food stuff

I was over at Michael Ruhlman's blog where there has been a lot of talk about various polities' ban on foie gras as well as the disavowal of that dish by certain famous chefs. The discussion over there got me thinking a bit about food, perhaps helped along by celebrating a warm weekend evening by grilling some chicken out on the patio.

First off, I have no dog in the foie gras fight- the few occassions when I've had foie gras I've enjoyed it, but haven't found it to be all that wonderful, particularly for the price. Good, but not one of my favorite things. On the other hand, this is a dish which has been prepared for a long time and which American producers have only in recent years managed to develop. Also, this is fairly low-hanging fruit when it comes to battles over food. Foie gras is an expensive item associated with the wealthy. Fatty and rich, I doubt that it is very good for you. Not many people like liver and fewer still are likely to ever eat foie gras. Given all that, the contrarian and food enthusiast in me feels like going straight to Hudson Valley and ordering a terrine, just because an innovative American enterprise is filling a niche. Still, that stuff is darned expensive. Perhaps some magret (the breast from a duck produced & fed up for foie gras).

At least you can see the reason for the expense of foie gras and magret. The birds are handled a lot and fed a lot of good feed. For that matter, the operations raising them seem to be fairly small enterprises. If a person is going to worry about where his food comes from, he might do better to be concerned about his inexpensive grocery store chicken. Such a chicken seems like a bit less of a bargain if the bird spent it's life crammed with a half dozen others in a 2x2 cage. I dislike some people's tendency not to want to know where their meat comes from and get a little nervous about the hypocrisy of my own reluctance to contemplate the source of one of my meals. Nonetheless, I enjoy the occasional chicken and I haven't been able to tell any difference in the quality of "free range" and plain old grocery store chickens, at least on the plate. Perhaps I'll come across some grass fed birds one of these days and find them superior.

While magret duck breast is not prohibitively expensive, I prefer wild duck. Wild birds are much more lean than domestic duck and one of my favorite wild meats, although they can be challenging to a cook well. Wild duck is a good base for gumbo, excellent in stir fry, and best for me when roasted rare. I learned the basics from one of my favorite short stories, which originally appeared in Gray's Sporting Journal and can be found in slightly different form in Russell Chatham's "Dark Waters" collection. Prepare a sauce of equal parts butter, Worcestershire sauce, and lemon juice. Rinse the duck well, pat it dry, then put a couple of slivers of the lemon rind in the cavity, or perhaps a wedge of onion. Sprinkle it with salt and pepper. Roast in a very hot (at least 450F) oven, basting with the sauce. After twenty minutes, remove the duck to a warm platter and tent with foil. In a skillet, saute a little shallot or onion which you have finely chopped in a little butter, add the leftover sauce as well as any drippings from the roaster and duck platter. Reduce by 1/3 or so, then carve your duck. If you place the breast slices rare (bloody) side down in the sauce to cook for a minute or so, you'll take that bright edge off for comfort of the squeamish. Serve with rice, bread and a nice red wine.

So, maybe no magret for me. Perhaps a t-shirt from Hudson Valley Foie Gras.

In the meantime, I'll wish the foie gras producers well. Maybe I'll use some morally ambigous chicken for some chicken liver pate:
Simmer 1 lb. of chicken livers in chicken stock or in water to cover with a (low salt) bullion cube. Once tender, drain and place the hot livers in a food processor with 1 stick of butter, 1 t of cayenne, 1 t of curry powder, 1 t of black pepper, 1/2 t of salt, 2 T of sherry, and 3 T of fresh onion. Blend until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Use a spatula to transfer pate to a mold (lining it with plastic wrap will save some cleanup) then chill overnight. To serve, unmold and let it warm an hour or so.

Good (especially once you've balanced the seasonings to your taste) and inexpensive.

lotto

I love a raffle. Hope is a wonderful and nearly irrepressible emotion. Anticipation is a close second.

Folks who don't hunt out West may not realize it, but most of us who chase deer, elk, or antelope have to do our planning half a year ahead, even if we live within a few miles of our quarry. I'm not even talking about oh-so-valuable scouting and general familiarity with terrain or game.

No, the reason for such early planning is because almost all big game hunting in most of the western states is limited as to the number of permits available. You cannot just buy a license and go hunting, at least on public land. Each spring, the game and fish departments do a census of the game populations and an assay of the habitat and determine how many permits for the various cervids they will release that year. Hunters are provided with the number of permits released for a given area (generally called a Game Management Unit or something similar) and the number of applicants for permits in that area. Generally speaking, hunts are anywhere from 5 to 10 days long in the rifle seasons and from 5 to 30 days long during the archery seasons. Hunts which occur later and permits for cow elk are generally less popular. Later hunts because the animals are spooked and utilizing remote areas and escape cover to the best of their abilities and cow permits because most hunters dream of getting a big bull, at least once.

