Argentina. I could not believe it. My husband was taking me on my first wing shooting adventure. Granted, at this time I could not shoot my way out of a cardboard box, but it meant four days of “freedom” from the kids and four days of quality time with my husband. The adventure was about to begin.
People often ask me how I find the time to shoot in the midst of a very hectic life raising three children, keeping up with the daily responsibilities of living on a farm, teaching and all the other domestic and civic duties we manage to get ourselves into. I’ll tell you how, and more importantly why I make it a priority.
Ladies, how about a new gun for the old hunter? He may have a birthday coming up or maybe Father’s Day, or maybe “just because…” As you know, your hunter has been trying very, very hard not to look at another new gun. But how can he look the other way for the millionth time when his favorite sporting magazines are jammed with all the latest beauties in steel and walnut! I’ll bet he’s been eyeing that Caesar Guerini for a while? Me, too. Gold inlaid pheasants, quail, woodcock…Drop dead gorgeous! And the fit? They were made for gunners who adore their wives…
How about the new F3 Blaser Baronesse? Crisp, clean, and smothered in scroll or engraved with art scenes – if you want. There’s plenty of choices to dress it up or dress it down. Personally, I prefer the one with mallards locked and committed on the side plates. Of course, there is the one with a pair of English setters on point with the gunner walking in for the flush. They are all laced in gold for that little something extra!
Like something a little more traditional? Something with a more “old New England” look? How about a custom-made little beauty to dress up the gun cabinet and make him sigh every time he holds her (and you) in his arms? Connecticut Shotgun’s got just the ticket! The new RBL-28 Round Action Game Gun. It will make him feel rich, humble, and lucky all at the same time. Like you, it is a perfect “ten” and he will love it!
Ok, maybe you are ready to move up to the top of the ladder. Good fortune has smiled on you both – again, and you are ready to give him a real treat. An investment that will only increase in value over time. One that nobody in your presence or his, will glance twice at, as your loader, with gloved hand, offers the first of a matched pair for the driven shoot. May I suggest the Holland & Holland – M’am? And not the “cheap ones” either. You want the real deal: A matched pr. of Royal Deluxe Sidelocks, in 12 bore, for just $175,000…
As you can see, there is something for everybody when it comes time to treat the man of your life to a new gun. Whatever your tastes (or his), whatever your budget, the heydays of gun manufacturing are now. However, if you run into me this season in the field, don’t feel too embarrassed if I’m carrying my old, pitted double I got for Christmas when I was ten years old. My Kreighoff or Boss or Purdey is probably back in London having a little work done on the triggers.
Happy shopping, my dear. And if you need a little help, just ask.
With all my love,
Capt. Dave
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
Most people agree that baseball is the all-American sport. But after spending three days in San Antonio, Texas at the National Shooting Complex, I would argue that the sport which best captures the heart and soul of the American spirit is skeet.
Professional baseball has been battered by drug scandals, crass commercialism and outrageous salaries – giving a black eye to the American core values of fair play, self-determination and mutual respect.
By contrast, tournament skeet remains firmly in the stronghold of the shooter who competes for the love of their sport and a burning desire to win fair and square. While these birds certainly don’t have feathers, the hunger is still there to feed that great American quality of redemption – that you can always pick yourself up by the bootstraps to make a comeback target by target. It’s the grit of the individual and their gun forging their own destiny.
While professional baseball now finds itself pulsing through the digital infrastructure onto big-screen TVs and multi-media web sites, skeet holds fast to the ideals of craftsmanship in the hand-finished shotguns that still produce a streak of 500 or more consecutive broken targets.
Although the predecessor to the baseball bat may have helped primitive man fend off sabre-tooth tigers, it is the gun that won the American West – a part of the country I found myself in for three days in March.
As an avid recreational clays shooter, I became immersed in tournament skeet through a remarkable program developed by the National Skeet Shooting Association (NSSA) – the sport’s nonprofit governing body.
The NSSA and its sister group, the National Sporting Clays Association (NSCA), in conjunction with the state-level associations, keep track of just about every major skeet and sporting clays tournament in the U.S. The NSSA-NSCA is the repository for all registered scores shot in both large and small clubs throughout the country and in the world.
NSSA shooters often enter the realm of tournament skeet through grass roots organizations such as the 4H, which actively promotes skeet competition; through various instructors who want to see a promising student take their skills to the next level; or through local clubs where the NSSA sanctions competitive shoots.
But NSSA member, Stuart Fairbank, saw another way of opening the door of tournament skeet to recreational shooters. It’s called Shoot with the Stars, and it has been held at the annual Toni Rogers Spring Extravaganza, one of the earlier Top 10 shoots in the country that shooters use to open the tournament skeet season for three years. This year it took place March 27-29 at the NSSA-NSCA National Shooting Complex.
Although Stuart says the concept for this type of program had been around for the past 20 years, it was in 2007 that he teamed up with NSSA Secretary/Treasurer, Bob DeFrancesco, to really make it happen.
As Stuart explained it to me in the club house “There were always people who felt that the shooting games were exclusionary. They belong to a home club where they feel comfortable, but in terms of tournament shooting they have a hard time getting started. It can be confusing at first especially when you travel away from home and don’t know anybody at the shoot. And there’s the apprehension associated with meeting, and being squaded with, and competing against the big shooters. We want to make it as easy as possible for the new folks to experience a first-class tournament, meet and shoot with some of the best in the game, and do it all on manageable budget.”
