With Christmas next week I have been thinking a lot about when I was young and the toys and things I wanted.
So this year I am asking Santa for,
1 - a pair of Boss 20 bores with 29" barrels
2 - an all expense paid driven grouse hunt in Scotland
3 - a new president

I hope I can get at least one.

We're guaranteed to get number 3 in just over a year. Let's just hope it's the right one.

Better play your "Trump card"! lol

I wish we could keep politics off of this forum. Actually, I'm just kidding, my wish was to be chief of the forum enforcement division for a moment. I did run into an interesting, not really too nice, Winchester High Wall a few months back that I wouldn't mind it showing up under the tree.

I'd like to get three project guns done next year. As to this year I have a 28 pump gun to give to one of my sons. If it ever comes in that is. It will take him about half an hour to learn how to pump and shoot it perfectly and a lifetime to understand why he likes doing it. People who like pump guns are like people who like doubles. They are just happy doing what they like to do and can not explain it to non normal people. Merry Christmas to one and all.

8 pounds of Green Dot, a couple bags of shot, and my 20 ga Trojan back from the smith.

Keep it Simple.

And, on a less material level, some peace and quiet on a bunch of fronts.

---
Speaking of High-walls, a friend recently picked up one in 32-40 and is having a devil of a time finding brass. Anyone have any sources, ideas, surplus?

try jamison, buffalo arms...and midway

Nothing. I got enough.



Only, good luck and especially good health to each and every one of you guys.

I wish for my three grandsons to know what I feel when I sit in a duck blind, or stand next to a big pin oak in flooded timber, and hear the sound of the wings of ducks as they cut the air approaching my deke layout.

I wish for my son, who farms with me, to fully grasp that we farm to live, we don't live to farm. And that we steward the land, during the time that we "own it". We take care of it, and it takes care of us.

I wish for a small miracle to take place that would result in the wild bobwhite quail making a comeback in the Coastal Plain of the Southeast. Whatever the "perfect storm" was that caused the population crash, I wish it would be determined and corrected.

And, I wish that our nation would once again come to be a nation that truly can say ........... "In God We Trust".

SRH

AMEN Brother Stan! Sounds like the perfect Christmas to me!

Adam

PS: On a quick sidenote... how your dove season been? Been REALLY slow in this area... probably weather related.

trebling, did you report that pheasant to the Game Commission, they are on the endangered species list in PA.
I now live in the area that used to be a pheasant haven back in the 60 and 70's.

Wishing everyone a Happy Hanukkah, and a Merry Christmas.

JDW, that's from South Dakota. But you're right David, they are few and far between anymore.

1- Triumph Italia

2- Churchill XXV

3- Slippers

Buon Natale, Y'all!

It's been pretty good, Adam. But, it would have been much better had I been able to take more time to shoot. Harvesting has been a nightmare this fall due to an unreal amount of rain over the last 4-6 weeks. We've got birds in the peanut fields, and the shoots we have had have been above average, IMO. If it rains Thursday, as they're predicting, I plan to shoot a 96 acre peanut field on Friday afternoon. Takes a good wad of shooters to do that. Reckon you could bring a truckload of guns over to help out?

SRH

Whirled peas would be nice...

My wish is that future generations have the chance to enjoy our hobby.

I encourage anyone able to take a kid shooting or hunting, to take a new shooter to the range, to pass this tradition on.

Now there's a Christmas wish... a Pennsylvania Game Commission that had some brains, and put the interests of the hunters who fund them first. Once they permitted the killing of the hens and began protecting many of the predators who feed on pheasants, the decline was quick and inevitable. The PGC blames it on everything else but their own mismanagement.

Amen Stan! Maybe the post closet to my beliefs I've seen on this forum...Geo

I like Stan's wish also.

We had a very little increase in quail back in Maryland this year. The farmer who tends my three farms and my fathers farm said he saw seven different coveys while harvesting beans. Most years he would be lucky to see two. When I was a boy my fathers farm alone held that number or more in good years. They will go unhunted this year most likely. Only one friend has permission to bird hunt on those farms and I think his dog has passed over to where the wind always blows gently into her face and the bird never flush before I get ready. Maybe seven will become ten or even just seven again next year.

I do think some of the set aside land and wider field margins of grass to reduce runoff have helped. Nothing will bring back 1950 again but I'd be happy with 1970-1980. Three coveys on a farm is better than one some years.

For me, it would be for my dear Wife to get her health back, but its not gonna happen...i'd give all I have away for that
best to you all
franc

I don't get a Christmas present. I went out and bought this last week.

My present wish list item would be a call from my stockmaker to tell me that he is ready for me to come up for a final fitting on a custom gun I have been waiting 2 1/2 years for.

Mine is supposed to be "the one" he is working on now, finally, but we shall see. Realistically, I'm expecting the summer but a call would be a great Christmas present.

A sobering perspective. Best wishes for you and your family.

I don't expect it to make it in time for Christmas, but the No. 5 Ideal making its way from France is in the hands of the importer, awaiting the form 6. Almost two years since I paid for it, and I look forward to finally holding it.

