A visit with Lou
I visited Lou Rotelli this morning. He lives about 20 minutes away. I saw some restocks he was working on and I am always impressed with his work. He is a true craftsman and a nice guy. We talked at length about three things. I’ll discuss two of them because the third would probably start a firestorm on the board and that is the last thing I want.
His opinion is that the introduction of turkeys in our area is responsible for the decline of the grouse. He pointed to all the great grouse cover still in the area including around his house. I can’t really buy into his theory but I do have to admit that the grouse numbers started diminishing when the turkeys reached a high population. It might be just coincidence, I don’t know. Most attribute low grouse numbers to habitat quality and quantity, which is probably true for many areas of NY and Connecticut. But there is still plenty of great cover in my sections of NY and Connecticut. I don’t mean just pockets of good cover but large areas that should hold grouse. It’s always puzzled me. Wide spread disease could have something to do with it, but I have never heard of disease in my area. NY doesn’t even list it as one of its five reasons for diminishing populations. I am at a loss to explain it.
The other thing he mentioned was his belief that all fluid steel Parker barrels, with the exception of Whitworth on early high grade guns, was of the same steel. A case could be made that economics would have precluded the use of many different types of steel, despite what is stamped on the barrels. This sounds logical to me. I always had a suspicion that this was true. I believe that I remember that studies were done on Parker barrels but I don’t recall the results.
Incidentally, the woodcock are coming back from the south in numbers in my area. Lou has taken some trips with his pointer and reported back on the number of birds he was finding including one in his driveway. I might take my little setter out and see for myself.
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