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Shotgun Lives

Dark (Duck) Thoughts

Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Written by Capt. David Bitters
Categories: Captain David Bitters
Tags: decoys, duck, ducks, flock, hundred

I have a friend who is a contractor, who likes to hunt black ducks. He handles his downed birds with as much grace as a piece of scrap lumber. Not that he doesn’t appreciate his birds, he does, and he is a simple, but effective cook. But as much as I enjoy gunning with him, he and I are two different animals, if you will.

I hold my birds in utter awe – no, I don’t mean that – I watch in utter awe, when any bird I have shot at falls from the sky. After making a retrieve that would fill most dogs with envy, I sit in my blind holding the duck like a rare jewel, stroking its feathers, and turning it over and over in my hands. I have taken something from the skies of New England; a duck that has flown thousands of miles and will now be stuffed with sauerkraut, wrapped in bacon and roasted in my oven at 350 for 1 hr, 45 minutes. It is a miraculous moment and I bow and give thanks to the Maker.

I use to think black ducks never came into my spread because they did not like the way my decoys looked. Now, years later, I know better. I have watched pair after pair of wary black ducks fly over a flock of six-hundred real black ducks swimming, feeding, preening and quacking their heads off, only to land two-hundred yards away in a ditch. I can sympathize with the giant flock because I know just how they feel. Hurt, rejected, and frustrated for starters. You can throw in confusion and utter despair but keep that to yourself. Duck hunters don’t have to share everything…

The season long over, I have but one black duck left in my freezer along with lots of “road-kill” venison. That’s another story that I can’t get into now. Right now, I am dreaming of a black duck that pulled away from a big flock flying across the marsh. He has seen my three LL Bean cork decoys bobbing in the breeze and my hand-carved African zebra-wood call is to my lips. I utter the hail call, feeding chatter and then three quiet hen quacks… He swings down wind and then turns into the breeze, fighting his way to my decoys with all the speed of a sparrow in a tremendous gale. Suddenly, he is there – hovering at twenty yards over my blocks! I rise, mount, and fire my gun three times. My duck wheels, climbs into orbit, and disappears over the horizon, passing a flock of migrating starlings on his way, at warp speed. But like I said to the eight-point buck that walked past my stand unscathed this season, just wait until next year, my friend. Just wait until next year…

Capt. David Bitters is a writer/photographer and a striped bass/sea duck hunting guide from Massachusetts. His photos and essays have appeared in over one-hundred magazines. Capt. Bitters is currently finishing his first book, A Sportsman’s Fireside Reader – Tales of Hunting, Fishing, and Other Outdoor Pleasures. Contact him at captdaveb@baymenoutfitters.com or (781) 934-2838. You can also write him at P.O. Box 366 Duxbury, MA 0233.

Kim Rhode, Olympian Shooter: “Never Give Up.”

Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Written by Irwin Greenstein
Categories: Biographies and Stories
Tags: kim, olympic, shooting, shotgun, skeet, sports, trap, women

Wouldn’t it be great if four-time Olympic shooting champ Kim Rhode finally appeared on a box of Wheaties?

As legend has it, if it had been up to Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the National Rifle Association, Kim would’ve been beaming her warm smile on the Breakfast of Champions back in 1996, when at age 16, as the youngest member of the U.S. Summer Olympic Team, she won her first Gold Medal for double trap.

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Side By Side

Friday, July 31, 2009
Written by Capt. David Bitters
Categories: Captain David Bitters
Tags: double, gun, hunted, massachusetts, side

I have always said that if God wanted me to shoot an over under, He would have made my eyes that way. Actually, it might have been my Dad who said that first. He was a straight-shooting Yankee and I assure you, both his eyes were side by side his whole life. Dad hunted with one double-gun for his ninety-two years. It was a second-hand, 12 Ga. Tobin that he bought from a market gunner named Lincoln, in Accord, Massachusetts, back in the 1930’s. I still have that old fowling piece, and even gunned ducks with it myself in my early teens. Some day, I am going to have it restored just like new.