For example, for someone like me who’s managed to shoot his fair share of 25 straight in skeet, it would be an absolutely intimidating proposition to go up against the likes of some of this year’s stars…
Of course registered tournaments do not directly pit the new shooter against these stars, or the other stars who participated in the program including John Shima, Stuart Fairbank and John Herkowitz. A classification system that ranges from top-ranked AAA to E shooters ensures competitive equilibrium. I had been ranked D, given that I had registered for a single tournament skeet shoot in 2007.
Turns out, I was exactly the kind of shooter that Stuart wanted to attract through Shoot with the Stars.
Stuart believed that the sport needed to create “ambassadors,” or recreational skeet shooters who were given the opportunity to mingle with the stars, and then go home and spread the good word.
So in 2007, Stuart and Bob posted the first Shoot with the Stars call on the Internet, attracting three shooters. Over time, a selection process was put in place. The names of up to 27 shooters would be drawn – three from each of the organization’s nine regional zones.
This year there were 15 recipients including myself, since I was the only one to apply from Zone 2.
The 2009 sponsors were Ms. Toni Ann Rogers (Title Sponsor), Federal Ammunition, Browning, Rio Ammunition, Kolar Arms, Remington Arms (.410 bore), Winchester Ammunition (28 gauge), While Flyer targets, leathersmith Al Ange and the NSSA as sponsors.
With sponsors and organization in place, the 2009 Shoot with the Stars gave us newcomers 100 shells in each gauge (12, 20, 28 and .410 bore) for use in the competitions, plus they waived our entry fees in each event of $50 and the nominal target fees that came to $6 per day. The Shoot with the Stars program also provided the experience of a lifetime (for skeet shooters this is tantamount to playing golf with Tiger Woods).
My Shoot with the Stars adventure started when I landed at San Antonio International Airport at about noon on March 26th. After renting a car, I headed directly to Blaser USA in San Antonio, the U.S. arm of the German manufacturer that makes the marvelous F3 shotgun.
Having shot an F3 before, I knew it would be the gun to shoot. Here’s why…
Norbert Haussmann, CEO of Blaser USA, had arranged for me to pick up the perfect 12-gauge model for Shoot with the Stars. It had a Monte Carlo stock complemented by an adjustable comb. The barrels were 30 inches in length. The lid of the hard case held three sets of Briley Revolution tubes in 20 and 28 gauges and .410 bore. Along with a full set of chokes, Blaser packages this F3 as the American Skeet Combo. And I have to say, it is really impressive.
After a Blaser tech tweaked the comb for me, the gun came up just right. If ever I were going to shoot a great game of skeet, this F3 would be the shotgun to make it happen.
Mother Nature, however, had other things in store.
Before leaving for San Antonio, I had checked the weather. It was supposed to be sunny, mild and in the mid-80s. It didn’t exactly turn out that way.
The next morning saw prevailing winds of 20-30 mph with gusts to 40 mph. For a flying disc such as a skeet target, winds that high create crazy turbulence.
Air density, drag coefficient, angle of attack – everything is up for grabs as the wind blew across the open, flat terrain of the National Shooting Center.
If the target is going with the wind, it can race out of the trap house with an afterburner burst, and then get driven into the ground even before it reaches the opposite house.
If the target is going into the wind, it can simply rise and stall – one of the worst things that can happen to a shooter who uses momentum to swing through for the target break.
Then there’s the ongoing debate as to whether or not it’s best to break a target in the wind sooner or later. Some experts believe that you should break the target as soon as possible before the wind knocks it off the line of trajectory. Others, meanwhile, say you should wait until the target adjusts to the wind before pulling the trigger.
All I can say is that conditions were not great to shoot the first event of the tournament, which was doubles (when the high-house and low-house targets are thrown simultaneously).
Of the 45 skeet fields at the National Shooting Complex, I was slotted to shoot on number 9. My squad star would be perennial All American Sam Armstrong from Maryland. At least it was a 12-gauge event (imagine if it was .410).
Introductions and hand shakes all around among the five squad members and we were ready to shoot. During the 100-round event, I was surprised at the ongoing chatter of encouragement. If someone made a great shot, the others shooters in the squad let him know about it. When you stepped up to the station, you were given a pep talk – “You can do it…come on, get in the groove, crush ’em now…”
Turns out it was the unspoken code among tournament skeet shooters. You helped your competitor achieve their fullest potential in the preliminaries and then faced him head on in the shoot-offs. This friendly banter contributed to a real sense of family among the shooters – even for a newcomer like me.
For Sam and the other highly ranked shots, doubles took on a beautiful cadence: BANG…1 Mississippi…BANG. It was the veritable heartbeat of doubles. Consistently, they knew the rhythm of the game and mastered it.
My final score was 57. Not great. It turns out, I made a couple of mistakes when it came to shooting in strong winds, which were explained to me over dinner that night with Sam and his friends at a Saltgrass Steakhouse.
First, by following the school of thought that says you break the targets close to the house in the wind, I held the Blaser further back than usual. The gun swung so beautifully, I figured it would be no problem nailing that target right out of the house before the wind could grab it.
I found out afterwards that you do just the opposite when shooting in the wind. You hold further toward the center stake. By reducing your gun swing, you stand a better of chance of breaking the target as it slows down, as opposed to attempting to shoot it when it comes accelerating out of the house.
Another mistake I made was shooting the target when it stalled in the wind. For example, if I were shooting the low 1, and it stalled right in front of me, I ended up missing the target. I was wondering how was that was possible? After all, the target was stopped dead; it was close enough to be hanging right off the brim of the cap. How the heck could I possibly miss that target?
