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.