Me? I grew up with a 20 Ga. double in my hands. It was my own gun and I got it for Christmas when I was ten years old, back in 1972. I hunted with it until 2009, when I pulled up on a pair of incoming woodies and it failed to fire – for the first time in thirty-seven years. My Dad paid $80 for my little double at F.W. Woolworth’s when I was nearing my tenth birthday. He wrapped it up and put it under the Christmas tree and I had to wait until Christmas morning to open it. The first thing I shot and killed with it was an empty milk carton out behind the house. I started my writing career that day, and have recorded every game bird and animal I have ever taken with that gun. I remember well my first grouse, woodcock, pheasant, quail, black duck, mallard, eider, rabbit and a whole mess of other game I have hunted with that wonderful, little double because I have written it all down through the years.

My side by side fit me like a glove when I was a kid, and it grew into an extension of my body. 28” inch barrels, 14” LOP, and say what you want about a cheap double imported from Brazil, but it closed up tight as a drum. It still does. I was so comfortable with my double that it gave me a lot of confidence growing up. I remember going 21 for 21 on clays thrown from a hand trap in the sand pit, using only the rear barrel. And that meant a lot to a young boy coming of age, especially with all of his friends watching wide-eyed, and then talking it up at school. Word got around that I was a shooter and hunter and that I was a pretty good shot. I walked a little taller in the hallways between classes and kids looked at me a little differently from that day forward.

My double has seen a lot of hard use and is scratched, pitted and worn almost beyond recognition now. But if it could talk, it would tell you about all the places it’s been, including duck blinds on the Massachusetts coast, pheasants in Ohio, grouse, woodcock and snowshoe hare in Maine and New Hampshire, cottontails and beagles in Indiana, deer in New York, and a whole bunch of other places I’ve had the pleasure of carrying it.

I know you will think I am crazy, but I’m going to find a gunsmith that won’t laugh at me when I bring it by. I know it’s a cheap gun, not worth anything to anyone, but I’m going to ask him to rebuild it for me from the ground up. But one thing I am not going to have him change. I want him to leave the scratches and the worn, smooth spots just as they are. And I hope he will understand.

Capt. David Bitters is a writer/photographer and a striped bass/sea duck hunting guide from Massachusetts. His photos and essays have appeared in over one-hundred magazines. Capt. Bitters is currently finishing his first book, A Sportsman’s Fireside Reader – Tales of Hunting, Fishing, and Other Outdoor Pleasures. Contact him at captdaveb@baymenoutfitters.com or (781) 934-2838. You can also write him at P.O. Box 366 Duxbury, MA 0233.

Thoughts On Waterfowl

Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Written by Capt. David Bitters
Categories: Captain David Bitters
Tags: birds, duck, ducks, hundred, hunting, massachusetts

One day last season, another hunter and myself put up a flock of seven-hundred black duck as we cut across the bay. That’s one continuous flock, all at once, of seven-hundred birds. Earlier, that morning, we put up another flock of two-hundred black duck. This has been the norm for many years where we gun on the Massachusetts coast.

According to the USFW, DU, and DW, the black duck is in decline. But from what I have seen in the past five years, you would never know it. The biologists tell us this is because the black ducks have shifted their range and we’re just seeing more ducks because they’re more concentrated. I remain skeptical. From my observations, I would say the black duck is thriving on the Massachusetts coast.

It bothers me to no end that our Canadian brothers can shoot four black ducks per day, but as soon as those same ducks enter the United States, we can only shoot one black duck per day. Why not get together with our Canadian brothers and level the playing field? Two black ducks per day, no matter where you gun. Of course, if you’re a Canadian, that would mean your daily bag limit of black duck would be reduced by fifty percent. Turn the tables and see how Americans would react if another country imposed such a restriction on us. What would Americans say then?

Eider duck numbers, everyone agrees, are way down. Maine to Massachusetts, we have all seen a huge reduction in birds in the past three years. Prior to 2003, we were seeing 2,000-5,000 flight birds per morning on the Massachusetts coast. Didn’t matter where you were gunning, the birds were thicker than flies. Three years later, we count ourselves lucky indeed, if we see 200-300 birds per morning!