The answer was simple: I had unconsciously lifted my face off the stock to look at the unusually high targets. Break that seal between your cheek and the stock and you’ll miss the target every time – even if the bird is dangling three feet in front of you.
My third mistake was trying to measure the target lead in the wind. If you look for the lead, you invariably take your eyes off the target – or worse end up glancing at the front bead. Either way, the target will get away from you.
OK, lessons learned. But would they stick? Let’s see how I would shoot the next day.
Right after the alarm clock went off, I checked the weather on my iPhone. Wind was blowing at 15 mph, with gusts reaching 23 mph. Certainly challenging, but not as daunting as the day before.
When I arrived at the National Shooting Complex that morning, one word dominated the communal conversation: wind. One of the stars confided later that he had not missed a single 12-gauge target since August 2006 – until doubles the day before when he shot a 98.
Other top shooters said “the wind got to me.” What did they mean by that? A strong, relentless wind can make you tense your muscles, slowing you down. Likewise, a sense of exhaustion sets in, both physically and mentally. Unlike them, I never expected to shoot 100 straight, often the threshold for entering the shoot-offs. While a 97 or a 98 would be great for me, it was unacceptable in the rarefied ranks of AAA skeet champs.
I had two events scheduled for that Saturday. I would shoot 12 gauge at 10:30 and 28 gauge at 3:00. I was optimistic. At least 12 gauge gave me the firepower for a wider margin of error in the wind. When it came to 28 gauge, I’d been shooting it for the past year at my local club. I think it’s the perfect gauge for skeet, and I had recently nailed my first 25 straight in 28 gauge.
Stuart Fairbank, a multiple World Champion from Connecticut, turned out to be the star of our 12-gauge squad. An affable guy, he really kept up the chatter – giving the squad a positive vibe through all 100 rounds. My final tally for the event was 81. I have to give ample credit to the Blaser for what I thought was a good score. It performed flawlessly, giving me great site pictures, a controlled swing and a comfortable shooting experience.
With a few hours remaining until the 28-gauge event, I paid a visit to the NSSA-NSCA Museum on the grounds. The museum included a history of skeet with wonderful artifacts. There were Hall of Fame Photos for both skeet and sporting clays and some entertaining videos to watch.
After the Museum, I walked across to the concession and ordered a tasty pulled-pork sandwich. I took the sandwich onto the patio and watched the other events as I ate.
At about 1:30, I installed the 28-gauge tubes from the trunk of my rental car. They went in like butter. After I shot two practice rounds, I knew 28-gauge would be intimidating.
Everyone says that regardless of the gauge, you always shoot the target the same way. Keep your hold points and break points consistent, whether it’s 12 gauge or .410. However, here’s the rub: A standard 12-gauge 1-1/8 oz shell with #9 shot holds about 658 pellets. A standard ¾ oz, 28-gauge shell with #9 shot has about 439 pellets – or nearly 50% fewer pellets. For the highly ranked shooters, the lower pellet count wouldn’t make that much of a difference. But I needed all the help I could get as the sundowner wind started to kick up, fulfilling the prediction of 23-mph gusts. In the end, I shot a 67.
My 28-gauge star was multiple World Championship winner Billy Williams from Montana, the only one of two shooters to score perfect 100’s in doubles the day before. Throughout the event, Billy was a master of encouragement, leading the squad in a chorus of positive banter. Even with my less-than-stellar 67, it was a joy to shoot in that squad. By now, I was starting to feel like an NSSA son-in-law.
That night, the Party on the Hill was held in the massive Beretta Pavilion. A Mariachi band entertained as free Mexican food, cocktails and beer from a keg were served. From this vantage point, you could look down across the great expanse of the National Shooting Complex and the Hill Country Beyond. It was a clays shooting paradise.
Sunday morning saw me slotted for two events. At noon, I would shoot 20 gauge with star, Bob DeFrancesco, NSSA Secretary/Treasurer and many time All American from Connecticut. My .410 event would take place at 4:30 with star, Dave Starrett, another multiple World Champion winner from Ohio. The weather was a hold-over from the day before: 14-mph winds, gusting to 25 mph. In the 20-gauge event, I scored a respectable 75. My score for .410 score came in at 63.
What did I walk away with from my Shoot with the Stars experience?
For one thing, I learned that Stuart was absolutely right about the experts who volunteered as this year’s stars. Every one of them was approachable, supportive and basically just a really nice person. Second, it rekindled my desire to shoot registered skeet at my local club. I discovered that the competition simply makes you shoot better. You keep a razor-sharp focus on the targets, you pay more attention to foot placement at each station and you shot the birds more aggressively – breaking them sooner. Finally, I learned valuable skills that I could apply just when I’m hanging out and shooting skeet with friends.
Tournament skeet is not for every shooter. But sometimes you just don’t know until you give it a try. Based on my experience, I would urge any skeet shooter to give tournament shooting a test drive. Join the NSSA and find a club near you that holds registered shoots.
In the end, I had only one regret about my trip to San Antonio: it was having to return the Blaser F3. That shotgun sure was a keeper.
Irwin Greenstein is Publisher of Shotgun Life. Please send your letters and comments to letters@shotgunlife.com.
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I’ve been shooting waterfowl now, for over thirty years and have arrived at a few of my own conclusions. One of them being that the 3 ½ inch magnum waterfowl load is a completely unnecessary American obsession.
