Parker Gun Collectors Association Forums - Sandhills Sharptail Shootout-Travels with Charlie Vol. 2

We had a great long weekend at a community benefit prairie grouse shoot in Mullen, Nebraska. We formed Team Parker and shot the old guns, and a couple of us shot damascus Parkers.

So, here is the narrative and photos, done with John Dunkle's help.

HELP JOHN! EDIT BY JOHN D.... You rang??? ;) Try this....

Aaargh......I can't get it right. I tried photos with captions and to transfer from the album to the forum. Just go to albums and you;ll see it, except its in reverse so start at page 2 the last photo for the correct sequence. There are 44 photos there.

Well here we are again out on the plains. Its fly over country to some, but we who don't know any better kind of like it. So Charlie had three buddies from St Genevieve and then me and we all drove up to Mullen Nebraska for the Sand Hills Sharptail Shootout. We spent the night on the road in York, ate too much at the Chances R and drove through the Sandhills to Hooker County. We checked in on Thurs.

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Yvonne already had Charlie's number and checked us in after she took care of this lady.

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We shot a round of trap for practice then there was a party at the rodeo grounds that evening. If you're a rancher, you wear your best hat for the evening, black in that part of the country.

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We stayed with local folks, Terry and Mardelle Huddle, and they came out for dinner, along with many of the townspeople.

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Then back to beer and talk.

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Trap shoot day was next and the gang gathered for breakfast, Dale Roth, Wayne Drury, Dave Webber and Team Parker Capt Charlie.

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They make you eat too much

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Charlie had caps and hunting vests made for the team and wanted us to wear them for photo ops , so I took off my Resistol straw hat.

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5 stand set up

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Terry and Mardelle are retired ranchers and have a big house in town, and we were assigned to stay with them. Great people, and they saw our old guns, and Terry says I have one of those, it was Mardelle's great grandfathers, and he brought it out.

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Well, it was a grade 0 hammer top action 10 ga, SN 56,000, in need of a bit of work.

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Here's the gun line for the trap shoot day. I was shooting a Bernard hammer, Charlie a Bernard 12 with vent rib, Dale a borrowed V , Dave a G, and Wayne a near new Trojan

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folks would come by and wonder if a person could shoot those old guns with damascus barrels. I said I wouldn't think so, we just brought them for decoration.

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So on Friday, we shot trap as a team and did OK and some of our people will get some practice shooting a double. I shot the hammer for the first time and folks were watching after a while and surprised that the barrels were not unraveling, no shrapnel, nothing but broken birds until I dropped three in a row at a run of 15 in when my damn phone rang and I got distracted, anyway went 20/25. So the local boys formed an Annie Oakley shoot at the end of the day, invited me to stick around, we backed up to fence, a line of 30 shooters, side bets, money in the pot, boys down the line could shoot your bird if you missed. I lasted until 10 were left then got my butt kicked when the third shooter down knocked out two of us. But I had knocked out several before and there were some good shooters in there. Now if anybody cares, I used 1 1/8oz / 3 1/4 dram Federals with 71/2 shot for the heavy money on the line stuff.

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So Sat morning was the hunt, 25 shells for the 5 of us and see how fast you can get to your team limit of 15 birds. We drew the Egles Ranch, 10,000 unhunted acres and the ranch Jade Egles and his buddy Wade Marsh came along as our guide and shot counter.

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Pretty hills, all these were formed by fine sand blowing off the Rocky Mountains during the Pleistocene. Its all sand and covered by thick grass. A rancher hasd to be careful not to overgraze, because if the grass gets too thin, the wind will create blow outs .

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Bunch grass. Dave and his dog Stain.

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Triple and our first grouse of the day, this one a prairie chicken

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Pristine land, well cared for by the Egles family

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Well I got lucky and limited quickly and spent the rest of the day helping others get on birds. I used an old GHE damascus full and fuller 12 with those high brass Fed 6's, which is my usual gun when I have to make the shot.

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Thick grass, Jade had just shipped out 1,000 head of cattle. Jade does ALL his cattle work on horseback and doesn't believe in riding a four wheeler across his land. A horse had rolled on him a week ago and his knee was still swollen. He said the horse went end over end and he saw the saddle horn coming down on him and scrambled clear.

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Looking for birds. Dale, Jade and Wayne. The younger local ranchers like the wide brim straws.

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Charlie with Shea and Nova

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Blowout from winds swirling around the hills

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Wayne and Nova

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Charlie's C Bernard and grouse

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Shea and Nova

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They found a nice water tank. It was hot, up to 79 degrees, so not good scenting conditions and we went through the water.

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I found the water also, but it was a little different. I was going through a thick stand of koshia by a water tank run off area and came upon a thick mat of spongy ground. I thought I could walk across it and took two steps and right through I went, straight down right up to where the sun don't shine. Muddy muck where the cattle have been doing their stuff and it all stinks. I jam the buttstock of the gun into the muck and half roll out and finally wade out. I meet up with the boys and they are laughing and Jade says that was a new one on him, and it was on me too. I scrape the mud off with Charlies curry comb and eventually dry out but those jeans were a little ripe. I told Charlie even my underwear was wet, and they said that was too much information.

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The ranch was along the Loup River, a clear, fast flowing sandy bottom stream. About 15 miles upriver, there is a long stretch with a rocky bottom and good brown trout fishing

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Charlie limited out also

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check in time

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I'll digress a little. It was homecoming in Mullen and the had a parade where the entire high school and junior high of 70 students marched through the town. Here's the marching band.

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Finest fancy clothes for the girls

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Assembled by classes

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All four cheerleaders. Dave went to the football game, as he is a football and basketball ref in Missouri. They play 6 man football here.

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All the dogs picked up sand burs and cactus buds, and we were constantly pulling them out of the dogs.

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Big plains

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Team Parker in full vests and caps with our scorekeeper Wade Marsh. We went 11 birds for 22 shots.

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We ended up third among the new shooter groups. The limit is 20 teams. They came from North Carolina to California.

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The closing banquet , getting ready in the school gym and the whole community turns out. The event raises about $6,000 for the community, mostly spent in scholarships for the graduates. 13 seniors this year and all will go to college except 2 directly into the military.

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With our landowners family and our hosts. The woman in front rright is Jade's mother and they live on the river where she has her studio. She sculpts western bronzes and exhibits from Sedona to Denver, recently finished a large commission going to New York

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Charlie. The team provided a large handmade quilt for the auction, bought it back and gave it to our hosts, the Huddles. There are plenty of prizes for landowners, and one won the landowners prize, a new four wheeler.

So, a good time, no, a wonderful time. For those who love the west and its people , it could not have been better. I'll be back.

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