How does that saying go, “Necessity is the mother of invention?”
Well, when it comes to designing British sporting clothes for American women, it’s a mother and daughter who by necessity created a new line of shooting apparel.
Lyndall Bailye and daughter Stephanie recognized the need for stylish and traditional British clothes cut specifically for women after their own futile pursuits to find suitable selections here in the U.S.
Cigar smoke mingled with fragrances of autumn, marking the twenty-first annual weekend of convivial sporting-clays competitions in the mountains of Virginia by the exclusive Green Jacket Club.
The month of November strikes panic into the mind of this Shotgun Wife since it marks my last chance at planning and orchestrating a holiday season that might possibly be as relaxing and enjoyable for me as for my family and our guests. If I started right away, and devoted these next several weeks to conscientious organization and anticipation of the details of menus, decorations, entertaining, gift selections, etc., I could actually envision myself casually whistling “Deck the Halls” into a delightfully laid-back holiday season.
It is the end of a round of sporting clays. Scores are added up and the cards are either turned into a referee or tucked away, never to be looked at again. In either case, only the scores are looked at. All of the data points at each station are usually ignored.
Maybe I should’ve taken that shot.
As the morning chill dissipated, the sky brightened and even distant duck sightings grew more infrequent, it was becoming clear that Charlie and I were about to be skunked. On opening day, no less.
We showed up on time. Oh dark-30. Parked our car on a pull-off area on a mountain road in Kebler Pass, located in the Crested Butte area. The twins stepped out of their vehicle next to us – dressed in camo, do-rags and running shoes. The reflective tape on their shoes gleamed in the pre-dawn and I thought, “I’m in trouble here.” My hunting boots already felt heavy.
I’m a Texan so, of course, I’m tuned in to what’s going on in our great state. But wherever you reside, you’d have to be living in total isolation not to have heard about the catastrophic drought, heat and wildfires that have plagued Texas all summer long. Truth is, for us it started a year ago in September 2010, when Mother Nature turned off the rain faucet in our beautiful Texas Hill Country after lavishing us with abundant and timely showers throughout the prior summer. Since then, our average annual rainfall of 30 inches has shrunk to a meager 20% of that amount, a total of 6 inches in a whole year. Spring-fed creeks are bone dry and rivers are a trickle. Parched landscape holds its breath for fear of wind-driven wildfires, and residents sweat out record-breaking high temperatures. Many of us remember our parents and grandparents reciting stories about the drought of the 1950’s, but the summer of 2011 will likely prove to rival those days.
Are you that guy? I was. I think there’s a little bit of him in most of us, and a lot in some. Who is he? He’s the guy who misses a few targets and gets so frustrated that he misses even more. A lot of shooters are just a few misses away from becoming that guy.
Skeet is not a game to me.
I don’t keep score. I ignore many of the rules and conventions. And I like to blaze through a round fast. Really fast. All I’m doing is trying to stay sharp for wingshooting. I don’t particularly want to be an expert at shooting inanimate clay disks.
Wanna know what I’m doing right now? Chances are I’m sitting at my computer going absolutely crazy because work is getting in the way of my dove hunting. Good Lord, we get only 15 days of good dove hunting here in California, and the opener this year is on the worst possible day for me. A Thursday. Not just a work day, but a really demanding, frenetic day. And I guarantee you there are mourning doves cooing on the roof over my head.
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