The 3 ½ inch load punishes my shoulder, makes me flinch, causes my Browning Gold to jam, and does nothing that I cannot do with a standard 3 inch shell. Gene Hill said something to the effect that, if you can’t reach what you are aiming for, find a way to get a little closer. I assure you, he was not suggesting the 3 ½ inch magnum as the answer!
I dare say, in the not too distant future, we may happily see ammunition manufacturers touting the “new” 2 ¾ inch waterfowl load that “does everything the three-inch shell can do…and more.” I for one, certainly hope so. If we can land a spaceship on Mars, why can’t we make a non-toxic waterfowl load in 2 ¾ inch that “knocks ’em dead” at fifty yards?
Now I will shock you by telling you I will not buy a waterfowl gun that is chambered to take anything less than 3 ½ inch magnum loads. I will not shoot 3 ½ inch loads of any kind, but I want a duck gun (and I think you should, too) that’s made to handle the 3 ½ inch loads. Here’s why.
I have been in duck blinds, duck boats, lay out boats, salt marsh ditches and a few other enjoyable places where three different gunners, all side by side, are shooting shotguns with three different length chambers. Ammunition is often freely shared and more than once, I have seen a 3 ½ inch chambered gunner hand one of his roman candles to a 3 inch chambered gunner – or worse! I tremble to say I have also sat beside a 3 inch chambered gunner and seen him load 3 ½ inch shells into his gun – and fire! I grabbed the next one out of his hand and asked him to read to me the engraved chamber length on his receiver. In all sincerity and innocence he said to me, “what’s the receiver…?”
Until common sense and proper gun safety are back in vogue, my vote goes to the 3 ½ inch magnum duck gun, loaded with 3 inch waterfowl loads. And as soon as the ammo manufacturers roll out the new 2 ¾ inch non-toxic waterfowl loads, that can and do everything a 3 inch waterfowl load does, we will dine on roast mallard, teal and black duck with grace. Maybe even some geese. And yes, I will even let you give me the ol’ sporting, college punch, right in the shoulder.
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
I’m not usually the kind of woman who hollers out to perfect strangers in public. But, my choices were continue lurking around a Memphis airport telephone booth or find out if the two women strolling by, one in a camouflage jacket, were my ride to Hunter’s Paradise Lodge.
“Hey, are you Shannon?” I blurted.
The woman in the camo coat, who was pushing a cart piled high with pink luggage accented with white polka dots, turned around and said “You must be Tammy.”
Imagine my relief. I was lucky because the two women I had waylaid, Ann Smith of the NRA and Team Winchester’s Heather Reddemann, were on the same Winchester/Mississippi Department of Tourism duck hunt I had been invited to. Turns out the woman I was supposed to meet, Winchester hunt hostess Shannon Salyer, was delayed at the Houston airport.
Within moments of meeting each other, Ann, Heather and I were in fast food heaven at the airport Arby’s. In a rush of introductions and comparing notes on people we knew in common, I finally got the scoop on the pink polka-dotted suitcases. I quickly realized that Heather was a serious waterfowler with a capital S. Not the kind of young woman I would associate with Barbie Doll bags. I learned, though, it was Heather’s foolproof way to ensure that when (not if) the airlines lost her luggage; it would be easy to describe and find. It made sense in a kooky kind of way.
Shannon finally arrived many curly fries later, and we all piled into an SUV and headed south.
The Mississippi Delta is known as the birthplace of the blues and the land of catfish, cotton and waterfowl -everything from snow geese and specklebellies to mallards, wood ducks, scaups and shovelers. Lucky bum that I am, I was cruising down I-55 with three new friends on our way to hunt these heavenly creatures.
Our destination was Hunter’s Paradise Lodge outside of Charleston, Miss. in Tallahatchie County. Presumably it was the same area where Billie Joe McAllister flung himself off that bridge. When I asked the local guides about it, they looked at me like I was a flake. However, it was too late. I couldn’t get the song or the movie out of my head for days.
When the pseudo female voice from our SUV’s navi system curtly instructed us to “turn right in .2 miles,” we were more than ready to finally arrive at Hunter’s Paradise. Lodge owner Tim Gray and his guides immediately whisked our luggage inside, and soon we were mingling with the rest of our hunting party: co-host Mike Jones from the Mississippi Department of Tourism, freelancer Stephanie Mallory and Hillary Mizelle of Grand View Media. It was immediately clear this was a fun group of people, and I was quite pleased at how things were turning out.
As my roommate Ann and I were chatting and unpacking, I was hit with the sinking feeling I had forgotten to pack something. Last time I traveled it was undergarments. This time it was my toiletry kit. No deodorant, shampoo or facial cleanser. Just as this group was getting to know me, I had to be the doofus who couldn’t remember to pack a toothbrush. For the rest of the trip, I was forced to panhandle for contact solution, toothpaste and lotion. But everyone was kind to me, and I decided I could make do with the group’s generosity and the odds and ends I found in my briefcase. At least I didn’t forget my hunting boots.
The first night at Hunter’s Paradise, I vowed to eat dessert like there was no tomorrow. That was a good decision, as Lucille, camp cook, makes a mean chocolate chip cake. I even woke up one morning before the rest so I could devour the last piece. I admit it was a desperate act for someone living on the shampoo charity of others.