The USFW and Tufts University are two organizations trying to figure it all out. I’m sure others are involved as well, but they need to toot their horn a little more and let us know what they are doing. I’d love to read full-length articles in magazines such as Ducks Unlimited, Delta Waterfowl, Outdoor Life, Massachusetts Wildlife, among many others, telling us about the problem and what biologists are finding out. On Cape Cod, thousands of eiders were found washed up on the shores in the summer and fall of 2007. Why? What can Sportsmen do to help?

Whatever happened to the media frenzy about Avian bird flu? “It’s definitely coming,” “get ready,” “huge death toll in American population possible,” were just a few of the threats. Warnings to waterfowlers were posted in all the hunting magazines. “Wear rubber gloves,” “wear surgical masks.” Cook your duck meat to a charred crisp!!! Forgive me, but I have to rank the Avian Bird Flu epidemic in America right up there with Global Warming and Darwinism. You don’t still believe in the big bang theory and that the human race came from monkeys, do you?

Capt. David Bitters is a writer/photographer and a striped bass/sea duck hunting guide from Massachusetts. His photos and essays have appeared in over one-hundred magazines. Capt. Bitters is currently finishing his first book, A Sportsman’s Fireside Reader – Tales of Hunting, Fishing, and Other Outdoor Pleasures. Contact him at captdaveb@baymenoutfitters.com or (781) 934-2838. You can also write him at P.O. Box 366 Duxbury, MA 02331

Love, Shotguns and DIVAS

Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Written by Deborah K. McKown
Categories: Women Shooters
Tags: cheryl, denny, diva, gun, shooting, women

This is the third installment of our occasional series on DIVA, Women Outdoors Worldwide.

While there are certainly plenty of women in the great state of Texas who own a gun, Cheryl Long is special among them. That’s because she’s the current president of the organization, DIVA Women Outdoors Worldwide.

DIVA is thoroughly dedicated to encouraging and mentoring women of all ages in the shooting sports.  For more than 10 years through successful clinics for women and youth across the USA, this unique organization has introduced more than 3,000 women to the shooting sports.

And so it only makes sense that a devoted gun enthusiast like Cheryl takes the helm of DIVA. It also makes sense that the group was formerly known as Texas Women’s Shooting Sports, since Cheryl and her husband, Denny, love to hunt quail, dove, duck and mule deer on their leased 12,000 acre spread in west Texas.

Cheryl came into the world of shotguns and hunting from a fairly unusual start.

“I sang with a band called Maya for 20 years in Oklahoma City,” she recalled.

She subsequently became acquainted with shooting when she moved from Oklahoma City to Texas 1992. She had moved to Texas because of the big “L,” love.

“I had fallen in love with this gentleman who was very big into hunting and who was just an overall shooting enthusiast,” she said. “At the time, I didn’t know a thing about guns, and really, I was afraid of them.”

Still, she was swept off her feet and onto the alter.

As proof that love conquers all, despite her fear of guns, she stuck by her man even though there were loaded guns stashed all over their house. “They [guns] were there for home protection and the occasional coyote and skunk.”

Eventually, Cheryl was talked into her first shooting experience by her husband. He handed her a Smith & Wesson .357 pistol and told her to hit the target. Without having any ear protection, the boom of that first shot only served to frighten her all over again. But she didn’t give up.

The turning point for Cheryl was a Dallas Safari Club convention where she found an instructor who offered an intensive two-day course in shooting. Shortly afterward, she purchased her very own first gun, a Glock 17 9mm. This Glock took her on a journey from someone who was frightened of guns to where she reached the point that she could speed shoot from the holster and sometimes “beat the men,” she said.

It was during this time as a crackerjack pistol shot that Cheryl was introduced to shotguns.

There was a one-year anniversary soiree in 1998 of the Beretta Gallery in Dallas, and she attended the reception. She registered for the door prize and sure enough won a 20-gauge Beretta 390. She was elated…until she tried shooting the gun.