Because of the limited availability and high demand for hunting opportunities, each of us hunters enters into a calculus balancing the popularity of an area (usually indicating the game population and likelihood of a successful hunt, or at least the likelihood of seeing game) against the chance of drawing a tag. Some hunts are undersubscribed for good reason- finding an elk, deer or antelope in that region will require a lot of work and even more luck. This is where local knowledge or scouting offers a true advantage. I've had good luck, for the most part, putting in for early cow hunts. Most meat hunters seem to favor the later hunts, when bad weather is likely to push the elk down into more accessible country. On the other hand, my best bet for a bull elk, as far as chance of drawing and likelihood of success, is for a hunt which is largely dependent upon a decent amount of snow to push the elk into a series of terrible canyons a bit lower down. Higher up, they aren't on public land. Lower down, serious country protects them but gives a few of us a shot.

Anyway, a short time back I posted that fall is over. Already it has started again in a small way. Now is when hunters talk to partners, add up dollars, calculate vacation time and likely commitments, pore over game management maps and printouts of past success rates, then make our wishes to find out something about the shape of the next fall.

Y'all keep your fingers crossed for us, especially my bunch. Since my poor sister has decided to throw her hat in the ring, we've gone almost a decade (nearly a decade and a half for me) without an antelope tag.

bobber fishing

I fish mostly with lures and flies, but would not start to claim purist credibility. For that matter, while having a fish strike an artificial lure or fly on the surface is tops for excitement, I find live bait fishing exciting in a quiet sort of way. Sending the real thing down into the water seems like a sure bet. Reality is far from that, but much of the attraction of fishing is anticipation and anything that raised the anticipation level is good.

In live bait fishing, the antithesis of the stereotypical lazy afternoon watching a bobber is the tuna fishing practiced by the sportfishermen out of San Diego. The fleet of charter boats run trips ranging from one day to twelve days or more, seeking albacore, yellowfin, and the occasional bigeye or bluefin (all tunas) as well as wahoo, dorado, and yellowtail. The boats range from thirty-some to over ninety feet long and take anywhere from half-a-dozen to fifty or so anglers.

I've only ever gone on the shorter, one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half day trips made in the summer and fall seeking primarily albacore (the "chicken of the sea"). Depending upon the time of year, those trips have also resulted in some dorado, yellowtail, and bluefin sightings, if not landings. The boats head out in the early evening to run all night down to underwater sea mounts off of Mexico where the albacore use their long pectoral fins to ride upwelling currants to near the surface like aquatic raptors. The fishermen troop aboard with bundles of rods and packs of gear and are checked in, each being handed a clip filled with waxed paper tags imprinted with a number, one through however many anglers on board. All checked in and paid, the boat pulls out and then heads to a bait tender- a series of underwater pens holding live anchovies and sardines, which the bait sellers and crew transfer by the scoop into a large livewell that sits near the stern of the boat. That well stands up from the deck to near chest high. All around the perimeter are a series of shallow wells into which water runs. These are the "hand wells" and are some fifteen or twenty inches long and four or five inches deep. Some boats have a second bait tank up in the bow. Once the bait is loaded, the night captain drives the boat out past Point Loma and heads south beyond the Coronado Islands and down to the fishing grounds. The fishermen all head for the bunks down in the bow to catch a few hours sleep.

Sometime in the early morning hours while it is still dark, the engines change from a steady throb to a low rumble as the boat drifts and the most avid fisherment head up to try a bit in the dark. The captain watches his sonar and depth finder, looking for schools of bait and tuna. Soon the light comes up a bit and the boat begins to troll. Four heavy rods mounted with big Penn reels are clipped to the stern rail and the deckhands set plastic or feather squid and cedar plugs to riding in the wake. Many boats also troll a "boat line", which consists of a rope with a heavy (five pound) weight attached trailed by a very heavy line, all tied directly to a section of strong bungee and then to the rail. That lure follows the boat more deeply and is used as a hand line. The fishermen are assigned to the four trolling rods on a rotation based upon the number they were given on their tags and each rotation spends a half hour waiting for a strike. As the boat trolls, a deckhand sits on a seat up on top of the big bait tank. From there, he keeps a few baits in each of the hand wells and occassionally flips a sardine or anchovy into the wake. Every so often, the captain will mark a school of fish and will take the boat into a tight turn above them while the deckhand flips more bait into the wake. The tuna see the bubbles from the wake and investigate to determine if they are a school of bait. The live anchovies thrown into the wake add versimilitude and the trolled lures further attraction.

Once a fish strikes one of the trolled lures, the cry of "hookup" is raised and the captain kicks the boat out of gear. As it begins to slide to a stop, anglers come boiling out of the galley and from resting places around the stern, grabbing rods and then baiting their hooks with fresh baits out of the handwells. Meanwhile, the anglers on trolling rotation bring in the trolling lures, stowing those rods and getting their own baits into the water while the deckhand chums out more anchovies to try to get the school of tuna in close to the boat.