After dinner, Tim visited with the group about what we could expect on the hunt, covered some safety basics and let us check out the firearms we would use. I was pleased that we’d be shooting some quality sporting arms. There was a nice selection of Browning Silver and Gold autoloaders in 12 and 20-gauges. Both models are a splendid choice because they employ Active Valve gas operation making them low recoil choices as well as a beautiful combination of wood and metal. I chose a sweet little Silver 20-gauge because it shouldered almost perfectly. We also examined our Winchester ammo choices (12 and 20 gauge Supreme Elite Xtended Range HD Waterfowl and Xpert Hi-Velocity Steel). I knew I’d enjoy getting to test the various loads to discover what would have maximum impact on birds and minimum impact on me. Tim, who has duck hunted since he was 8 years old, left no doubt he is passionate about waterfowling. For some, hunting ducks and geese is a hobby. For Tim, it’s a way of life. By age 18, he had already decided he was going to own, or at least run a guide service so he could introduce others to what he loved. For the next 20 years, Tim worked towards his dream while he held “bill-paying jobs” before finally opening Hunter’s Paradise Lodge.
Today, it’s a popular destination for duck hunters across the country. Situated in the Mississippi Flyway, the area boasts a heavy concentration of waterfowl. I was getting pumped just thinking about birds circling our decoys, and finally cupping their wings as they made the commitment to join their faux friends.
Our first morning, after only four hours of sleep, we were up and pulling on waterfowl bibs, coats and boots – ready for snow goose action. About an hour later, our vehicle was bouncing down a mud road leading to the middle of a field. Just as the guides were getting ready to unleash a bevy of decoys, it happened. A flash in the distance. Could it be lightening?
The ensuing clap of thunder verified that it was, in fact, lightening. And we got to see many more examples of it. For the next 16 hours I swear, every thunderstorm in North America rolled across the Delta. Luckily, we got a brief respite after sunrise when we saw the wind hurl about 25,000 snow geese high overhead. I was thankful my layout blind had doors, because with that many birds in the air, chances of being pooped on were pretty high.
The first wave of rain that morning alternated between a gentle pitter patter on my layout blind to fatter, more frequent raindrops. Tucked away in our little camo coffins, we stayed fairly dry, each in our own little world watching birds and clouds sail by. As morning progressed, a blasting wind and cold rain conspired to make our surrender inevitable. Finally, the guides began to load up dogs and decoys, while we tried to snap a few photos. Afraid to ruin cameras, we packed them up and stood with our backs to the wind. And passed the time telling stories and laughing at how funny we looked with hoods cinched tightly around our faces. This was a plucky group of women so I might have been alone in this thought, but I was thankful to be excused from picking up blinds and decoys in a driving rain.
After this gallant effort, we headed back to the lodge where our growling stomachs were greeted by one of Lucille’s big country brunches. Hurrah!
It rained the rest of the day. And I don’t mean sprinkled. Or drizzled. I mean a full on toad-floating downpour. There wasn’t much more to do beyond accept our fate. Fortunately, the lodge is a spacious and comfortable place to fritter away an afternoon. A great room includes a huge living room, ringed with several comfy sofas and a big screen TV, perfect accoutrements for a mid-day snooze. Connected to that is a roomy, cafeteria style dining room while the six bedrooms are off the beaten path down a quiet hallway. Five private bathrooms means even in a group of women, nobody has to wait for a post hunt shower.
After eating, a few of the women grabbed blankets and sprawled out on the sofas for a siesta, but not before checking email and text messages first.
Others sat at one of the many dining room tables, looking at photos, snacking and talking. While we waited out the rain, Mike Jones filled me in on the birding opportunities in Mississippi, which are plentiful and easy to identify thanks to the tourism department’s handy map and brochure. Shannon, Heather and I also discussed the art and science of waterfowling and the best ways to reduce felt recoil. We agreed that while butt pads and shooting vest pads work wonders, gun type and fit as well as proper stance and handling are key.
The next morning, after it had rained about 6 inches, I figured the ducks would be scattered from one end of the state to the other with so much water available. Still, Tim and his guides were steadfast about getting us out there for a chance to shoot some ducks. They set us up on some old catfish ponds less than a half hour away from the lodge, which also meant a bit more shut eye for us hunters. It was drizzly, windy and cold (an ongoing theme), and we were all dressed to the teeth, each in our own way resembling the Pillsbury Dough Boy or some other enormous roly poly figure. Kirstie Pike, who founded Próis, sent us beanies and neck gaiters from her line of functional women’s hunting apparel. We pulled the hats down over our ears and pulled the gaitors up over our noses so all that was visible were our eyeballs. Still, we managed to shoot some ducks. And some photos.
Driving back to the lodge through the Mississippi Delta, I could almost imagine what this swampy wilderness looked like 100 years ago. The fertile soils of this alluvial floodplain were too good to pass up for the sharecroppers and landowners of yesteryear, and they quickly cleared it for cotton. Today, you’ll see huge working farms, growing cotton, soybeans and rice, bordered by acres of forest and sloughs. Though impressively flat, the meandering rivers and pools of water lend the area a backroad beauty no serious traveler should miss.
While the weather remained a challenge, I got just enough of a taste to want to go back. There’s no question that if the weather had cooperated, we would have had our hands full shooting ducks and geese. Next time, though, I’m making contingency plans in case there’s another monsoon. The Delta is a hotbed of American culture and on my return visit, I’m going to soak it up.
First, I’d head over to Clarksdale to check out the Delta Blues Museum and maybe actor Morgan Freeman’s joint, Ground Zero Blues Club. Then there’s the BB King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in nearby Indianola. In Oxford, there are several historical sites linked to Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulker that I’d like to see.