“I shot horribly,” she recalled. “I tried to get better, but couldn’t.”

It turned out that the main problems were eye dominance and gun fit. Her first instructor, Gaylen Capps, recognized that she was a right-handed shooter, but left-eye dominant. He  had mentioned the eye dominance issue and suggested using Chapstick on the left lens…but that was way too messy for Cheryl and she really didn’t understand the importance of seeing the targets with the right eye…the SHOOTING eye.

After learning this important piece of information, she got that Beretta 390 fitted to her and started using a patch on her left eye to shift the dominance to her right one. As usual, there was no stopping Cheryl after that.

She started taking lessons from the greats such as Andy Duffy and Dan Carlisle, and made it into B Class for sporting clays.

As Cheryl’s sporting clays career began its ascent, she had a terrible and unfortunate turn of events. Her beloved husband passed away in 2003. Now a woman shooting on her own, she decided to join the Dallas Gun Club to find other people to shoot with.

Fate would intervene…

In 2005, a mutual friend introduced her to Denny Long. Their friend told Cheryl, “You have to meet this guy. He’s single, he’s fun and he’s a great shot and I think you’ll be wonderful together.”

They went on their first date that Memorial Day weekend. “I thought he was OK,” Cheryl confided. “He didn’t have much to say and he didn’t call me, and I didn’t think much about it because he didn’t make much of an impression.”  That was about to change.

It was about three weeks later that Cheryl went with one of her girlfriends to Backwoods Gun Range (sadly now closed) north of Dallas to practice skeet for an upcoming league at Dallas Gun Club.

“There was Denny,” she said. “When my girlfriend and I were finished with practice and about to leave, he convinced us to get to get into his 1949 Willys Jeep named Nellybelle and join him for some sporting clays. We had the best time, we laughed, had a lot of fun. We’ve been inseparable since then. We’ve been married three years now.”

 

CLongINSIDE

Cheryl and Denny Long

For their honeymoon, they went to South Africa to hunt kudu, blue wildebeest and impala. Last month, she and Denny went to Argentina with DIVA founder, Judy Rhodes and a bunch of her closest friends in the Provence of Cordoba at an estancia operated by SYC Sporting Adventures.

“We hunt a lot and love it,” Cheryl said.

Cheryl has graduated up from her 20-gauge Beretta 390, which she still uses for birds, to a 12-gauge Beretta Urika 391 for all other shotgun sports. 

By her own admission, the Urika 391 is chock full of aftermarket bling including a Briley action closer button and forend cap (both in red), Briley titanium chokes and a dropped and a canted stock by Ken Rucker of Speedbump Stockworks. Her initials are engraved on the receiver by a renown Italian engraver. And DIVA TEAM is proudly displayed on the barrel.

Now most of her life is tied up hunting with Denny and staying involved with the DIVA WOW.

“DIVA has done so much for me,” she explained. “I receive great satisfaction from what I’ve learned by sharing and passing that knowledge on to other women. It’s extremely empowering to women. I know, because shooting and hunting has empowered me…and I feel a sense of purpose. To see it take shape in front of you, and see someone else run with it is extremely rewarding.”

Deborah K. McKown is Editor of Shotgun Life. You can reach her at contact@shotgunlife.com.

To read Shotgun Life’s previous stories about the DIVAS, please visit:

Judy Rhodes Gets Women Out of the Mall and into the Hunt

The Secret Passion of Anginette Jorrey

Useful resources:

http://www.divawow.org

http://www.sycsporting.com/hunting-argentina/Home.aspx

http://www.berettausa.com

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Doug Oliver: The Keeper of the 16-Gauge Flame

Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Written by Noe Roland
Categories: Biographies and Stories
Tags: doug, gauge, shotgun, shotguns, society

Anyone who shoots a 16-gauge shotgun should send Doug Oliver a big cigar.

As founder of the 16 Gauge Society, Doug has been keeper of the flame for a shotgun orphaned by the industry.

