doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Shooting Skills relative to Hunting Skills

I use my hunting skills to spend time relaxing in the field with good dogs,good guns,and good friends.

I use my shooting skills to take money from these friends in the offseason.

I'm mostly a clay shooter. I can shoot clays any time of the year without a license or the hassel of having to travel somewhere. I have been known to chase black birds from my fields after seeding from time to time.

The only kind of "hunting" per se that I do on a regular basis is kill ground hogs in my hay and oat fields so my tractor and implements do not get damagesd or tip from the holes, or one of my wife's horese does not accidentally step into a hole.

Sometimes I have to remember what tree I leaned my gun, or rifle on. I hunt only my place, or sometimes my brother's and am a little guarded in what I shoot these days. I target shoot with a Kimber 22, or clays with my guns.
Durning the seasons, I'll only shoot very little game.
But!
Its the land, Labs, guns/rifles(a nice Irish shooting sweater too)
May get into collecting somewhere down the road?

Dig -
Some of what I post here is included in a manuscript I submitted to DGJ last year. Since it was an unsolicited piece, I may never see it in print. In essence, I recounted my return to guns and hunting after a 38 year hiatus. I gave up both near the age of twenty, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me even now, but seemed imperative enough then. About three years ago I found a double gun that I wanted to own. When it became mine, It seemed obvious I should shoot it. Why else own the gun? It took a friend who was a grouse hunter to persuade me to go walk up edges and aspens -- and persuade is the correct word. However, one hunt turned into a virus I've been unable to shake and has colored all the weeks of my life over the last three years. Part of it, I'm sure, is the rush of memories that flooded my consciousness of the boyhood hunting with my Father and our dog. The subtle things that trigger responses -- the psychic power of carrying a gun; the smells of October woods and brilliant days; the overwhelming beauty of a grouse or cock pheasant; the symmetry of a fine gun; hell, even the color and texture of shotshells. The list is endless.
Your post has brought into sharp focus some of the things I've given a good deal of thought to over the last year. I have more guns now, a couple of fine ones. But I find I'm not a collector. I've been introduced to both trap and skeet -- by a couple of friends on this BBS -- who also introduced me to preserve hunting last year. But I'm not a competitive shooter though I thoroughly enjoy the clays. I'm also not moved in any deeper sense by preserve shooting though it was an enjoyable outing and I may well do it again. As for wild hunting (grouse and woodcock) I remain ambivalent to this extent: There is no catch and release with a shotgun. There is only one degree of dead. George Bird Evans describes this much better than I could hope to do and it essentially comes down to "moment of regret". I find I cannot kill what I would not eat, so I'm grateful that both grouse and woodcock are high on my culinary short list. So where does this ramble leave me? I don't know that I'll ever have a clear and cogent answer. I do know this: I respond in nearly equal measure to double guns, shooting double guns and hunting with double guns.
The best of collecting, shooting and hunting to all the brethren on this board.
Will S.

Fired 10x50 boxes of .45ACP in < 2 weeks, I'm definitely a noisemaker. I hate my fugly, toolish H&K, so I added classic looking Smith & Wesson .357Mag 6-shooter to my collection.
I prefer to rent dogs for days worth of upland gunning, don't have time for "chain and an anchor". Luv dogs, but not in my house, I like to travel a lot.

I'm primarily a hunter who shoots to improve his game in the field and any real hunter knows all hunting is better with mans best friend.

As far as the killing goes...Ortega Y Gasset said it best in his book titled 'Meditations on Hunting': "One does not hunt in order to kill, one kills in order to have hunted".

Gasset should be required reading for all Peta/Anti-Hunters members then maybe they would understand us.
L.F.

Our friend, the Wise man, once shared a bit of drill with me. He told me how he imagines hunting sea ducks and Brant from a sink box when he is confronted with the boredom and the concern that accompanies a hospital room. That, sink box hunting and sea ducks, is something that has intrigued me ... forever. I have not a clue if it is the heavy iron deeks weighting down the box's wings or the vision of a flight of Canvasbacks or Redheads or smallish Buffleheads coming in for a better look/see, but whateveritis, it is a mental magic that has a very strong draw. In fact, that is as close as I will ever come to hunting from a sink box .. sharing Bill's vision that he sometimes uses to avoid focus on the mundane. Thank God for the friends that we have, and this one ... Bill .. will be rejoining us again soon. You can take that to the bank.

I'm tempted to get an arm patch made that simple says ..

DOGS
PEOPLE
GUNS

But it would never be remotely understood by the aimless masses. A real pity, that.

Yeah, it's peripherial to Dig's posit/question, but WTH, its still a part of the deal. I'm personally downright tickled to associate with any of you gentlemen, and ladies, and I am forever learning. Can't thank you enough in the collective, for the honest thots, shared experiences, and the dialoue.

Kind regards, tw

edit: corrections for poor typing, and stuff

tw, our wooden sink boxes were ballasted by large smooth beach rocks under our feet. There were tollers on the wing boards and tollers strung from the wings. Sink boxes now are made of heavy fibreglass and if you've still got a hankering for it there's a guiding outfit in the harbour next to the one where I grew up on the province's Eastern Shore. There's no gunning like it in the world, lifting and falling on grey swells, at times eye-level with the birds, your chin at water-level, your body in a flat-topped pyramid encased in the sea.

I'd like to add my concurrence regarding the difference between hunting and shooting:
Bird hunting with my dog puts me into a wonderful mental state, completely engaged in the here and now, with all of my senses turned (back) on and focused...plus interacting with the dog, our ancient hunting partner, is a special thing. I totally escape from modern life in the first hour of hunting, in contrast to a typical vacation I may not unwind for 3 or 4 days.

Guns and shooting, my favorite common pastimes, don't do that for me.

1-dog man
2-gun man
3-outdoorsman
4-hunter
have not hunted anything but birds in years, have no desire to hunt anything a dog cant point....