Just to be well rounded, I think I’d opt for some wacky entertainment, too – the Catfish Museum in Belzoni or the Jim Henson Museum to pay homage to Kermit the Frog’s birthplace in Leland. Maybe I’d wrap things up with a stop at the Home of Scissors, World Champion Hog just outside of Charleston on Route 32. While there’s plenty to see and do, it’s worth going back just to take another shot at duck hunting.
After eight reflective hours in the Memphis airport (the inconvenience of storms had moved from duck hunting to air travel), I realized that the take home message from this trip was that when you’re in a wonderful area, eating delicious food and surrounded by people who are smart, funny and thoughtful, a limit of ducks is merely a bonus.
Tammy Sapp was raised in an outdoors family who enjoyed spending time together trapping, fishing, camping and hiking. That outdoor background inspired her to pursue a career in the wildlife field. Sapp worked for 11 years at the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation as an outdoor writer, photographer and publications supervisor. She then spent the next 11 years overseeing the communications department for the National Wild Turkey Federation. As the NWTF’s senior vice president of communications, she supervised the production of six national magazines and played a leading role in launching three national television shows and several Web sites. Today, Sapp edits an e-newsletter called the Women’s Outdoor Wire, writes the Outdoor Scene blog and works as a media and agency relations coordinator for MyOutdoorTV.com.
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As I sit here at my desk, a heavy blanket of snow is falling outside my window. It is the month of March and the first day of spring is not far behind…
March is a kind of “down time” of year for me, a time of putting things away. The hunting season is long over and the fishing season is still a ways off. The decoys – it is so hard to put them away for another year… But reluctantly, I take them one by one to their resting places in the basement. The plastic ones, anyway. The woods and the corks stay up in my office where I can keep an eye on them. The best decoy of the bunch gets to ride around in my car to keep me company for another year. I like to keep a decoy on the dash to look at and my kids get to play with it when they ride along. Decoys are both toys and art. They hold the keys to some of life’s greatest lessons.
The guns have been cleaned and oiled and put back in the rack. A few weeks pass, and I take them out again – for the third time – to check and make sure they are all cleaned and oiled, even though I know they all are. It feels good to throw one to the shoulder and swing through on an imaginary grouse or woodcock or duck. As I sit by the evening fire, it’s a hard thing to be content looking at them through the glass. But it’s time…
The gunning coats and vests are hung up in the “gunning closet”, their pockets not quite sure if they’re ready to be empty for another season. A few shells here, a couple duck calls there. A rusty pocket knife or two. A pair of old gloves and a favorite hat. Way far too many candy bar wrappers… The gunning coats still smell of autumn, as they always do, and as I put them away I am reminded of dogs past, gone but not forgotten. I stand at the closet entrance one last time and close my eyes, letting the smells of October and November and December fill my senses. A hundred thoughts flash through my mind like so many flickers of crimson and gold and burnt orange. Maybe its time for a new dog… How can my children grow up so fast… How does one balance the passions of job, family, and a life outdoors… No answers come as I close the door and turn the key. It’s finally over for another season and a tough time I have.
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 at (781) 934-2838. You can also write him at P.O. Box 366 Duxbury, MA 02331. Please visit his web site at http://www.baymenoutfitters.com
I was recently invited to go to South Dakota pheasant hunting, and what a trip it was. Kirstie Pike the President of Prois Hunting Apparel, Keli Van Cleave, and I went as Prois Hunting Apparel Pro Staff members and were treated to outstanding hospitality by the owners and staff of Pheasant Phun at the Olsen Ranch in Hitchcock, South Dakota.
Dave Olsen is the proprietor and the head wrangler of the operation. Dave’s mom, Annie, and his father, Art are some of the nicest people you will ever meet. The film crew of SSOutdoor Adventures was also there filming for an upcoming show.
In a riverfront honky-tonk deep in the South, the sliding doors open to the verandah, women sat on bar stools wistfully blowing cigarette smoke at the stars.
It was the kind of forlorn place where a man could bring his bird dog and let it curl up on the floor between the stools, and you could never tell which one stunk worse – the man or the dog.
Time was of no consequence in this place, here on the river, in the darkness, where the hours and minutes were marked by the bug zappers incinerating their random catch. Yes, the Universe was clearly at work, here, now, in this honky-tonk where men and women wandered in drawn by the Big Mystery.
I never did get the name of that bar, but there’s one thing I’ll always remember about that place. It was where I first met Jim and Bugsy.
Their table was heaped with the remnants of peel-and-eat shrimp and empty beer bottles. I’d accidentally bumped into a corner of the table on the way to the john, a bit sodden myself, when I whirled around to see Bugsy splendid in his Vintager apparel and Jim in a shooting vest and baseball cap.
They looked up at me – more startled than menacing. Both sported long, thick cigars, and I remembered what Freud once said.
Taking in the scene I thought “these men are my kind of men.” So I decided to hold it in and rather than hit the john, and asked, “Can you buy you gents a beer for the inconvenience?”
Bugsy broke out laughing and turned to Jim: “Can you believe this guy?”
Jim simply nodded, world weary and wise.
“Of course you can buy us a beer,” Bugsy shouted.
“Hefeweizen with a wedge of lemon?”
“Sure, why the hell not?” Bugsy shouted.
Jim simply waved his hand, as though to say, que sera, sera.
