PA Grouse on a hot day

[Cold Spring]

Many of you know me as a Fox guy but I also like Parkers and some of the Ithacas and enjoy hunting with them too. Here’s a cell pic of good grouse I took today with my VH 20-bore. She's a half-pistol grip, has 28-inch tubes and is factory choked Cyl and Mod as per Chuck’s letter. All original. Ordered by DuBray and shipped to a firm in Kentucky in October 1906.

This is a walk up bird. It was 34 degrees at 10 am when I started at the first place, and once the fog burned away the temp shot up to 73 at 1 pm. Sunny and bright. Not much doing until I got on an old and small power line that crosses the mountain, and flushed 3 birds there within 2 hours. No shooting on the first two and this third one fell to a 7/8 ounce load of 7-1/2’s from a Remington field load. Its crop was full - and I mean full - of green leaf bits and clover from ground cover there. Find the food, find the birds.

The bird's fan is on a drying board now and measures 14-1/2", not the largest I've taken but still pretty decent.



[

[Double Lab]

What a gorgeous bird Frank and that VH 20 ain't too shabby either. Knowing you it's in pretty much original condition but what great chokes for a bird gun.

[Dean Romig]

Nice picture Frank. A great looking brown phase bird that complements the gun nicely.

I wonder if the museum curator noticed the gun being gone for several hours... What a great Parker!!





.

[Cold Spring]

Thanks gents. As I remember there were some discussions here a few years ago on a Parker 20-bore that MIGHT have been cut to Cyl & Cyl and what its choke constrictions were. Right barrel on this one has .003" constriction that's tapered over a 2-inch run. Left barrel is 16 thou over 3-inches. Both with a Stan Baker bore mike that's pretty accurate. JFI.

[Dean Romig]

Yep, pa'tridge an' 'cock chokes.






.

[Richard Flanders]

Nice! Gorgeous gun and bird. It's clearly a big adult bird.

[TOOL MAN]

Beautiful combo Frank, but what I'm more impressed with is the quality of the photo. Time to put the Nikon on "Let It Go!!" You have my vote for the Dec. home page shot! Calendar worthy. Beautiful.

[Big D]

Doesn't the broken band in the center of the tail indicate a hen?

[Cold Spring]

John the solid band is locally accepted as a male but biologists say it's not 100% positive. Steve, the iPhone will take pics at up to about 3.5 megabytes depending on the background but often the colors don't look quite right, as here on the VH frame which sort of looks blued instead of color cased. If I'm feeling lucky I'll carry my Canon in a padded case in the game pouch; when set on Manual I can control the field and exposure settings and it will do X-large high res pics as needed for publication.

[Dean Romig]

That frame doesn't look blued from where I'm sitting. Nice vibrant and bright original Meriden case colors.





.