Enduring Freedom Hunt
 

There is a hunting preserve located in Snow Camp, NC called Beaver Pond Sporting Club. I've been fortunate to have the opportunity to hunt there several times already this year, doing mainly driven Pheasant hunts. This weekend on Saturday they sponsored an Enduring Freedom event to honor our Military Veterans and the Wounded Warriors. My friend Alan who works at the club mentioned it to me a few weeks back, and said they needed volunteers, so I signed up to help out. The expected group was large enough to split in two, with a morning and afternoon Pheasant Tower Shoot. When it wasn't their turn in the field, the guys participated in a Five Stand Competition, or could shoot on either the pistol or rifle range. Alan asked me to be in the field, and I spent my morning walking around to the different stations offering coaching/assistance to those who had never shot live birds before. When he first told me what I'd be doing, my immediate thought was how silly I was going to feel walking up to these soldiers and asking them if they needed help shooting a firearm. As it turns out Alan was right, and there were quite a few that had never done any wingshooting before, and they were very appreciative of the assistance. As you'll see from the pictures below, I also took my camera and snapped a few photos of the hunts.

There were less shooters for the afternoon Tower Shoot, so several of the volunteers including me were asked to "bat cleanup", positioning ourselves throughout the field, about 40-50 yards behind the stations. Our job was to pick off any birds that managed to make it through the first wave of shooters. After watching the morning hunt and seeing how high and fast the birds were flying in the stiff winds (especially that far behind the front line) I decided that this would be a great time to try out that new O Grade Hammer Gun I picked up from Gary last weekend. I brought it hoping to maybe squeeze in a round of Five Stand at the end of the day to try it out, so getting to shoot it for the first time at some live birds was definitely a bonus! The last two pictures at the bottom are of the first of four pheasants that I took with it that day. Even more priceless were the looks that I got carrying a 125 year old Hammer Gun into the field to hunt, and the compliments afterwards for making some fairly difficult and far out shots with it. :) It proved to be quite the conversation starter.

Overall this was a great event, and something I'll put on my calendar to volunteer for next year. There were around 40 veterans and some active duty military personnel there, fourteen of them from the Wounded Warriors. They came from Fort Bragg, seven from the 82nd Airborne, and 7 who were members of Special Forces units. It was the guys who were wounded, some of them not so long ago, who were still recovering from injuries that you could tell really enjoyed the day. A few of them I spoke to said they were limited in what they could do as part of their rehab programs, and it might take them a few days to recover from the event, but it was well worth it. All of them were extremely grateful for having the opportunity to be there, and if felt good to give a little back to those that sacrificed so much for our country.

Mike

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Nicely done Mike!

Great job for the servicemen. Looks like a lot of fun. NICE 'ol hammer gun.

Well done Mike. Thanks for putting in the time to help our vets...:bowdown:

Mike;
Thanks for the great photos as usual and helping our brave warriors enjoy a sport dear to our hearts. What a neat way to bring the old hammer gun into the 21st century. Nice going!:bowdown:

Great Story

Mike, that is a great old hammer gun. The lowest grade Parker made, so many of them abused, misused, chopped, bobbed and thrown away. This one is preserved and treasured.....keep the flame burning.

Thanks for your help with the soldiers, I spent time flying the 82nd, an impressive bunch of people who know their heritage and responsibilities.

well done... a great service you ve done for our servicemen...and a great hunt to be on with a fine hammergun...my hats off to you fellas for putting this hunt own for the fellas... charlie

Mike, thanks for helping give our vets some much-deserved pleasure and also thanks for sharing the event with us through your photos. Like others have said, that's a fine-looking hammer gun!

Are either of the pictured dogs yours?

Good for you Mike. Those birds look incredibly high. It would be a privilege to volunteer for such an event. Here's my twin to your hammer gun. 32" bbls with tight chokes makes it an incredible long range killer.

richard thats a mighty nice hammer gun... charlie

John, none of the dogs in the photos belong to me, however I've hunted with both of the labs (Bo & Larry Daryl) on multiple occasions. Larry (the Daryl part only comes out when he isn't listening :)), the one wearing the orange vest in the pictures, has been a regular at most of the driven hunts I've done and is an excellent bird dog. Bo is less than two years old, and his first Pheasant hunt was a few weeks ago. He wasn't quite sure what to make of the first Pheasant he retrieved, but after he got one under his belt, he did fine the rest of the day. The Springer in the pictures I don't know, but that dog was all over the place during the Tower Hunts. I bet that dog did 20+ retrieves just on the morning hunt. He was marking them half way across the field and beating dogs that were much closer to the retrieve.

Richard, that is a fine looking hammer gun. I love the 32" barrels, and the Twist patterning looks amazing. The birds were certainly taking advantage of the stiff winds that day and really gained some altitude in a lot of cases. Even birds dropped over the side of the Tower to try to keep them down were climbing. It was enough for me to feel comfortable shooting that Hammer Gun choked Full & Full.