“Miss, oh, miss,” I called to the barmaid. “Three Hefeweizen with a wedge of fresh lemon, if you please.”
She was young and lithe with a tank tap and no bra and she leaned over into the ice box, drawing the attention of the great rough slab of tramp-steamer maleness, each of them shanghaied to this forsaken place, here on the river, and she put three long-necked Snake Venom Ales on the bar in front of me.
“We’re outta lemon wedges, handsome” she said. “Start a tab for you and your pals?”
“That would be excellent,” I said. “By the way, do you have any coasters?”
She turned away, and resumed her conversation with the burly men at the end of the bar.
“Hey, you gonna eyeball those beers all night or bring ’em over here?” Bugsy said.
“Sorry about the coasters,” I said sitting down. “Fielding-Clapp, Cletus.”
“Bugsy.”
“Jim.”
Bugsy had a mischievous glint in his eyes, his face part pugilist, part English professor. Jim wore a scruffy beard, his dark penetrating orbs awash in a secret sea of resignation whose powerful tides shifted with the whims of Lady Luck. I couldn’t help but notice he wore an orthopedic shoe with a platform sole; one leg was longer than the other.
Their cigar smoke enshrouded us in a place within a place, here on the lazy river. The bar opened directly on to the water, giving the impression that we were on a slow boat to the end of the world.
“Shrimp?” Bugsy asked, pushing the plastic basket toward me.
“That’s extremely generous,” I said, “but I have a shellfish allergy.”
“No worries,” Jim said. “I always carry antihistamines.”
I put forth a polite smile. “So I see you chaps are into shotguns.”
Bugsy broke out laughing. “Hey, this guy’s a regular Sherlock Holmes,” he said to Jim.”
“Don’t start,” Jim said.
“Actually, I write for Shotgun Life.”
“I love it,” Bugsy shouted. “Man, we’ve got something for you to write about.”
“Well, fire away.”
“That’s a challenge we’ll gladly accept,” Bugsy said. “Go ahead, Jim-bo, you go first.”
“I think I will.”
It turned out, that Jim was a dentist, originally from Long Island. He ended up down South to attend dental school in Charleston, South Carolina. And that’s when he started getting into shooting — at the end of dental school and his first residency.
He got invited on his first dove shoot, borrowing a neighbors bolt-action 16 gauge. It was old and weird. “I was hooked. I had a knack for it, and killed my limit rather quickly,” Jim recalled.
Well, by now Jim is married with three children and a successful dental practice.
Jim had also turned into a dove-hunting addict; and after doves he got hooked on quail. When he couldn’t hunt birds, he started to shoot skeet. If it flied, it died, whether it sported feathers or fluorescent orange, it was going down. And as he got deeper and deeper into the shotgun sports, he joined a shooting club in Charleston, which was where he met Bugsy.
After skeet, Jim and Bugsy discovered sporting clays. They started to shoot competitively. Every weekend, Jim was out shooting – and it didn’t matter what the heck it was…doves, quail, skeet, sporting clays…
Jim was telling all of this to me, until he paused for a moment of deep reflection., where he gazed into his fate like a warrior about to face the battle of his life… “Then I got bit by the tick,” he said.
Bugsy nodded to me, puffing on his cigar.
“It’s back in ’94,” Jim said. “I was on a dove hunt in Somerville, South Carolina. I got a tick bite without even noticing it – until the rash. Things started falling apart…neurological problems…my balance gave way and I started having pains and troubles with my legs.
“For almost two years, no one could diagnose it as Lyme’s disease. I went to urologists, neurologists and internists. People weren’t aware of Lyme’s disease at this point — and they never tested him for it. Mostly I was tested for MS, and it always came back negative.
“You see, Cletus, the doctors didn’t really believe that Lyme’s disease made its way all the way down south. You know, it was first detected in Lyme Connecticut.
“In the meantime my situation is deteriorating. Well, I finally got lucky. My sister and brother-in-law are physicians, and when they finally identified the problem, they put me on antibiotics immediately. And they also hooked me up with the head of infectious disease in Columbia, in South Carolina. My sister pulled strings.”
Jim pushed out his chair. He showed me his orthopedic shoe. “That’s what Lyme’s Disease will do to you. You tell your readers, first to spray before they go out to hunt, and if they’re bitten, they should run, not walk, to get treated.”
“Jim, you gotta face it, you’ve always been jinxed,” Bugsy said. “Falling on those fire ants…that woman who got sick on the plane next to you when we flew to Argentina…”
“Well, I do live under a cloud,” Jim told me. “But I’ve never been…” He gave Bugsy a meaningful glance that only men who’ve seen it can know how meaningful it really is.
Bugsy nodded. He took a long, enjoyable puff on his cigar. “Heck, Cletus, what I’ve been through, that’s just one more good story to tell.”
And he proceeded to tell it with a flourish…
His introduction to the shotgun sports was more sordid than Jim’s. At about 14, his parents introduced him to shooting in Savannah at the Forest City Gun Club in Savannah. They took him there because it was a private club and they could drink on Sundays.
As the years passed, he never lost of his love of shooting. He started a home-building company in Columbia, South Carolina called Colony Builders.
“That was 25 years ago when I started at Colony,” he said wistfully, puffing on his cigar.
Well, in the great tradition of the South, Bugsy introduced his son, Bugsy II, to hunting. In 1998, the father took his son for his first shooting trip outside of the U.S., to Mexico, in John Wayne territory: Rio Bravo.