Over the years marketing decisions within the shotgun industry have relegated the 16 gauge from the second-most popular shotgun to an icon of perfection among a small band of bird shooters. They marketed the smaller 20-gauge rival, despite the superior ballistics of the 16 gauge. At the same time, the 12 gauge has been gentrified from its bruiser, meat-market heritage to a relatively comfortable, all-purpose shotgun.

The world of tournament shooting has also conspired against the 16 gauge. Simply put, there are no 16-gauge competitions in major clay-shooting events – depriving the 16 gauge of the credibility and high-profile marketing opportunities to sustain a thriving market.

Still, the perseverance of devoted 16-gauge shooters has kept the shotgun alive. And you could easily make the case that Doug has emerged as the voice of the 16-gauge shotgun community.

“If I were trapped on a desert island, I would want the 16 gauge, because it won’t beat you up and it kills birds without killing you,” Doug said.

Maybe it’s a confluence of happy circumstances that Doug, who owns a graphic-design firm in Bell Canyon, California, fell in love with 16-gauge shotguns to the extent that he started the 16 Gauge Society web site.

16GA2

Doug Oliver

He fondly recalls shooting 16-gauge shotguns as a kid in Newton, Kansas with his father.

“From the age of 10, I started hitting birds, and I became joined at the hip during bird season with my father. We’d hunt quail, pheasant, doves…,” he said.

During that period, he started out with a .410, and passed through a 16 gauge on his way to a 12 gauge. He remembered liking the 16 gauge, although for the bigger part of his life he shot 12 and 20 gauge.

“The 16 gauge is absolutely the perfect shotgun,” he explains. “It has a perfect load for wingshooting. Plus a 16 gauge will typically be a pound lighter than a 12 gauge if you’re carrying it all day in the field. The 16 gauge shoots like a 12 gauge but carries like a 20 gauge. It’s a great gun.”

When Doug turned 50, for his midlife crisis instead of a Porsche he bought himself a shotgun. It was a 16-gauge F.A.I.R. Rizzini over/under. It was a better gun than he had known at that point.

On a flight from Los Angeles to New York, he had been reading an article in Double Gun Journal about dove hunting in Argentina. Until that point he had every intention of buying a 20 or 28 Beretta, but the article deflected him to the 16-gauge F.A.I.R. Razzing.

Doug found himself smitten by the lovely 16 gauge. In doing his “homework” for that 16-gauge F.A.I.R. Rizini he realized “that 16 gauge was a stepchild,” he explained. “Information at the time was so hard to dig out and that’s where the 16 Gauge Society web site came in. I though I’d just design and throw up 16 gauge web site and maybe sell a couple of hats. The project itself was fun and informative.”

After a few months of hard work, the 16 Gauge Society web site went up in 2002 at http://www.16ga.com.

It now has approximately 1,500 members of the 16 Gauge Society, plus another 2,400 people who frequent the site’s forum which serves as a clearing house of information for everything 16 gauge. Over 60,000 posts have been recorded on the site.

ARRIETA

A 16-gauge Arietta 557

As Doug relates about the forum “You can throw a question out about a gun and 10 guys will answer you – civilly.”

There is a one-time, lifetime $25 membership to the 16 Gauge Society. But for Doug, the organization “is not a moneymaker. It’s a passion.”

Last autumn, one of the members of the 16 Gauge Society organized a pheasant shoot in North Dakota. A dozen or so members met for the first time there. “It was fun, everybody got pheasants,” he said. “A good time was had by all.”

In a way, that was a trip back to the good old days of 16-gauge hunting.

Doug is an active 16-gauge shooter. Of the 10 shotguns he currently owns, four of them are 16 gauge. He still has that F.A.I.R. Rizzini, in addition to a 1959 Beretta Silverhawk and two Browning Sweet 16 A-5s.

He recalled that when he began hunting there were a lot of 16-gauge shotguns on the market. Winchester Model 12s, Ithaca and Remington pumps, and the Browning Sweet 16 A-5s dominated the market, alongside a smattering of Fox, Parker and L.C. Smith doubles.

