Sleepy brains

Do you ever have one of those days where you're sitting around and start to think, when was the last time I took a bath? Or maybe you're strolling around the Walmart and look down suddenly to make sure you remembered to put on pants. This is especially important to do if you don't wear underwear.

That's where my mind is lately. This business of retirement is turning my mind to mush. Get up. Watch the Outdoor Channel. Fix the baby girl a waffle. Change the diapers. Walk outside and look for geese flying by and try to call them into the backyard. (This is something the neighbors really don't appreciate.) It's hell on a country boy to be trapped in the suburbs.

I need my woods. I need my pastures. I need to get out and fling arrows at unsuspecting wildlife.

Next year Baby Girl can go with me, at least on the family farm, so I got that to look forward to. And I'm bringing her along nicely. She knows to sit still when the geese fly by. And when the huge bucks that you see on the tv stand out in the wide open, (they seem to only do that on tv) she is right there, going, BANG, BANG, just like Daddy taught her.

But tomorrow, well tomorrow I'm in the woods. And the Boy is going along. I got him a cheap machete because we have to build a couple of new blinds, so he just can't wait to get out there and whack things. Not squirrels though, we leave those to Robert.

So maybe tomorrow I stick an arrow in one of God's beautiful creatures and give thanks for the protein He's given us. Maybe Sunday or one day next week. Or maybe not. Just being in the woods is enough.

Until muzzleloader season at least, that's when the serious hunting begins for me. I've got a freezer to fill you know.

Smokin' guns in the fall

Well, I dug my old Thompson/Center Hawken out of the closet this last week. It was put in the closet because about ten years ago, I discovered a problem in the barrel when a load became stuck and wouldn't come out. Seems there's a section that has either bulged or is just shot out, I can't tell.

I was in the middle of buying a new barrel from Green River this last Friday when I decided to give Thompson an email and see what a new barrel would run. A lovely lady in customer service replied and told me to just ship it to them with return shipping enclosed. Well, I'm fully capable of fitting a barrel to this rifle so I called to see what I could buy the barrel for. The reply I got was that the rifle was under a lifetime warranty and all I had to do was send it in.

Now I've had this rifle since I was 11 and I'm 42 now. My Dad told me today that we paid $125 for it from Dixie Gun Works, the same rifle now lists for $599-699 depending on who has it on sale. I told T/C that it may have been operator error that ruined the barrel and I was fully prepared to buy a new one, but no, they will fix it, just be sure to send the return shipping label. Now that's what I call a great company that stands behind their products. I own several other Thompson/Center guns and love them all. I now intend to own several more.

But, it will take several weeks to get it back, which is perfectly reasonable to me. However, in just a few weeks, first muzzloader season is upon us and I'm without a gun.

Well, until I stopped at the pawn shop this afternoon. I picked up a CVA Stag Horn in .50 caliber. It came with the optional Bushnell scope and is in pretty good condition. I paid $100 total, which included sales tax. Googling I learned that new it would go on sale for about $85 with the scope and rings adding another $40 or so. And I'm comfortable with paying that. Had I wanted to look around some more I probably could have saved $20-30 on something similar, but I had to make sure I had something. Deer meat is a large source of protein in this household and I need to fill a freezer so I didn't want to wait until the last minute.

I'm rather impresed with the clarity of the scope so far. Just playing with it in the backyard this evening, it suprised me with the light pick-up and the clearness of the glass. It's a low-end scope to be sure and it will take a little shooting to determine if it will hold a zero, but if the clarity is any indication, I think it will be okay. If not, I'll swap it with an old Tasco on a .22 I have.

I'm going to start out with 90 grains of Pyrodex and a 245 grain Powerbelt copper hollow point. I generally just hunt bottomlands and swamps, I love the thick stuff, and average shots are within 100 yards, 50 is more like it. I think this load will be a good starting point and if it will hold 3" at 100 yards I'll probably stick with it. I'll give it a go this week sometime and post what I come up with.

As always, here's to cloudy nights, short bloodtrails and backstraps on the grill.