To minimize any dangers, Bugsy decided to stay in Texas. From their base in McAllen, Bugsy and Bugsy II would cross the Pharr Bridge and make day hunts South of the Border. Bugsy knew his outfitter well and they always adhered to the same routine. Pick-up at around noon, shoot until 6:00 or 7:00 on the preserve, and then to the world-famous La Cucaracha in Reynosa for dinner.
It was the kind of routine that men followed through the ages – for time immemorial -until such said day, when out of the blue, it happened…
“The horror,” he said, gazing into the darkness, beyond the slow river.
“Well…,” Jim said.
Bugsy, never one to lose his composure while telling a good story, sucked it up and resumed his compelling narrative.
“We were hunting some five miles from Rio Bravo when a storm came up,” he recalled. “There had been a misty rain, the kind of rain that chills men to the bones and makes you want to brew up a strong cup of Earl Grey tea.
“So we get there, three vehicles full of hunters. It clears up and the rain quits. The day before it was all dry so you could drive to the spot but now it was all gumbo and you had to walk. We walk into the field – my son and myself and the two bird boys, and we’re out in the field, it begins to rain again. I don’t mind the rain but I don’t like the lightning. You know what I mean, Cletus?”
I nodded, a somber nod, reserved for men of few words, like Clint Eastwood in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
But off in the distance, lightning had hit an electrical transformer – causing a loud explosion. “By my count, 1, 2, 3, I figured it was about 10 miles away,” Bugsy said.
Bugsy and Bugsy II decided to take shelter under a nearby mesquite tree. What they didn’t know, unfortunately, was that it was the devil mesquite tree.
Yes, of all the mesquite trees in all of Mexico, they unbeknownst to them stood under the mesquite tree that went by the name of El Diablo. But before any of the outfitters could warn the two men, Bugsy II had asked his father “What are the chances of getting hit by lightning here?”
Suddenly, it came up out of the ground and hit Bugsy, lifted him off the ground like El Diablo itself, and threw him down with a body slam that would’ve made Hulk Hogan proud. A fireball ran down the outside of the gun and there was a huge explosion.
“I’m going to tell you something, Cletus, that was my moment of truth. Because if that bolt of lighting had gone inside the gun, well, just let me say that I had three shells in that guy and it sure as hell would’ve gone off and killed both me and my son,” Bugsy said. “Yes, it would’ve…got us both.”
There was a silent aftermath, the kind of long silence that makes men wonder, in the solitude of the vast nothingness where men have dwelled among other men in a silence of their own, wonder to themselves as they barely move their lips “It sure is mighty quiet – too quiet.”
At first, Bugsy II thought his father had fired the gun.
Bugsy remembered what followed as clear as if he were laying in that field now.
“In my calmest voice, I said ‘I’ve been hit by lighting, I’m hurt and you need to go get help.'”
You can imagine the fortitude of this man amongst men.
From the waist down he could feel nothing whatsoever. There was a tremendous pain in his left arm, so that he actually thought it had been knocked off and sent flying clear across the field.
There was blood, plenty of it coming from somewhere and he truly believed that his arm had been knocked off and sent flying across the field, where now the vultures had gathered. And they weren’t ordinary vultures. They were the vultures known as El Diablo.
“I pulled on my arm to see if it was attached — so I realized I didn’t need a tourniquet. There was no wound either,” he described with the most masculine fortitude I’d ever heard.
As fate would have it, the wound was on his hand and it came from falling on broken glass – also known as the tears of El Diablo.
“My son runs off, through the gumbo, to get some help, and I’m on the ground, can move a thing from the waist down, and there are the bird boys, speaking Spanish to me,” Bugsy recalled. “Speaking Spanish.”
“Yes, Spanish is a very manly language,” I said.
Bugsy and Jim gave me a solemn nod.
“It took them about 40 minutes to get back though the gumbo, to find the guide on the other side of the field, and explain what happened and get them back to me,” Bugsy said. “I’d been hunting with him for about eight years and when he saw me laying there and he said, ‘Bugsy what have you done now?'”
Bugsy insisted they take him to the hospital on the other side of the border. It was the hospital known among the muscular men in this part of the world for its cherry Jell-O with fruit cocktail in it.
They got Bugsy to his feet – a brotherhood of hunters that has rung true and square through the millennium, and got him into Rio Bravo where they got a cab back to Texas. It was now about 7:00 PM, on a Saturday night, in the emergency room of a border-town hospital.
And he waited.
“By 10:00, they were bringing in the fighting victims, the knife fights, the fights of honor fought by men against men in parking lots with no name,” Bugsy said.
By time the doctors got around to Bugsy, his blood pressure was 200 over 150 (normal is about 110 over 70). The doctors gave him several doses of medicine to lower his blood pressure, sewed up his hand and kept him on a heart monitor over night.
The next morning, the doctor comes in and says to me “You were really lucky.”
“Let’s see if I understand, doc. I’m in a field with 15 guys, I get hit by lightning, and you call that lucky. I think I’d like a second opinion. The doctor said ‘that’s not what I meant’ and I said I know what you meant.”
“Yes, now I know what you mean,” I said. “Yes, yes, yes.”
Jim was puffing on his cigar through Bugsy’s tale of his travails. “Hey, Cletus, let me ask you something.”
“Sure, Jim.”
“Want to go shooting with Bugsy and me tomorrow?”
Cletus Fielding Clapp is an official correspondent for Shotgun Life. Please send your comments to letters@shotgunlife.com.
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