauro Torinese prior to a business meeting, about ten or twelve years ago. Giorgio knew about my passion for hunting, and also knew that Vito was not only a great hunter, but also a fantastic chef, and that his piemontese menu always had a great offering of wild game. His wife, Signora Luciana waited on us, and before we left she introduced me to Vito and we talked briefly about hunting. To say that my first meal there was memorable would be a gross understatement, but let's also say that it was "the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

In the years following that first visit I returned several times, we would spend more and more time talking about hunting, while savouring a glass of Nebbiolo followed by a Genipi, that Vito prepared himself with flowers he collected while hunting in the surrounding Alps.

Then when I lived for about a year in Torino in 2011/2012, we got even closer, and would meet at least every week that was in town. Once he took me shooting Élica, and on another time he took me to his hometown of Monforte D'Alba to hunt capriolo. He was frustrated because it was buck season, but only does and fawns appeared in the field. I remember that when we got back to the restaurant in San Mauro Torinese we had some battuta di carne cruda and thens shared a tajarin al ragu di coniglio, always complemented by a bottle of his own Benevelli Nebbiolo wine.

Even after I left Torino I was able to visit Vito at least once a year, and a couple months ago he called me saying that there were capriolo everywhere in the piemontese hills and that I should meet him at his home in Monforte so we could hunt together. Luckily I was able to combine a business trip to Livorno with a visit to Vito and we were together from Friday, September 9th, until Monday, 12th.

I was very concerned when he picked me at the train station in Asti I was very concerned with him. He seemed tired, was short of breath and temper, coughing constantly, as if the late European summer heat was suffocating him.

I could not have had a better host than Vito, along with Signora Luciana and their daughter Carlota. We hunted every morning and evening, always saw capriolo, but had very bad luck with his 240 Weatherby Magnum rifle. Eventually I shot the rifle and it was shooting patterns, not groups!

Finally on the Monday morning at an Azienda Faunistico Venatoria in Mondovì, after once again being entertained by several does and starting back, I saw a different animal. We stopped the car and I could see antlers. Vito told me to get the zaino (backpack) and rifle out and get ready. And that time the Weatherby didn't betray us, and the photo you see above is from the capriolo that I shot, on what would be Vito's last hunting day.

Carlotta called this morning at 4:45 with terrible news. Vito's hunter's heart betrayed him and I lost my dear friend.

In bocca al lupo, bravissimo amico Vito! May God be your guide.

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

A Real Rage

The recovered Rage...


I guess it is true that we learn something new every day. I bought a TenPoint Titan Xtreme crossbow a couple years ago, but as luck had it I did not have the opportunity to fire it at anything but targets until Monday this week.

Although I am a bit of a traditionalist, at Neverland the expected ranges from our tree stands are a bit longer than I am comfortable to shot with my compound bow, so the investment on the crossbow. Also, it is always nice to play with a new or different toy.

The other "innovation" that I accepted along the crossbow was the use of mechanical broadheads, in my particular case Rage's X Blade 125 grains. As my compound bow is set to 56 pounds draw weight I felt that fixed-blade broadheads would guarantee me better penetration, but the crossbow has power to spare.

Anyhow, I hunted both morning and evening of Michigan's bow season opening day from the tree stand that overlooks the feeder at an overgrown clearing at Neverland, north of the bridge over the Mann Creek and west of the powerline. And apart from a close encounter, almost of the third degree, with a Cooper's Hawk that attempted to land either on my tree or my crossbow, but then decided it was safer to pick the next tree to the left, and watching cotton-tail rabbits, squirrels and blue jays stealing the corn intended only for the precious and scarce whitetails I had only a beautiful and quiet day at the woods.

After that the weather turned sour, overclouded or raining and windy most of the week. Maybe a very northern side effect of hurricane Matthew playing havoc in the more southern latitudes. Last Saturday I spent the morning bird hunting with Del, when we shot a couple limits of woodcock but saw no grouse, and in the afternoon I had a terrible earache that made driving home a terrible chore and would not allow me to hunt.

Sunday after mass I felt good enough to hunt again, and went back to the same tree stand, and had another quiet, pleasant and beautiful evening in the woods, with only the same cotton-tail, squirrels and blue jays entertaining me when I would stop re-reading Jim Fergus "A Hunter's Road". Driving home Sunday night I called my wife that is visiting our daughter and grandson in Houston and she mentioned that there was a weather alert for a potential frost on Monday morning. And that comment energized me, as a cold blast put the deer on the move.

On Monday morning I was comfortably seating at my tree stand a solid hour before first light, and had finally discovered a good way of balancing the crossbow on the rail so I had my hands free, to read, use the rangefinder, text to my wife, or whatever.

With sunup the frost started to appear in the more open areas, and my hopes were renewed. About an hour or so later I noticed a slight movement behind the trees to the left of the feeder and felt the all too common adrenalin rush better known as buckfever.

The grey shadow stood still for several minutes and finally a small doe came from behind the tree and moved behind the feeder. I positioned the crossbow on the rails, turned the green light on the dots and chose the proper dot for a 35 yards shot. When the doe cleared the feeder I pressed the trigger and was brutally surprised.

I heard the arrow hitting the doe almost as I pressed the trigger, and she went down immediately. By the picture below you can see that the spine must have been hit, but nonetheless the effect was nothing but definitive.

I will let Neverland rest before going back for the big buck that haunts my dreams, and that I am sure that I will meet one day.

...and the end game.

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

A Macnab...of Sorts


According to the prestigious English publication THE FIELD, "the Macnab Challenge has its roots in the 1925 novel John Macnab by John Buchan. The story follows three protagonists, all desperate to relieve the ennui that has engulfed them. The solution can only be something devilish, with a dash of daring. Under the mantle of John Macnab, they issue a warning to three Highland estates: within 48 hours they will remove a salmon or stag, undetected, and present it at the door of the house. On this, they stake their reputations and the danger proves innervating. The modern Macnab Challenge: bagging a salmon, stag and brace of grouse within one day between dawn and dusk, is derived from Buchan’s tale. It is a thrilling test of sporting skill (with a dash of luck thrown in)."

I also read about Macnab Challenges in South Africa, where the sportsman will attempt to hunt a Vaal Rhebuck ram, shoot a brace of Francolin on wing over English pointers and catch a trout on a fly rod, all in a single day. Also, my good friend Del Whitman Jr. and I have been discussing for some years the institution of the "Neverland Macnab," which would require a ruffed grouse shot over dogs, a whitetail deer during either bow or gun season and a brook trout fished from the Mann Creek, all within the borders and boundaries of Neverland's 35 acres, during the same season, as I don't like being pressed or hurried on pleasurable endeavours.

I can imagine multiple other Macnab Challenges across the world, from Patagonia to Alaska or from Europe to Asia, but I would like to talk about the Macnab that I just completed in the forests and rivers of Ontario.

My friend Bob Scott and I had been discussing another bear hunt, and last February we met at the Grand Rapids Huntin' Time Expo to discuss arrangements with Jeff Helms of Agawa Canyon Outfitters. As in the case of our last hunt in 2013 we were looking for hunting "later in their season," which means after Small Game opener (September 15th). We penciled out arrangements, but Bob was unsure about making it due to family issues. The plan was that Richard Hobbs from South Africa would also come, but he later had to cancel due to a knee surgery.

In the meantime, I was able to convince another good friend, Eloir Mário Marcelino, from Tietê, Brazil, that he wouldn't be eaten by a bear, and that he would really enjoy big game hunting under absolute fair chase conditions in the "Canadian wilderness." And after many false starts, Eloir finally landed in the beautiful Cherry Capital Airport of my hometown, Traverse City, MI, on the last September 15th, the a few hours after I hunted the Grouse opener with Del and Matt (of Lake Ann Brewery), and a few hours before my wife traveled to Houston, TX, to spend time with the "man of her life," our grandson Sylas.

Eloir and I spend the Friday getting ready for the trip, buying some groceries and organizing our gear (or kit as the British would say), and for him bear spray, a new camera and other odds and ends.

