Along the High Line
 

Fall will come. Enjoy the summer. Go fishing.

Old men, beautiful Parkers, fast boat!

Nice wooden boat Bruce!

Charlie with a Washburn gun I presume and a good guess as to what you're Chooting :) Nice boat.

Take a kid fishing or shooting... or both.





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Cool boat Bruce, glad to see you are enjoying it, Jim

Jim makes these. This was up in Itasca County last week. Everybody says nice boat. The county sheriffs deputy on water patrol came all the way across the lake just to admire and ask about it.

Interesting how local craftsmen design and build boats suited to the conditions around them. Here's my Au Sable riverboat. You will only find them within 25 miles of Grayling Michigan. 23' long, 28" on the bottom. I guide the boat from the rear seat, using a 6' pole. We go downstream and take out where my truck has been spotted

I built a duck boat thinking it would be cheeper than one of these: http://www.classicbarnegat.com/CLASSIC.htm Somehow it cost almost as much to build as it would have been to buy.

My Jon boat is at the shop getting tuned up. Was supposed to be ready by the end of turkey season, but oh well.

In the interim, I have been working on planning for my quail operation this coming season at Dad's place. Working on a supply of released birds.

Yeah, but there is something special about being able to hunt out of a boat you built with your own hands and the fact that you can make modifications to it as you build it or over time to accommodate your hunting style.

I agree and the same can be said of making your own bow and your own arrows and taking game with them - or designing and tying your own flies and making your own rod and taking fish with them. Even if they may be less expensive the time involved in making these things by your own hands is considerable but deeply rewarding.





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Sage advice!

Kind of the same feeling of satisfaction you get at the pheasant preserve when every body is shoving shells into their autoloaders, and you pull out your "antique" hammer gun, and shoot your birds over your own dogs, as opposed to the guides dogs.

You are so right Harold. It just would'nt be any fun without your own dogs and a SxS. It's even better when people request your dogs to hunt over.

Harold and Daryl, I remember a few years ago, I shared a field of mixed pheasants and chukars at Native Shore, an Eastern Shore RSA, with a friend who was celebrating his 90th birthday with his side lever Grant. My gun of choice was long forgotten, but it was a Parker, but my Wirehair, Eva, was not forgotten. My friend wanted to shoot over the guide's dog, and we did, for one field, and suffered through some missed points and busted birds. The second field, he reluctantly agreed to shoot over Eva. She pointed and retrieved a field of 11 or 12 birds and also "retrieved" a winged cockbird from a tree about 300 yards from the original point. My friend and the guide were reluctantly impressed.

The best is shooting real wild roosters. Not pen raised. No hens. A Wiley late season rooster is a challenge not to be forgotten. Pen raised birds are just targets.

Unfortunately not all of us are able to get to country where there are still wild pheasants. But in my youth in eastern Mass, with a borrowed Trojan 12, I would walk up as many as 40 birds in a half-day. I go back there in my mind sometimes while sitting by a warm fire in the woodstove.





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what fond memories them are dean....charlie

In the early 70's I lived in Italy and would hunt the mountains for pheasant with a little 20 gauge Bernadelli Brescia hammer gun. I used an Italian guid and his dog and the hunting was wonderful as was the abundance of game. The birds were wild and so were the hare, boar, and other game flushed. Thank God I didn't squander my youth on education and family.

Harry- God served you well! I have always believed that one should never let academics interfere with real education. I think that is what you are stressing. Jeff

Jeff a couple sayings do not know where they came from "You will find more in the woods than in books" and the other "trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters". Gary