It happens every spring

Posted on February 12, 2015 by Jerry Johnson

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAPeople ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you want I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.
            Rogers Hornsby (1896-1963) Hall of Fame second baseman

I love playing this game and every spring training feels like the first.
                        Rickey Henderson (b. 1958) Hall of Fame outfielder

It happens every spring

Winter holds the North Country in its icy grip this February morning, but in Arizona and Florida the sun is shining warmly on ball parks where Major League Baseball’s annual spring training will soon begin. The first week of the training season still ignites my passion for the game and a longing to be part of it.

I know the saying is trite and overused, but I love the game. I loved playing it, and I love watching it almost as much. So you will understand my frustration when I tell you that the Cincinnati Reds Baseball Club failed to respond to my letter offering my services as a utility infielder – for the forty-seventh consecutive year.

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SuperAmmo

Posted on February 5, 2015 by Jerry Johnson
Although I would like to take my lever-action rifle on another deer hunt, it is not the best choice for the open plains on the eastern edge of the Nebraska Sandhills.

Although I would like to take my old-time**lever-action rifle on another deer hunt, it is not the best choice for long-range shooting on the open plains along the eastern edge of the Nebraska Sandhills.

We are all suckers for the promise of something that looks greater but turns out to be lesser. The push-up bra, for example.

SuperAmmo

A beautiful Marlin Model 336 lever-action rifle in .35 Remington caliber resides in the back row of my gun safe, lonely and asking to come out and hunt with me. I bought this rifle about ten years ago specifically for a Minnesota deer hunt, and I have used it to take one deer, a respectable but not bragging size six-point whitetail buck.

Since then the rifle has been woefully neglected, and every time I open the safe and hear its call I feel a sense of guilt. Why did I buy a rifle that I don’t need? Well, I’m not going to think too much about that; there are three or four other guns in there that I don’t “need,” but I’m not giving any of them up since they each embody the memory of at least one great hunt with great friends.

However, with another deer hunt planned in a “rifle state,” Nebraska, I pledged that I would pack along this lever gun in November so that I could enjoy a few more days afield with it in hand, and maybe even take another deer. Trouble is, a rifle in .35 Remington caliber is not the best choice for a whitetail hunt in the wide open plains on the eastern edge of the Nebraska Sandhills.

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Posted in Deer Hunting, Hunting Rifles, Lever-action Rifles, SuperAmmo | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Hunters and shooters

Posted on February 4, 2015 by Jerry Johnson
A late season pheasant hunt can be a test of skills and stamina for you and your dog.

A late season pheasant hunt can be a test of skills and stamina for you and your dog.

I prefer the company of those strange characters who stop the hunt for five or ten minutes after each bird is taken so they can tell you how the dog worked, how the bird flushed, which way it flew, how the shot was taken, and how the retrieve was made.

Hunters and shooters

Thirty years ago a companion on a December pheasant hunt in northeast Iowa inadvertently taught me that not every person who buys a small game license is a true bird hunter. Despite being decked out in Orvis clothes and Cabela’s gear, and running top-flight bird dogs and carrying Caesar Guerini over/unders, some who go afield in pursuit of game birds are just shooters.

The sun had set and the last light of a winter afternoon was fading as we walked together, wearily, across hard-frozen clods in a harvested and fall-plowed cornfield, stumbling over broken corn stalks that jutted through a four-inch blanket of snow. We had come to the end of a two-day hunt and were ready to begin a long drive home. Even my dogs admitted that they had had as much of this frigid fun as they could stand.

My hunting buddy was glum, but I thought his sultry mood was due to the weather and his exhaustion. I was wrong. He was disappointed in the hunt. Bitterly disappointed.

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Posted in Bird Dogs, Bird hunting, Hunting, Winter Bird Hunting | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Coyotes

Posted on January 30, 2015 by Jerry Johnson
Coyote - Canis latrans. Photo from the website of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife

Coyote – Canis latrans. Photo from the website of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife

Something in the human psyche needs the wolf pack lurking out there in the night to add a bit of terror to our quiet lives, it seems. The wolves are gone, so the villain’s role has been assigned to the coyote.

Coyotes

In the North Country, calling for coyotes in late January is for hunters on the brink of psychosis. All winter month hunters share a craving for, or maybe an obsession with, isolation.

Hidden in the folds of a snow-draped cedar tree and insulated by four or five layers of winter clothing, we spend the short daylight hours watching and waiting and thinking. It’s just us and the woodlands locked together in the bitter cold grip of winter.

These frozen hours in the wild are not as beneficial to the body nor as enlightening to the mind as disciplined Zen meditation, I suppose, but they are less expensive than professional psychotherapy. And we don’t have to talk to anyone. Silence is a requirement.

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Posted in Coyotes, Hunting | Tagged | 6 Comments

She goes where you hold her

Posted on January 18, 2015 by Jerry Johnson
Pattern tests can show the point of impact of your shotgun -- when you are shooting it

Pattern tests can show the point-of-impact of your shotgun — when you are shooting it

“You shot real nice with that little bitty gun,” he said. “She’ll go where you hold her, won’t she?”
           – from Mister Howard Was a Real Gent, a short story in the collection titled The Old Man and the Boy by Robert Roark (1915-65)

She goes where you hold her

A rifle shoots where you aim it, but a shotgun shoots “where you hold her” to use the Carolina vernacular phrase of hunting writer Robert Roark.

As every bird hunter knows, a shotgun is not aimed at a flying target, it is pointed. To intercept a bird on the wing, the point must be dynamic, constantly moving, usually a fast and consistent swing of the barrels through and ahead of the bird, and a continuation of that swing as you trip the trigger and follow through.