Although many a young hunter was started in the field with a 16 gauge, by the late 1950s and early 1960s, the 20 gauge, and later the 20-gauge 3-inch magnum, simply buried the 16 gauge shotgun in the U.S.

Doug now thinks that the 16 gauge is experiencing a renaissance. “After a 50-year decline in popularity, the sixteen is making a well-deserved comeback. And in a number of production lines, too.”

Today, although sometimes difficult to find, the industry still offers the standard and high-velocity lead and non-toxic loads from all major manufacturers. “Yet even though this situation has improved in the last few years, most serious 16-gauge shooters custom hand load their own shells. This is true of many shooters regardless of gauge,” Doug observed.

Affordable 16-gauge shotguns are available from a number of manufacturers including Griffin & Howe, Arietta, A. H. Fox, Browning, Connecticut Shotgun Manufacturing Company’s Model 21, Cortona, Arietta, Dean, Grulla, Stoeger and a handful of others.

And of course, there are also thousands of used 16-gauge shotguns in search of a new home.

Noe Roland is a frequent contributor to Shotgun Life. You can reach him at letters@shotgunlife.com.

 

Useful resources:

http://www.16ga.com/

http://www.griffinhowe.com

http://www.arrietashotguns.com/

http://www.connecticutshotgun.com/ahfox1.html

http://www.connecticutshotgun.com/model21.html

http://www.browning.com/

http://www.cortonashotguns.com/

http://www.dhshotguns.com/

http://www.grullaarmas.com/es/

http://www.stoegerindustries.com/

www.douglasoliverdesign.com

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A New Office

Monday, June 01, 2009
Written by Capt. David Bitters
Categories: Captain David Bitters
Tags: book, old, rods

I’m going to build myself a new office. One that is far away from the house, away from the kids, away from the wife – away from everything. But not too far. Just across the lawn at the edge of the woods. A place where I can think and write and dream all alone or with a special friend.

I’m going to keep it pretty simple and put a little wood stove in the corner right over there. I’ll add an old, leather couch against the far wall, and a couple of old, wooden chairs with lots of character, and an antique table for my desk. A rod rack hung from the rafters and a nice gun cabinet with a few doubles and a rifle, so I can dream of the guns of autumn and the rods of summer whenever I want.

I’ll put an old refrigerator beside my desk like the one I had in college – in case I get hungry or thirsty while working. And a fly tying table. Got to be able to tie some nice saltwater flies while dreaming of stripers, bonito and albie – all while working on my next column, of course…

Let’s not forget the big book case piled high with sporting books and magazines of every kind. All my friends will be there: Hilly, Hennessey, Tapply, Foster, Bryant, Sheldon, Woolner, Spiller, Ford… The list goes on. One of the joys of stretching out on the old leather coach by the wood stove with a good book, while looking around at the fine rods and guns, is dreaming of the way things once were. And discovering when you get out there, that its all still there. You just got to get up and go. You got to go a little further and look a little harder, and find the magic that is still there for those of us who long for a life outdoors. The grouse and the woodcock, the ducks and the geese… The deer and the bear and the snowshoe hare… The quail and the pheasant and even the snipe. Striped bass and brook trout, giant tuna and footballs. “Bucket-mouths,” “tommy” cod and coolers full of flounder. It’s all there if we really want it, if we are really willing to get up and go and see and learn.

So, amongst my rods and guns, decoys and ice traps, pack baskets and tackle boxes, I will sit in my new office and think and write. And hopefully I will inspire others to consider a simpler life, a rewarding life, a joy-filled life of living and working in God’s great outdoors.


Capt. David Bitters is a writer/photographer and a striped bass/sea duck hunting guide from Massachusetts. His photos and essays have appeared in over one-hundred magazines. Capt. Bitters is currently finishing his first book, A Sportsman’s Fireside Reader – Tales of Hunting, Fishing, and Other Outdoor Pleasures. Contact him at captdaveb@baymenoutfitters.com or (781) 934-2838. You can also write him at P.O. Box 366 Duxbury, MA 02331

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