Just wondering...
 

There are a couple of lakes near my house that hold some pretty nice fish - bream, bass, big cats - a two minute drive and you're there. They're surrounded by houses now but with enough green space so you're not close to being in anybody's back yard, and it's a quick and easy way to spend an hour or two on the water. Anyway, the last time I fished one of them I found this. It's obviously been there a while and it's old but not ancient. These lakes have been "in town" for quite a while; I know no one has hunted there in at least 10-15 years - probably more. I've walked those banks many times and never saw it until last Sunday; we've had some pretty high water recently and I'm guessing it washed ashore at some point. I love finding stuff like this and it just got me to thinking about who it was, when it was and what they shot at. Whatever it was, I hope they got it...

https://i.imgur.com/HtJYdU5l.jpg

great find...bet the old boy got what ever he shot at....i love the old peters shells....charlie

I never ever leave a shell behind if I can find it/them now but in my younger days that was not the case. Now I don't want people to know where I shot or what I was shooting. However every time I find someone else's old shells they get picked up and put on a sapling(s) with the head up so someone in the future will wonder who, what, when and they will know the where. (Except behind sloppy dove and goose hunters; I pick all of them up for the landowner.)

At our farm growing up, no one ever picked up shells for nearly a century. The net result was an almost complete collection of the different kinds of shells used in the 20th century. Some civil war treasure hunters made a display of a bunch of them that I have around somewhere

I know the right thing to do is to pick up your empties but I gotta admit I don't always. And I really do like finding an old shell here and there; something about feeling a kinship with those who've been there before...or something. And Charlie, I can't vouch for that being a Peters shell; the background is just my mouse pad at work :)! But I do like the old Peters shells and boxes too!

When I come out of the woods, chances are my game bag has more trash in it than birds

Finding old shells in a public area sounds interesting. If I find a shell in my grouse coverts I get worried since I'm the only one allowed to hunt in most of them. I'd look at the shell and if its recent and a light load of small shot, I'd really get worried.

You worried about the Alzheimers already?. Stay away from cooking in aluminum pots.

oops

That's funny Todd. I always cook with cast iron by the way. I'm very protective of my coverts and the property owners wishes not to let anyone else hunt their estates. There have been problems in the past. One day I was hunting Governor Dewey's property and threw off some yahoo's who were hunting near his house. They got back into their car, loaded their guns with slugs and fired shots over my head. I could hear the slugs whistle when they approached and crash into the branches above my head. I know they were aiming above my head, but the sounds of those slugs crashing into the branches above my head was a bit unnerving. The police caught them but it wasn't a pleasant experience.

Dewey was particularly sensitive to strangers on his property. For a long time he had a guard house in front of his home and a bodyguard named Cappy. Back in the 1930's he had a contract on his life put there by Dutch Shultz who he was prosecuting for mob related offenses, when he was special prosecutor of New York City whose charter, from Mayor LaGuardia, was to stop the mob in the city. The good news is that Lucky Luciano had Schultz killed before he could get to Dewey. Lucky knew that if Dewey was killed it would bring down a lot of pressure on the “syndicate” that would ruin their business.

Dewey kept a loaded Winchester Model 12 next to his bed in case anyone got past Cappy. He gave the gun to me in the early '70's. I still hunt his estate although he is long gone. He was a friend of my grandfather’s and always good to me. The gun gets passed to my family someday.