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Posted in Bird hunting, Shooting, Shotgun Fit, Shotguns | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

No ifs, ands, or butts

Posted on January 15, 2015 by Jerry Johnson

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAWhat happened to my butt? When did it disappear? Where did it go? I mean, how can a butt just fade away without me even noticing?

No ifs, ands, or butts

The third time my sweat pants slipped down this morning I was forced to do the tiny-steps-shuffle across the kitchen floor while holding a hot cup of coffee and a plate of bagels lathered with cream cheese. If I had had a free hand, I could have caught the baggy pants in mid-slide as I usually do.

“I’m throwing these damned sweat pants away,” I grumbled to my long-suffering wife. “The elastic in the waist is shot.”

“They don’t fall down because of the elastic in the waist,” she said. “They fall down because you don’t have a butt to hold them up.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I snapped. “Of course I have a butt. I’ve always had a butt.”

“Not anymore,” she said. “It’s gone.”

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Posted in Aging, Baseball, humor | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Falling into a pattern

Posted on January 11, 2015 by Jerry Johnson
The red outline is a 30-inch diameter circle that is the desired pattern shape and size. The black outline traces the perimeter of the actual pattern.

Patterning sheet. The red outline is a 30-inch diameter circle that is the desired pattern shape and size. The black outline traces the perimeter of the actual pattern.

Call me eccentric, call me crazy, but I see no sense in measuring patterns at 40 yards because I seldom shoot at game birds at that distance. I want to know the pattern data at 25 yards – the distance at which most birds are shot.

Falling into a pattern

Mostly, it’s counting holes punched through a sheet of paper. Really tiny holes in a really big sheet of paper.

Patterning a shotgun is not the most exciting way to spend an afternoon, but on a sunny and windless day in January (even if the temperature is 5 degrees) it gets you out of the house and provides a temporary cure for cabin fever. An hour-long patterning session with your favorite bird gun may also provide information that will make you a better wing shot.

Or it may destroy your confidence in your gun’s ability to ever hit another bird on the wing. Life is full of risks.

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Posted in Shooting, Shooting Sports, Shotguns, Shotshell Reloading | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Winter acquisitive syndrome

Posted on January 5, 2015 by Jerry Johnson
Snow falling on a sub-zero January night on our little house in the North Country can trigger bouts of winter acquisitive syndrome.

Snow falling on a sub-zero January night on our little house in the North Country can trigger bouts of winter acquisitive syndrome.

…some part of my brain goes haywire because I cannot hibernate for the next ninety days as so many North Country species do. There is probably some medical term for this phenomenon… …like “emotional compensation for seasonal affective disorder caused by winter isolation and sunlight deprivation.”

 

Winter acquisitive syndrome

The doldrums of January tempt me to commit the sin of covetousness. Like all minions of this consumer society, I have been conditioned to believe that my winter depression will be cured by buying a new toy.

Gloomy and dejected on this snowy day when the hunting seasons are over, the thermometer on the deck reads five below zero, one of the dogs has chewed to rags the new wool socks I got for Christmas, and the bathroom scales indicate I have added seven pounds during the Thanksgiving-through-New-Year eating binge, I can’t decide whether to commit suicide or go bowling. The sun rises at 7:40 a.m. and sets at 4:45 p.m. and the other fifteen hours of the day are spent huddling in the dark by the woodstove drinking endless cups of tea and reading articles in AARP magazine about arthritis and incontinence.

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Posted in Hunting, Hunting Humor, Hunting Rifles | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Pheasant autopsies

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Jerry Johnson
My 'autopsies' indicate that six or more pellet strikes are needed to knock down a pheasant. This one had 18 and was 'dead in the air.'

My ‘autopsies’ indicate that six or more pellet strikes are needed to knock down a pheasant. This one had 18 and was ‘dead in the air.’

…it is rare indeed for a pheasant to be shot at distances beyond 40 yards, and rarer still for one to be felled. Most killing shots are less than 30 yards, many less than 25 – even late in the season.

Pheasant autopsies

Over the course of a dozen hunting seasons I have been conducting autopsies on ring-necked pheasants. While dressing out birds in the field and at the work table, I have tried to evaluate the injuries inflicted by various shotshell loads I commonly shoot during the course of the season.

No doubt this obsession seems morbid, but my purpose is well-meant. Game birds should be killed quickly and cleanly on the wing, not wounded and left to suffer a slow death.

Motivated by the return of “Sherlock Holmes” on PBS television I have tried to be scientific in making observations, compiling data, and drawing conclusions about the effects of pellet strikes by various types and sizes of shot, loaded to different velocities, and fired at different distances.

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Posted in Bird hunting, Shotguns | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

For Auld Lang Syne

Posted on December 27, 2014 by Jerry Johnson

Blog Post - New Years EveAnd there’s a hand, my trusty fiere!
and gie’s a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak’ a right gude-willie waught,
for auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

            From the traditional Scots folk tune
            Auld Lang Syne, by Robert Burns (1759-96)

For Auld Lang Syne

Come New Year’s Eve, I will honor my Scots heritage by taking a cup in friendship, singing Auld Lang Syne, and reminiscing about times, people and places gone by. While the clock ticks the final minutes toward midnight, symbolic ending of one year and beginning of another, I will sit by the woodstove with my wife and some friends, wineglasses in hand and a pair of sleeping bird dogs at our feet, and allow myself some melancholy thoughts about the torrent of tears and laughter that has tumbled me through more than five decades afield in the North Country.

Yes, I know that life is best lived in the present. Today, this moment, is the only time we really have. We risk losing our enjoyment and appreciation of this day, this precious time, if we too often dwell on the past (whether with regret or gratification) or incessantly look toward the future (whether with anxiety or hope).

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Posted in Bird hunting, Friendship, Hunting Memories | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments