Archive → February, 2014
February 11th, 2014
Snow is magic, pretty, enchanting, a pain to drive in, a pain to shovel, and a huge boon to hunters.
Snow helps hunters (animals and humans alike) see prey better, because it creates stark contrasts. When a prey animal is moving, a hunter can much more quickly spot it. Tracks reveal where animals have been, and where they might be again.
Today was the last day to harvest a bobcat, and while I did not try to bag one real hard, I still feel a little disappointed. Our traps went out after the bobcat trapping season, and I did not get up to our northcentral PA honeyhole spot, so I can’t say I tried hard. But still, if you read enough hunting reports, you know that all it takes is that “one amazing moment” when the cat silently appears after you’ve been calling. I had hoped for that moment.
Kind of like that other hopey-changey stuff, my own hope was misplaced.
But I did take a lot of pretty photos with snowy backdrops. The white barn, dune-like ripples in the snow across a big field, dead foxtail grass waving in the deep snow…kind of like grass waving in the dunes at the sea shore. An old loop of barbed wire sticking up through the snow, with rabbit tracks hopping by on the right. Ice sheets across the stream, or nearly across, with deer tracks testing it up til its edge, and then backing away to find another route.
As I was snuck inside a field corner woods, blowing on the dying rabbit call, a giant snowy owl erupted from the other side of the hedgerow 150 yards away. One swoop over me, and it lit out for Canada. Not even camo fools those eyes. The last snowy owl I saw was 36 years ago, while I was out hunting alone in Centre County, walking along a field edge. Raucous crows alerted me to something special about to happen, and then it appeared, a majestic white owl, soaring ahead of the cawing mass. That owl just kept on going, leaving me mesmerized.
A black weasel came darting to the call inside a small wash, while I was perched on a stump and log way above. My mind first identified it as a black squirrel, then as a mink, and then as the weasel it was, as I watched it crouched under a fallen log, watching me with glittery eyes. I have a weasel mounted with the wood duck I shot with John Plowman nearly 20 years ago, out on the Susquehanna. The weasel is from Centre County, and is brown with a black-tipped tail. This is the first all-black weasel I have seen, although I have seen both an all-black fisher (in the ADKs in November) and a mink this year. Kind of like a three-of-a kind poker hand; the fourth must be a seal…
Nature is so simply magical. How people do drugs, I do not understand. The sun on the snow today was enough of a “drug” for me to last all day and night and into tomorrow. And so yet another hunt passed, without a kill, and yet, so fulfilling, nonetheless.
By Josh • Posted in
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February 10th, 2014
If you hunt deer in a shotgun-only zone like southeast Pennsylvania, Long Island, or New Jersey, you know the common futility of shooting rifled slugs (Foster slugs) out of your smoothbore barrel. Within 50 yards, odds are you’ll connect, but beyond the likelihood of bagging the deer drops like a stone. Foster slugs are effective in close, but never real accurate. (My friend, attorney, and hunting partner George A. would like me to remind readers that he has shot many deer with his Remington 870 rifled barrel, and he can attest to its great accuracy with sabots)
After flinging about a lot of wasted lead slugs last month, most of which were within 60 or 70 yards at deer standing broadside, my frustration reached epic levels. Instead of leaving my otherwise trusty Remington 870 wrapped around a tree in the woods like some tennis pros beat up on their racquets, I decided to join the growing crowd of shotgun hunters and buy a rifled barrel.
Rifled barrels are known for dramatically improving shotgun accuracy, and effectiveness. Even a barrel that is nearly snap-on/ snap-off, like the Remington 870, is reported by many hunters to shoot remarkably accurately out to 100 yards.
So, scoring a brand new 12-gauge Remington rifled barrel (open sights, not the cantilevered scope ramp) for $170 was exciting, but was only step one in improving my score. Next I had to determine which sabots (pronounced say-bo-z) would emit from that new barrel.
After extensive research (which now means reading both drivel and gold on the Internet blogs, forums, product web pages, etc.), I selected the reloading components at www.slugsrus.com. These are the folks who invented, patented, and until recently marketed the Lightfield slug, as well as the Hastings slugs of yore. Their proprietary wad and lead mushroom head slug (“hammerhead”) result in astonishing accuracy with 490-grain lead slugs. Not just claims of accuracy, but demonstrated accuracy in all kinds of circumstances.
That kind of freight, moving at 1600 feet per second, is a whopper, the Hammer of Thor, a ton of bricks, a falling grand piano, and every other appellation you care to assign. It is a stopper of enormous magnitude. Forget lil’ old deer; grizzly bears and other large dangerous game will have a tough time resisting the urge to lay down and go into the long sleep once they meet this slug.
So I spoke with Pam at www.slugsrus.com, at length, and ended up purchasing sufficient components to reload 40 shells at home. Reloading is a lot, lot, lot cheaper than buying pre-made shells off the shelf. If you are like me, and you want to see for yourself that the new rifled barrel is indeed capable of incredible accuracy, then a good half or more of those handloaded slugs are going to go down range off the cabin porch.