And about four thirty on the Saturday morning we started four hundred plus miles trip to Halfway Haven, driving through the Mackinac and Sault Sainte Marie bridges, following the shores of Lake Superior on Canadian Route 17 to Wawa, and finally taking 101 towards Chapleau until we exited the black top on Much Lake Road. But I will let Eloir tell the details of the trip and borders crossings in his own blog.

We got to Halfway Haven by mid-afternoon when Sean - partner, cook, waiter, public relations, maintenance, and who knows how many other hats - welcomed us and showed us to our rooms. For good luck I stayed in the same room of my previous hunt, No. 8. We were a bit tired and just wanted to relax and enjoy a bit of conversation. Sometime later Jeff arrived from a bait tour and we lost no time in pestering each other.

On the next morning Jeff, Greg (of Kalamazoo area), Eloir and I went out on a bait run in order to reconnoiter and select our stands. During the brief outing I shot my first ruffed grouse of the week, on the wing, inside the bush, flushed by the reliable Jeff. Good work, old boy!

Grouse, the tastier of them all

When we returned it was time to demonstrate to Jeff and Sean that all ten hunters could hit the mark at about 30 yards. Everybody hit the mark well enough, and there was a long list of calibers used: 12 and 20 gauge slug guns, and rifles 30-06, 308, 300 Savage, 460 S&W, 348 Winchester and yours truly 9,3x74R.

Due to two repeating rifle failures that I had witnesses during my last bear hunt in 2013 - I short stroked the bolt of my 375 H&H after shooting a bear at 13 yards and jammed it, and another hunter failed to totally insert the magazine of his Remington 7400 which did not feed the cartridge to the chamber causing a click instead of a BOOM when his bear showed up - I hear the wise words of John A. Hunter and brought a double rifle for this hunt, in the ubiquitous (or almost) 9,3x74R caliber, paired up with the excellent RWS H-Mantel 286 grain bullets.

By two thirty in the afternoon and with the beginnings of a fever that would pester me for the next couple days, I climbed on Jeff's Ranger and drove the three miles to my blind at Hoppy Creek. I took my place at the tree stand and tanked the nearby waterfall for camouflaging my annoying coughing, another sign of the cold that I was nursing.

Jeff had almost ordered me to shoot a bear on that first day, as it would bring good vibes to the camp. And I tell you, I would rather be lucky than good, as around five, and despite the all the coughing, a beautiful boar black bear materialized to my left, maybe ten yards away.

I had the double rifle over my legs and just waited for the bear to look elsewhere, and as he was about to start circling me I sat the crosshairs of the Swarovski scope on the middle of the middle and pressed the trigger. And the bear collapsed; went down like a sack of bricks! But amazingly, after what seemed a long time, he struggled to get up and when it was apparent he was going to run I let him have the top barrel. I think that the energy of the second shot helped him move forward, but soon he rolled up and rested under some logs.

Two old bears

Even without having planned it, I was in the way of a Macnab, put there was no reason to rush it. Just like Ernest Hemingway, I don't think that we should impose a time limit on hunting, or fishing. We must enjoy these activities according to the pace established by our souls.

Then, some days later, when the weather was perfect, no wind, and all the hunters had been cared for, Jeff and I took his jet boat on the slow moving Montreal River to jig for walleyes. Before the purists attack me I need to say a couple things: I am not much of a fisherman, the closest fly-fishing waters were several hours away, and walleye are great eating fish, not to say very sporting ones. So, what is the problem if my Macnab was not completed with trout or salmon?

An almost magical evening in the Montreal River

And this is how I completed my unplanned Macnab Challenge of feathers, fur and fish, but I need to say that without great friends taking part in it, the achievement would be meaningless.

Monday, August 1, 2016

Henrique's Hog Hunt

Drawing from the mighty hunter himself


My nephew Henrique came visiting from Brazil to spend a month during one of the nicest summers I can recall here in Traverse City, but his mind was in something much beyond summer and the blue waters of the West Arm of Grand Traverse Bay.

As the old saying goes, "you can take the boy out of the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the boy," and as soon as Henrique arrived the only things in his mind were hunting and shooting, and maybe a bit of fishing.

As you may or may not know, Brazil has some of the most draconian (and ineffective) guns laws in the world, so prior to his trip to Michigan the only things that Henrique had shot were an old and very loose air rifle and some rounds from a just as old and maybe as loose 410 shotgun.

So, as soon as he arrived at my home he was at the backyard shooting my Crosman 3357 .177" CO2 revolver. I tried to introduce him to other air guns, but he was just in love with the Python lookalike. Some days later I introduced him to Sporting Clays at Cedar Rod & Gun Club, and on the following Tuesday he discovered the world of Trap shooting, and after dropping my daughter and grandson at the Grand Rapids airport it was time to explore Cabela's.

But all these activities could not quench Henrique's thirst for hunting. The problem was that we were (or at the time of this writing are) right in the middle of summer, not the most convenient time of the year for the Sport of Kings, and I had to find a solution or either he would go crazy or worse yet, drive me crazy. The only practical and affordable solution was a hog hunt, and after searching the internet I settled for Super G Ranch, in Morley, MI, about two hours from my home.

Before going on with the story I would like to make a few comments: I really believe in fair chase hunting, but like many other hunters, and probably many of you, I've hunted preserve birds before and hunted in large high fenced properties in South Africa, and found both to have a place in the modern world of hunting. And one of most certain places is in introducing new hunters to the sport, especially when a young aspiring hunter is visiting from a far way place out of normal hunting season.

So we are back to Friday a week or so ago, waking up at 4:30 AM (one must really be a very nice uncle to do such a thing!), getting dressed (in my case, as Henrique slept with his clothes on) and getting on the road (my huntsmobile was already loaded with all the gear.) After a pancake breakfast at McDonalds we arrived at Super G Ranch just after 7:30 AM and Les, the owner, took us to a 540 acres high fenced hunting area about a mile from his home.

As we drove inside the inclosure and parked the huntsmobile under a nice shade tree, three or four pigs came to us as to be fed, and we just ignored them, even a very large hog that slowly moved away.

Henrique geared up, which consisted of a brand new Ka-Bar knife on his belt and my 1949 vintage Winchester Model 70 in 270 WCF. I carried a range finder and my Ruger SP101 357 Magnum, the later more for psychological comfort than real need.

The plan was to walk around the 540 acres until we saw a hog and then approach to a reasonable shooting distance, a classic stalking by any other name, and we started down a two track that pretty much bisected the enclosure. After three or four hundred yards I noticed some movement just off the two track, and we approached carefully and saw two whitetail does. We stared at each other for what seemed like a long time and they bolted into the undergrowth.

Shortly after we came upon a very large cow, most likely pregnant, and shooed her away, before crossing a creek. From there it was uphill, and the temperature started climbing with us.

After another half a mile or so, Henrique spotted some animals. It was a group of four or five very large pigs busily making a meal of whatever they had found. The rangefinder read 130 yards, and we decided to approach and check for hogs. As we closed the distance it became clear that there were only sows. We talked a bit and Henrique said he really wanted a hog.

We abandoned the sows and continued our journey into the "wilderness." After sometime heading west we came across a little marsh and had to cross another (or maybe the same) stream, and then came across some rams. And although the rams would make a nicer wall hanging trophy than a hog, I rather eat porc than mutton (but I will rather eat lamb than porc), so we let them be. They also didn't seem to mind us being around, another reason to ignore the rams.

We started heading south and had to cross yet another stream, and once again uphill we found several rather small pigs, and even with the higher temperatures decided that they were not what we were looking for. But after turning east into the woods to sort of close the loop, I noticed movement far ahead. It was a sounder of maybe ten or twelve animals, and they were foraging leisurely heading for the stream.

We moved at an angle to cut their path and when the sounder crossed the two track that we had originally walked on, two hogs, a black and a red, started fighting. It was nice to see their battle while the large sows moved around, apparently ignoring the would be suitors.

While the hogs filled the woods with their squeals and grunts we approach to forty yards, I told Henrique to kneel, and he selected the black hog, sending a 130 grain Remington Core-Lokt just behind the left shoulder. The sounder broke out towards the marsh, and the black hog arched in the opposite direction, not traveling more than ten yards before collapsing.

Henrique wanted to finish the hog with his new Ka-Bar, but I refused to let the accident-prone young men to risk an injury, and told him to put another bullet into the back of his head.

Les' daughter came retrieve the hog with a front-wheel loader and we walked back to the hunstmobile. We met Les at the barn to skin and quarter the 260 pound hog, and some good conversation, prior to starting back home.

Tomorrow I will smoke one of the hams in my Big Green Egg and bring it to Cedar Rod & Gun Club for Henrique's farewell party prior to his return to Brazil on Friday.

Saturday, June 25, 2016

Lost Bird


Is there a Golden BB?

Today I braved the summer heat and shot a couple rounds of sporting clays at Cedar Rod & Gun Club at the heart of Leelanau Peninsula, and not far from my home and closer yet to Neverland.

In the first round Dave, Jim and I must have set the club record for fastest round ever, as we completed the 10-station 50-bird course in no more than 30 minutes. The reason for the frantic pace was that Jim had to attend a golf outing. In my mind, and as Dave reminded me Mark Twain said this first, golf is just a perfect way to spoil a good walk. But enough of that!

But during the slower second round, now in a five man squad (Kevin, Dan, Dave, Rick and the author, not necessarily in this order), I found between stations 8 and 9 a couple Midis that reminded all of us that unless you hit the target with the center of your pattern, luck can play all sorts of games with the shotgunner.

First I found a target that had a nice BB hole through the rind that either joins or separate, depending on your point of view, the center and the rim (or should it be the brim) of the clay pigeon. I think that one or two millimeters either towards the center or the edge would have resulted in a broken target, as the material is thicker. But as luck wanted, this was a lost bird for the shooter.

Looking around for just just a couple more seconds I found another lost bird, this time hit by three pellets, as you will be able to see in the photo below.

Apparently three are also not enough!

Clearly I have no idea which gun, gauge, load or chokes were used, of even if the two birds were shot by the same shooter or in the same day, but this weird findings serves to remember us about the uncertainties and art, rather than science, of shotgunning.

And while this is inconsequential for the weekend shotgunner, what could this have cost a competitor? But the really serious aspect of this is to the hunter, for there is little worse than wounding a bird and not putting the effort to retrieve it. And a bird hit by one or a few pellets from the edge of a pattern could be a lost bird, just like these unfortunate clay pigeons.

I don't know what the answer is, except to keep your eyes on the bird after you shoot and if you believe that you could have hit it, even by a single BB, gloden or otherwise, to go after it!

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Édoaurd Foà


I just finished reading Édouard Foà's AFTER BIG GAME IN CENTRAL AFRICA, which in the unabridged form typical of late XIX and early XX centuries also says: "Records of a sportsman from August 1894 to November 1897, when crossing the Dark Continent from the mouth of the Zambesi to the French Congo."

I bought this book at Powell's Books during a very pleasant trip to Portland, OR, during May 2014, but just recently had the time to work on it. Of Monsieur Foà five books, this is the only one translated into English. But before making comments and considerations on this excellent read, I would like to introduce Monsieur Foà to those that have not met him before!

Édouard Foà was born in Marseille in 1862 and lost his parents as a teenager when he had to leave his studies at the Collège de Bône in Tunis and found a job as interpreter at the local English Consulate while working at the same time at the post office administration. At 18 he volunteered for the French Army, resigning as a Non-Commissioned Officer  at 23 while serving at Dahomey, current day Benin. From 1886 he was engaged in expeditions to explore the west coast of Africa.

In 1891 he was put in charge by the Muséum National d'Historie Naturelle of a mission to explore southern Africa, and during the two year journey he was able to combine the scientific work with his passion of hunting. 

In 1894 he returned to Africa where during the next three years he would cross the continent from the Zambezi to the Congo, a trip that among other works would result (posthumously) in After Big Game In Central Africa.

Now I would like to report on the firearms that Monsieur Foà selected for this journey into the unknown:

  • 1 Double-barrelled 8-bore rifle
  • 2 Express 577-bore rifles
  • 1 Express 303-bore rifle (Metford)
  • 1 smooth 12-bore Winchester six-shot repeater (I believe it to be a Model 1893)
  • 1 smooth 32-bore double barrel fowling-piece (for collection of small birds)
All four rifles were side-plate exposed hammer actions, as at the time Monsieur Foà did not believe that the new hammerless actions (either side-lock or box-lock) were robust or reliable enough to endure such a journey, away from any competent gunsmith. By the photographies in the book, all the rifles appear to be of the robust and proven Jones underlever design.

Being so conservative in his choice of rifles (it is understandable that he did not have a Level 8mm as French law regarded and regards military cartridges as War Material), I was impressed to see his selection for a repeating shotgun, which he always kept handy for self-protection against four or two-legged predators!

As for the ammunition, the details are the following:

  • 8-bore: 100 "small" cartridges with round 2 1/2 ounce bullets and 5 drachms of powder, for buffaloes and to dispatch large pachydermata; and 100 "large" cartridges with conical 4 ounce 1 drachm bullets and 8 drachms of powder, for elephants and rhinoceroses;
  • Express 577: 1,600 express bullet cartridges (6 drachms of powder), with copper tube, weighing 1 ounce 2 drachms; and 800 cartridges with solid bullets ordinary lead, of 1 ounce 5 drachms;
  • Express 303 (Metford): 500 cartridges, with solid bullets of great penetration for defense or shots at head (hippopotami, elephants, rhinoceroses), weighting 7 drachms; and an additional 2,400 cartridges with Jeffery bullets (8 drachms), hollow bullet (7 drachms), soft-nosed solid bullets (7 drachms), and soft-nosed express bullets (7 drachms).
All ammunition was supplied by Eley and Kynoch and packed in soldered zinc boxes, ten cartridges in a box.

Monsieur Foà last expedition took place in a time of great transition in the firearms world, black powder to smokeless (chemical) powders, large bore to small bore, lead bullets to engineered jacket bullets, but at early dawn of the repeating bolt-action rifle. By the end of the book it becomes apparent that the 8-bore became more of a nuisance than necessity, and that when other rifles were not at hand, the little 303 Express killed every animal that it shot at when the bullet was well placed, from lion to rhinoceros to elephant.

Let's remember that Alexander Lake in his book Killers in Africa tells us that he used almost exclusively a 303 Lee-Enfield for his hunting, and that he considered that the 270 Winchester with a 150 grain bullet would be a proper replacement for it. Mr. Lake also had a very low opinion of the heavy express rifles as the brutal recoil disrupted proper bullet placement.

Similarly, in Green Hills of Africa Ernest Hemingway uses almost exclusively a 30-06 Springfield by Griffin & Howe during both his 1933 and 1953/54 safaris, shooting 220 grain solids for buffalo and lion.

Another point that I would like to cover is on Monsieur Foà discussions on the Eatable Quality of Animals and the Hunter's Bill of Fare. After long reflection and a rather long time in the bush, he proposes the following menu for when having distinguished guests at camp:

MENU

SOUP
Consommé of buffalo tail. Eland Soup.

HOUR'S D'OEUVRE
White ants, grasshoppers on the point of laying.

ENTREES
Jugged wild cat, elephant's foot à la poulette, giraffe's tongue with caper sauce.

VEGETABLES
Mushrooms, Bonongwe with eland's marrow, Runi, Mtanga with ground nuts.

ROASTS
Elephant's heat larded with warthog fat, rolled rhinoceros fillet, monkey en papillote, agouti stuffed with tortoise.

SALAD
Matako ia tsano.

DESERTS
Fulas, matondos mtduzi, tchendje, and various others.

WINE AND BEER
Moa or pombe and fresh Chiromo nchena.

Shortly after presenting this sumptuous (but for us rather impractical and probably unachievable) menu, he comments that: "For my part, I can only repeat what I have already said elsewhere: if we made a list of everything used for food in various parts of the world, vegetables apart, we should come to the conclusion that everything living which nature has placed in the earth is eatable, and that people fond of it may be found.Was it not with this object that animals were created, like an interminable bill of fare, from which man is free to choose what pleases him?"

By the end of what would become his last expedition, Monsieur Foà's bag was the following:
  • Large animals            488
  • Small game                520
  • Various                       220
  • Grand Total            1,228
Édouard Foà passed away on 29 June 1901 at Villers-sur-mer (Calvados) due tropical diseases contract during his previous journeys into Africa, or maybe due to a hunter's broken heart, for no longer being able to enjoy the bill of fare from Africa's hinterlands.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Airgun Therapy

Walther LGR and Target Set-up

Last week while reading Vin Sparano's anthology "THE GREATEST HUNTING STORIES EVER TOLD" I came across Jim Carmichel's "The Great Jonesboro Pigeon Shoot" and that reminded me that I have been neglected one of the greatest form of shooting anyone, Professional Small Boy or not, can dream about: airgunning.

If you dive though the different posts in this blog you will come across half a dozen or so air gun related postings, but my writing is rather primitive when compared (if it could be compared at all) to Mr. Carmichel's.

Another great writer that also penned some fantastic airgun words is the late Peter Hathaway Capstick, who I believe coined the term professional small boy, which I still shamelessly. Two of the best Capstick's air gun stories are "Backyard Safari" and "Mini Sniping."

One or way or the other I have lived similar experiences as those described by these gentlemen. I may not have shot pigeons out of a court room, but I did that out of fertilizant plant and from the middle of a park in an undisclosed South American country, and while I have not bagged the dreaded bull Gundwan, I have stalked and terminated the dangerous saurian Ameiva ameiva, also known as "Jungle Runner" or South American Ground Lizzard.

I've also spent countless hours with friends or alone in my basement airgun range, mostly shooting at reactive targets for the almost instantaneous gratification of seeing a target flipping or flying. Many of the different targets that I shoot at are improvised: playing cards hanging from binder clips that are suspended from a cooper wire, spent .22 LR or center fire pistol cartridges set on golf tees (the only practical use that I have for an golf equipment), and any other thing that is same to be shot at. I also have a very nice Gamo running deer target (Gamo MTS 1000 Moving Airgun Target System to be more specific).

But with spring coming to Traverse City, and beautiful sunny days ahead, cold or otherwise it is indifferent, I just could not bear the thought of being in the dungeons and wanted a set-up that would allow me to enjoy airgun shooting in my backyard.

In the past, shooting an airgun in the backyard could put you in trouble with the law depending on where you lived in Michigan, but since July 1, 2015 airguns are no longer considered firearms, and as part of the provisions in the Air Gun Reclassification Package "these devices cannot be regulated on private property where authorization is given and the possessor takes precautionary measures to ensure that the projectile remains within the bounds of the property."

So yesterday night, when I stopped at the local Gander Mountain to buy my spring turkey license, I bought a Caldwell Resetting Airgun Target System Steel (if the Gamo is called the MTS, then this one should be called CRATSS), and this afternoon I inaugurated my new private outdoor range.

I placed the CRATSS in front of one of my archery targets to have a large and dependable back stop, placed a chair at about 20 meters and started banging at the target. Actually, my Walther LGR is so quiet that the only noises that I could hear were the hammer striking the valve and the pellet hitting the target (or the backstop if I did not do my part.)

The 10X scope on the LGR is dead on at 10 meters (the distance I generally shoot in the dungeon - sorry, the basement - and I found out that the first MIL-Dot above center was dead on at 20 meters, and when I moved to 30 meters I just had to go back to the center of the crosshair.

The cold wind blowing from the West Arm of Grand Traverse Bay easily pushed the pellets an inch sideways at the distances I was shooting, and with time the near freezing temperature started to take its toll on my finger tip sensibility. Finally, the setting sun started to play a torturing game of shadows and mirages. This was a great reminder of how much more challenging outdoor shooting is than when done in the controlled environment of an indoor range.

My next plan is to set a regulation Mini Snipping range. Of course I will have to get permission from my wife, as she is the only grown-up around the household. I will keep you posted on that, provided she allows me.

And tomorrow, the Brown Truck is supposed to bring me another Walther: a .22 caliber LGV high power spring piston. You know, professional small boys just cannot have enough toys!