Franc, my thoughts and prayers for your wife... a gentle reminder of what's really important.

Romac, if your gunsmith is my gunsmith, you are mistaken. He is working on my gun now. My Christmas wish has always been a .410 Parker with enough choke to shoot a good sporting clays round. I finally took care of that wish this week. It will take me a day or so to gift wrap it.

Franc my prayers to you and your.

I can see Chuck is gong to be a very bad boy next year.

Eightbore I understand the wrapping problem. Drool does make tape not stick to paper. Pictures? Details? Sad is the fact that we have to wait too long for toys.

I want the same thing King Solomon asked for.

700 wives and 300 concubines?

No. Wisdom.

It's true, Franc. Without health, we have nothing. Few understand how tenuous life is. Losing our health or experiencing and empathizing for the misery and lost hopes of others, seems the least understood of the vicissitudes and vagaries of our existence. It doesn't seem fair.

I'm sorry for your wife and you. I'm grateful that you've provided a poignant reminder at this time of the year that the gift we want to give is often not for us to give under any circumstances, leaving us bereft and lonely with hope, a wish of something better for our loved ones and others.

Thank you, and God bless.

I wish that Hillary Clinton, Dianne Feinstein and Sarah Brady would curl up and die-and soon.

+1. Of all the wishes posted on this thread franc's is the one I'm pulling for.

nca225. I'll second that. It makes the Woodward O/U, the Aston Martin and the perfect gun dog pale into insignificance. Best wishes to your wife Franc. Lagopus.....

Franc, material things are just that, one's health is the most important. Stranger things have happened. God Bless.

I have the best wishes for those of us who have self or close loved ones in poor health. I am not doing so well myself, but my neurological and spinal condition is probably not fatal. At 70, my wishes in cars and guns have been fulfilled. I have a 460 cubic inch wood sided Ford in high condition, and I finally found my field choked (full and full) Parker .410. I would like to know about the power plant in Chuck's Camaro.

Simple. New Orvis Strap vest. My old strap vest is falling apart. I'm hard on vests. That and to get my 11 month old Lew into some birds somewhere. This is like trying to hunt Bigfoot here in Va.

My wish for this Christmas is that Franc and Stan get theirs.

Merry Christmas to all.

When I was younger Christmas was all about me and what I might want. Now I know Christmas is really not about me and getting, but what I can give.
I truly believe God gave us a savior that long ago time that we can all have eternal life. What more could you want???
Merry Christmas to each and all!

Amen.

SRH

David I love your "Wisdom" wish...sweet.
Thanks all for the good wishes for my wife ..
She is not terminally ill , though I guess we all are in the way of getting older.
But she;s not able to move around much at all, , n runs the house from her lazy girl chair like captain Kirk at the Bridge of the Enterprise on Star Trek..not sure who I'd be ...a Cling -on, perhaps.lol
Its just sad to see such a go getter fail due to physical problems,
she was always twice the man I am
Merry Christmas
Franc

Any wish list consisting of material objects suddenly feels superficial and vain. Changing to: health and happyness for our loved ones, and peace inside and outside. Thank you for this reality check, and may your wish come true!

Amen...

People are fascinating...

I'm pretty sure most everyone posting here understands what is truly important during this season and in life no matter what King believes. Of course I may be mistaken, but I think the op's intent was a lighthearted thread assuming world peace and health had been achieved, what would you like to see under the tree. I dunno. Guess I'm pretty blessed this year because my family has put alot of death and sickness behind us the past couple of years. So maybe I'm just a selfish prick, but I still want that Italia...and grandkids. May everyone have a healthy, happy, blessed holliday season!


_________________
...forward to death! Jello Biafra

Due to my beliefs, I don't celebrate Christmas.

That said, I would like good health to good people, and a Merkel 147e... But I'll probably be saving for that for at least another year.

A friend killed one in PA a few weeks ago and the thing wouldn't fly even after doing every thing he could to get it to fly. I had one in front of my truck and got out to see if it would fly, nope, just ran off. I just waterfowl hunt now a days for good reason.

treblig:

I live in southeastern PA and the only pheasants wandering wild I'm aware of are escapees from preserves and they generally don't last long. Talking to a guide on a private club I had the opportunity to shoot at, I was told that the pheasants which escape generally don't last the winter and are always gone before summer. In spite of considerable effort on the part of the club, they haven't had even a hint of success in breeding a carryover population.

PA used to be great pheasant country when I was a teen (back in the late 60s and early 70s). What happened?

Rem

I grew up across the commodore barry in NJ, and there were bobwhites calling all the time right behind our house, and we got a pheasant or two as well.

Now? Nothing. The kicker: I'm only 29.

Rem, I don't know. I gave up upland birds here in PA awhile ago. I was going to wrap camouflage tape around my Nitro, but looked at it and just couldn't do it. I guess its fine just the way it is for waterfowl.

Leverhead. did you get that Merkel?

Haha, not yet treblig. I have a lot of sellin, beggin, stealin, and cheatin to do before then. I'm parting with one of my Fiddleback Forge knives to help my gun savings account.

It's torturous to see that picture at the top of this page when I come to this site!

I would like a yellow lab puppy.

And time enough.

After the Christmas rush I'm going to treat myself to a brand new straight razor. After 45 years shaving with my Grampa's 100+ year old throat cutter I think I deserve a new one and put the heirloom in the china cabinet. Been shaving with it since I was 14. Gramps would be proud.

The top of my wish list would be good health for my family.

Merry Christmas to everyone on DoubleGun BBS!

J.R.B., that's a remarkable accomplishment! I've never heard of a lifetime of shaving with a straight razor. At the risk of being too personal, I'm curious to know why you preferred it to safety and electric razors. Easier with a beard, farming away from reliable electricity, family tradition?

I'm in Texas quail hunting with loads of birds. For Christmas, I'd like to wish for my young bird dogs to quit 'jumping in'.

The main reason I use a straight is for a close shave. My family genetics have a history of incredibly tough beards. To get a proper Sunday morning Church shave I need what's called a "three pass". Once with the grain, once across the grain, and finally once against the grain. I will admit that as a young boy it was to be a smart ass but it quickly turned into a necessity. Do yourself a favor King, go find a barber that will give you a real hot towel straight razor shave and you will see my point. It's a luxury every man should enjoy at least once in his life.

I told my wife last year that I didn't want or need a thing for Christmas. She kept pestering me so I finally told her " Laura please, I what nothing for Christmas, really". She agreed. Christmas morning, she handed me a present and I again went into my speech about having everything I could ever want or need. She said just open it, so I did. She had taken an old mason jar with a good lid, made a label that read "this is your jar of nothing, Merry Christmas". Today the jar holds oily rags that I use to wipe down the exterior of my guns. My jar of nothing makes me smile and brings me joy every time I use it.

CHRIST is the reason for the season.
Prayers to all with medical issues.

Bill

world peace......at least until I keel over...then they can blow the whole world to ell....

That's kinda messed up, gunut. Maybe I should wish for an MRAP instead of an Italia. Easier to get, that's for sure.

I can't wait until I have all the sh*t I want so I can become a full on Jesus man. It's gonna be awesome!

A bunch of things all at once.
1. Bird flu coming out of the chicken houses around Philly in the winters of '81-'83 hit the wild birds hard.
2. Older farmers (the guys who took their GI Bill benefits to buy a farm) aging out and younger ones coming in. The younger ones needed to farm more acres more intensively to make their nut, so
(a) they needed bigger, faster equipment to do it, so out came the fencerows, and where they didn't yank the fencerows they cleaned out a lot of the understory and thinned them so as to not "waste" acreage, and
(b) in the alfalfa fields around where I grew up, they went to an earlier first cutting. June alfalfa was prime bug-hunting country for pheasant chicks and the edges prime nesting territory. Instead of mama pheasant and her chicks fluttering out of the way of the cutter, moving the first cutting up a week or two meant mama pheasant and her nest got chopped up. And
(c) Farmers went from the old-model corn harvesters, which left busted stalks and such in the fields all winter, then plowed them under in spring. The old equipment left a lot of cover/concealment in the stalks and good amount of corn behind. They switched to the kind that chopped the stalks and roots, mixed that into the dirt and left the fields basically bare earth all winter. No cover/concealment and no food.
3. Developers buying out the other farmers and busting up the landscape of 60-120 acre farms, fragmenting the habitat.
4. Edge habitat growing up, manifesting in deer and turkeys showing up where none had been before.
5. Resurgence of hawks.
6. Arrival of coyotes in the mid- to late 70s.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of pesticide tie-in, too.

There were a lot of birds in '81 when I went overseas. When I got back in '84, there were very few. By '85-'86 it wasn't even worth buying a license.

pretty much the same story in Wisconsin..... we still have a few wild birds, but now our governor is starting to sell off state owned tracts of marginal use land that still holds some birds...means less hunting opportunities...and even less wild bird prodution....our governor seems hell bent to ruin all aspects of state owned public access hunting grounds....while at the same time trying to deregulate the private deer/game farms that brought chronic wasting disease to our state instead of banning them....so much for Wisconsin being a sportsmans destination.....unless you want to shoot tame deer in a fenced yard.. ... go figure

but then wanting something bad to happen to our governor is not in keeping with the Christmas spirit...now is it

I'd take #3 on your list also. Otherwise it's just a new pair of cowboy boots for me. I want very little and need even less.

Before I go outside and fire up the Troy-Bilt for the next round of snow blowing, I'd very much like to see the electricity stay on!!

Lol Dave! I'm with you on that one. However, I am a bit jealous, since my snow removal method entails a snow shovel, a fairly strong back (knock on wood) and a weak mind (thus the shovel).

Maybe that's what I should ask for, for Christmas....a snow blower!

I think I'll delay my present to myself until this Spring but a new field bred Springer Spaniel is needed around here. Just too quiet with one.

Fine with me amigo- and you can deep six the non-hunting Gov we have next door-to the East that is. I am a Michigander, but a big time Packers Fan--