If you are a shotgun shooter by necessity or choice, and you resent paying ludicrous prices for shotgun slugs, I strongly recommend that you contact www.slugsrus.com and see if they can help you both improve your gun’s effectiveness, and save you a lot of money.
By Josh • Posted in
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February 9th, 2014
If you have not yet gone to the new Great American Outdoor Show, today’s the day.
Even if you’re not a hunter, there’s still much to see and do. The Farm Show complex is enormous and every hall is packed. RVs, campers, boats, fishing everything, mapping, GPS technology, clothing. Etc.
One thing I noticed last week was a booth full of furs also selling turtle shells. Whether or not these shells are from wild native turtles, illegal, or from some farmed non-native species, it disturbed me to see them. Turtles take a good ten years to reach maturity, when they can begin breeding. Their nests are subject to raids by raccoons, skunks, snakes, possums, and bears. ATVs and dirt bikes often are ridden over the soft soils turtles choose to lay their eggs. Collectors grab them for illegal sales, dads take them home for their kids to see, etc.
You get the picture. Turtles don’t have it easy.
If there’s one thing missing from the GAOS, it’s an emphasis on land, water, and wildlife conservation. Plenty of emphasis on the taking part, not much on the conserving part. Maybe that’ll change at next year’s show.
By Josh • Posted in
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February 6th, 2014
Knife production is reaching an apex, it appears. Never before in one place have I seen so many higher quality production knives as I have seen at the Great American Outdoor Show. Many booths selling hundreds and hundreds of better quality folding knives, with some custom and semi-custom knife sellers sprinkled around.
Oddly, you can’t find a sharpening stone in the entire Farm Show complex to save your blade’s life. No one is selling sharpening stones. Blades out the wazoo, yes. Ways to keep them functioning, no. Whether it is a sign of the throw-away society meeting Pleistocene Man, or too much optimism about modern steels’ edge retention capability, it is an odd sign indeed.
Once the purview of expensive custom knives, Damascus blades are now ubiquitous, although most are probably made in Pakistan and India, so their quality cannot be real high, and you’ve got no idea of their cadmium, arsenic, or lead content, either, although I am willing to bet these blades are positively toxic to human health. They do look nice, though.
[Damascus steel is a mix of different types of metals that when folded over and over and then hammered out reveal an appealing variety of patterns. Because metal types used in Damascus steel vary widely, quality varies widely. I use only Alabama Damascus in my knives]
Clearly, there is a bleeding over from the custom knife market into the high production market, where quality used to suffer badly. Knife buying Americans evidently have improved tastes and higher expectations for their over-the-counter knives. That’s a good thing. But do they have to be made in those rainbow colors? They hurt my eyes. Camo handles are humorous – drop your knife, never find your knife, lose your knife. Maybe those rainbow colored handles work, after all.
One other observation is the high number of bug-out bags being made. Man, Americans seem ready for the apocalypse. After seeing so many of these grab-and-run packs, I now realize that I need one, too. No, my oh-so-1970s Kelty backpacks do not seem up to snuff, even though they have served me well on rugged wilderness trips for many years. Nope, camo is de rigeur here, too.
Come on by the PA Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs booth and buy a raffle ticket for our Bushmaster AR-15 M4. Just ten bucks gets you a lot closer to having your bug-out bag fully equipped with a state-of-the-art rifle.
By Josh • Posted in
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February 4th, 2014
Want the sign of a good show? Watch the vendors sell out of their items only a couple of days in.
JRJ knives of New Buffalo is my go-to source for top of the line custom knives. John uses ATS-34 steel and stock removal (with a little welding and hammering now and then) to make any knife you want or need. He and I have several knife projects under way, mostly using Alabama Damascus steel and hippo tooth, and although the wait can be longer than you’d like, the results are always better than you could have imagined. JRJ makes high quality knives.
Well, last Sunday I stopped in at the JRJ Knives booth at the Great American Outdoor Show, and John was nowhere to be seen. He was back at the shop, his wife Jodi said, because they had sold out of nearly all their knives. That is, they had sold more knives in the first 24 hours of the show than they expected to sell during the entire week.
Today I was shopping around for old fashioned whet stones. You know, the old fine-grained novaculite Arkansas sharpening stones that were once a staple in every American kitchen. You’d expect to find lots of them for sale at the Great American Outdoors Show, especially given how many knife vendors there are. Nary a one, oddly. Either modern newfangled steels have become self-sharpening, or even rugged outdoorsmen no longer sharpen their own knives. Something odd is afoot. One knife vendor said that he had sold out of all of his premium knives, and had to order more; he hoped they would arrive by tomorrow.
But back to the main point here: All this selling out of items in a day or two is a good show. So far, it is a big success. If you haven’t yet visited, you should. It has a whole new look, feel, and energy. And yes, there are AR15s on display everywhere.
By Josh • Posted in
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February 1st, 2014
The NRA may not do a great job of thanking, recognizing, or appreciating its members’ grass roots work that shut down the Eastern Outdoors Sports Show and turned it into the Great American Outdoor Show, but the show is on, nonetheless. I’ll be there all week, off and on, and I hope to see you there.
By Josh • Posted in
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