Come Dawn, Come Dusk

A couple days ago I finished reading "COME DAWN, COME DUSK - 50 Years a Gamekeeper" by Norman Mursell which are personal memories of his work from apprentice to head gamekeeper for several Dukes of Westminster, mainly at the Eaton Estate, from the 1930's to the 1980's.

Mr. Mursell probably could be describred as a true "pomp and circumstance" Englishman, and if Non-Comissioned Officers are the true keepers of regimental history, then gamekeepers have the same mission when it comes to the many forms of "shooting" (meaning the taking of fowl by means of a shotgun) in Great Britain in general and England in particular.

"Come Dawn, Come Dusk" presents in a unique way the various aspects of animal husbandry and game management that were and are required to rear the large amount of game birds including pheasants, partridges and mallards in order to have the numbers that make driven shoots possible, as well as forestry and vermin control activities to go hand in hand with the blood sports.

I believe that it is hard for most of us to imagine the real cost and effort to maintian extensive estates, gamekeepers, foresters and all other sort of manpower in order to create entertainment for selected guests of the likes of Winston Churchill and the Prince of Wales for a handfull of days a year.

Even if "shooting" at Eaton or other high-end driven shoots is quite different from the bird hunting that I am used to, which I believe is called rough shooting in the UK,  and most of game pursued ends up in high scale restaurants both in London and the continent instead of my Big Green Egg, I would like to try that extravaganza some time in my life.

My New Hat

My New Hat

June is here and finally the cold and snowy winter is just present in our memory and while the dog days of summer don't arrive we can enjoy some nice time at the shotgun range, at least when I am not traveling on business, which is not very often.

Anyhow, yesterday my son Daniel and I drove to Cedar Rod & Gun Club (www.crgc.org) to shoot some Trap. Any form of shotgunning is always my preferred form of relaxation after a working day, and it is always more enjoyable if Daniel can come along, even if does not accept my coaching.

Driving from Old Mission Peninsula to Leelanau is always enjoyable, and I particular enjoy the country views once we leave M-72 and get 651 towards Cedar. The gentle rolling hills where farming and old growth forest intertwine always hide a deer or a flock of turkeys, keeping the distant fall hunting season alive in our hearts.

When we got to the club shooting was already underway and Daniel and I got engaged in some small talk with other members which soon turned to some new gun appreciation, as someone always has a new gun.

On our first round I started at station 5 and missed my seventh and eighth shots, which were taken at station 1, finishing with a score of 23. The Eighth Ammendment of the US Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, and while missing while shooting flying, be it birds or clay pigeons, is not unusual for me, it is always cruel to miss two birds in a row!

On the second round we only had four shooters in the squad which makes for a little faster pace, while I'd rather have a slower one. Anyhow, I was just "in the zone" and could focus the bird that was slightly affected by a rising air current with eagle eyes, despite being a middle aged grandfather. The Caesar Guerini Summit Limited was throwing the Remington Gun Club one ounce load of No. 8's exactly where they were supposed to go.

My last five shots were taken from station 3 and by the 21st or 22nd shot I had to start some yoga breath control in order to keep my concentration and avoid thinking about a possible twenty five straight, which is a clear receipt for disaster. The last shot was a straight-away bird, which is a harder shot for me, since I've always been a Skeet Shooter.

Anyhow, yesterday I had my first twenty five straight at Trap, and after everyone congratualted me they asked for my hat following a very old tradition, which may go as fas back as the OLD HATS pigeon club in England. Unusually I did not have one, so I bought a brand new CRGC hat, distributed ammunition to the other five shooters present, stuffed the had with a handfull of clay pigeons to give it some weight and threw it up.

The picture clearly shows what being hit by ten rounds of twelve gage ammo does. It turns a brandnew hat into an honorable Old Hat and a true trophy in seconds.

I just would like to thank all present to have allowed me to throw the hat in the air, rather than have to wear it when they shot it!

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!