What would you do with it?

[Rich Anderson]

Now that we have gone back in time with unlimited finances and have our "special" Parker in hand what are you going to do with it.

Give me the late 30's early 40's my Parker A-1 special 20ga is with me in what was then British East Africa for a two month safari traveling between Tanzania and Kenya. I also have a Westly Richards 450/400 double rifle and a Rigby bolt gun in 275 Rigby aka 7X57 or 7MM Mauser. The double rifle is for the big stuff the Rigby for the plains game.

After a long day of tracking a big tusker (100lb of ivory per side) or Mbogo in the thick scrub my Parker and I would relax around a water hole and shoot Sand Grouse, doves, francolin and guinea fowl.

[Harold Lee Pickens]

I'd buy a house in Channing, Michigan in the UP and stay there from Sept 15 th thru the end of bird season.

[Rick Losey]

less adventurous here

If is was dreaming

My setters and I go to meet the Woodcock as they set off from the maritimes, migrate with them picking up Grouse in the north and adding quail after getting south of of the frost line.

i read about the old timers like Dr. Norris over a hundred years ago traveling with their sport

of course - we all imagine or selves as the sport, not the pullman attendent or sharecropper :whistle:

[allen newell]

I'd be hunting grouse and woodcock with my grandfather and dad over a brace of english setters in New Hampshire.

[charlie cleveland]

i take my 8 and 10 gas and go hunt the mississippi flyway in about 1890 s time period... charlie

[Rich Anderson]

Harold that house in Channing is open to you anytime during bird season and beyond:)

[Harold Lee Pickens]

How about starting out on the plains of Montana chasing huns and sharptails in September and cotinuing on thru the Dakotas. By early Oct, I would be in Minnesota hunting grouse and woodcock, I,d stop at Grand Rapids, Min. for the National Grouse and Woodcock Hunt, I've been a guide there before and have b.een the chairman of the Upper Ohio Valley Chapter for 28 years.
By mid Oct, I'd be in the UP and stay there until the season ended or the weather ran me out. I would then need a couple weeks of R and R, to rest the dogs of course. In Jan., Kansas for ringnecks and quail would be the order.
The next year, I might start out in Nova Scotia, then drop down into maine and over to Hew Hampshire and Vermont, or one could stay in Montana and hunt the plains and then to the mountains for ruffs and blue grouse.
As you can see, I've thought about this before. I am going to need at least one more dog.
What guns would I take, well thats a whole new thread!

[Daryl Corona]

Harold;
Have guns, dogs, will travel. That's exactly what I've always dreamed about doing once I leave the world of the working man and retire. To me it would be the grand slam of bird hunting. I'd like to bag a different species of bird with a different Parker (or Fox) just for the fun of it.

[Harold Lee Pickens]

Daryl, I hope to be able to do this within a couple of years. I have been an optometrist for 30 years now. I will be 59 in April, and probably need to work a couple more years.
Thats a good looking lab in your Avatar. Although I am a setter man, a good lab is hard to beat especially on pheasants. My best friend had a lab, and we routinely hunted it with my setters on grouse and woodcock. It figured out real quick that when the beeper collar went off, ther was a bird in front of my dogs. On running and or crippled birds, especially pheasants, it excelled. Unfortunately, Cowboy has passed.

[E Robert Fabian]

Harold I will drive, have a suburban so all will be comfortable. I just bought a 32' tag along camper to hunt the North Maine woods as I am usually 2 hrs. from a gas pump when bird hunting Maine...little set back on camper had it two months...never used it and tree came down and totaled it...good thing is had insurance on it. New Brunswick has the highest bird numbers I ever seen the last few years and all the ground you could ever imgine to hunt.
Only seven months till Woodcock season in NB.

[Daryl Corona]

Harold;
Unfortunately , Parker, the lab in my Avatar has passed also. He was an incredible pointing lab that pointed as well as any pointer/setter I have ever hunted over. Sadly he died at 9 yrs of age. Nothing got away form him I am now blessed with 2 labs that were from a rescue that have performed as well as he did, one of them points and holds and just loves finding birds. He learned this (I think) from hunting with my buddy's GSP. He actually backed the GSP. These animals are truly amazing but I have yet to try them on grouse. Hunting woodcock was very easy for them but grouse will really put them to the test. All it takes is birds to make a birddog. Lots of them. I just turned 63 last week so I'll work as long as I can take but I'll but more and more long weekends until I hang it up. Next year maybe we can meet up in Channing and show Rich which end of the cigar to light first.:)

[Rich Anderson]

Daryl you light the end thats NOT in your mouth:biglaugh::biglaugh:

[John Davis]

I'd saddle up my Tenn. walker and run a brace of pointers (or setters) through the south Georgia piney woods and along the fence rows in between. From 9 am till about noon we'd find 10 or so bevy of quail. Wouldn't bother with the singles. After a nice bit of lunch and a snooze, I'd hit it again around 2 pm and hunt till dusk. Another 10 bevy and it would be time to kick my feet up and sip a little Makers Mark. That's what I'd do. John Davis

[Daryl Corona]

Daryl you light the end thats NOT in your mouth:biglaugh::biglaugh:

OH yeah, now you tell me.:banghead:

[Bruce Day]

A couple of us are planning to open the season in early September hunting sage grouse and sharptails along the Montana highline, then Nebraska sandhills sharptails and prairie chickens in late Sept. Ruffed grouse in northern Minnesota in Oct, pheasants in South Dakota in Nov, then more quail and pheasants in Kansas in Dec. Around Meriden , Kansas. Then close the season in Jan and Feb for quail in Arizona.

For those who think Meriden is in Conn, there is another in Kansas in wild quail country.


Some years back, I was hunting quail in Feb by Wheeler, Texas in the sandhills and thorn thickets. My buddy was a retired cardiologist, since gone, who hunted with a fine Purdey and a single pointer. We ran into a fellow from St Ansgar Iowa who had opened the season in Montana and worked his way south ahead of the snow, ending in southern Arizona. He had started with three 28ga Parker reproductions and had one remaining operable, the other two out with broken stocks. He had five Brittanies in a dog trailer, of them four were lamed up and he had one dog remaining. He was headed home to recuperate for next year.

I had remembered that plus a book written by Jim Fergus about a hunter's season long travels and thought it would be a fun thing to do. However, when I'm out for a week, its always nice to get back home.

[Destry L. Hoffard]

I guess I'm lucky, I own the 12 gauge Parker I would have ordered (#3 frame 34 inch DHE straight stock) and have used it (plus my former 32 inch one) to do about all the things I'd like to have done.

I suppose we all have our shooting / hunting dreams, but I really can't complain. Even in the modern day, I've done a lot of the same things the old timers did. Lived like a rich man on very little money, barely said sir to anybody, and nearly always done mostly as I pleased.

I've drank a lot of whiskey, smoked a lot of good cigars (and cheap ones as well), had good friends (some still living and some passed on), chased a lot or pretty girls (caught a few too), and done a power of hunting and fishing in between or sometimes during.

Life ain't so bad, even in 2013, it really ain't.


DLH

[Mills Morrison]

I would love to hunt ducks with a Parker 8 gauge. All in all though, I can't complain and have had some pretty good experiences outdoors.