The boat will turn and drift broadside to the wind, so once you manage to grab a sardine out of the handwell, you either hook it through the vent, gill plate, or its hard nose and head for the lee corner of the stern. There you cast the bait out and start slowly stepping toward the upwind corner, keeping your line as straight in front of you as possible and letting the bait swim freely, leaving the reel in freespool and feeding line out to match the bait's pace. If a tuna takes the bait, you will feel an instant accelleration of the line. When that happens, you wait a short bit, then throw the reel into gear and set the hook. Once you have a fish on, you have the right of way and pass over or under other anglers on the rail. A fish hooked and lost will frequently escape deep, taking the school with it. If you don't get a bit, once you get to the bow of the boat you reel in, release your tired bait, then head down the lee side of the boat to the bait tank to get a fresh bait and cast out once again. By each fisherman keeping his line out straight in front of himself, tangles are kept to a minimum.

For this type of fishing the normal gear seems to be a seven-foot rod with a conventional reel. Typically, albacore call for twenty to thirty pound test line. Hook size is determined by the size of the bait- anchovies call for #1 or #2 hooks, sardines can carry a 1/0 or even bigger. Generally the hook is tied directly to the line without any shock leader. Sometimes a 1/2 ounce rubber-core sinker is added a couple of feet up the line to take the bait deeper.

Once the hooked fish is tired and worked to the surface, a deckhand will gaff it and hoist it on board. It is then dropped into a box to keep it from thrashing about on deck. The deckie takes one of the numbered tags from the lucky fisherman and staples it to the fishes' gill plate. Once a trolling "stop" is over, that is to say the school has left, the anglers all reel in and the deckhands lower the fish into a refrigerated hold where they are cooled by a chilled brine spray. The trolling lures are set out and the search resumes. Occassionally a "kelp paddie" a mat of floating kelp, will be spotted. The captain will troll near it, for such paddies harbor bait and attract dorado, yellow tail, and sometimes schools of tuna.

Trips out of San Diego have resulted in numerous whale sightings along with the experience of seas anywhere from three to fourteen feet. Despite regular mal-de-mer, few fishing experiences have matched the thrill of feeling a sardine become frantic and pick up speed just before the spool on the reel starts to blur as a tuna takes off with it.



Purist credibility will probably have to wait a while.

Afternoon at the club

I recently spent an afternoon at my local gun club. The reason I went out there was to sight a new rifle scope in. For those not familiar with shooting jargon, that is to adjust the telescopic sight so that the crosshairs rest at the point where the bullet will strike at a given distance. This particular scope is replacing an ancient Weaver variable resting on a Remington bolt action .22 (a 541S). When I came up to the range, the bay with the most room had one other shooter, whom I joined. Once set up, I walked over to chat and wait for him to hit a stopping point so that I could go downrange and set my targets. This gentleman was shooting a couple of cap and ball revolvers as well as a pair of short flintlock muskets. I asked him about one (decorated with tacks and brass cut outs, it was pretty clearly a trade gun replica) which turned out to be a replica of a shortened Charleville musket. The other piece was new to him and was a copy of a civilian made ship's musket built on a Tower lock- it was something an 18th Century ship would have carried in its locker. I asked the caliber and load for that and he enthusiastically told me that it was 72 caliber and that he loaded it with 95 grains of black powder. Then he said "you have to try it!"

Not wishing to be rude, I replied "thanks!" and watched with some trepidation as he poured a substantial charge down the barrel, topped it with a felt wad, then proceeded to pound a tight-fitting lead ball down the bore. My trepidation increased a bit when he handed me the musket and then poured a generous-seeming but unmeasured portion of powder into the pan, closed the frizzen, and suggested placing the front sight just to the right of the tang screw in order to hit a gong some thirty yards downrange. Now, this musket had a nice wide brass buttplate, which was good. Nonetheless, a near-golfball had been literally pounded down the bore, giving a fellow raised on modern rifles and storied of bulged shotgun barrels more than a little pause. Further, I discovered last fall that any charge over 90 grains of black powder in my .50 caliber mountain rifle meant a significant amount of recoil. So, all this going through my head, along with the notation that this piece was made in India (and he hammered the ball down the barrel!) I lined up to give it a try.

And flinched my fool head off. I flinched so badly that I almost had time to recover from the flinch and get back on target. I still managed to miss the gong by a good foot, an embarrassing performance to say the least, particularly given that the lock time was amazingly quick given what I'd heard of flintlocks (about like an air rifle, I would say) and the recoil negligable. What embarrasment.

Nonetheless, the afternoon passed pleasantly and I was able to help my fellow shooter pull a stubborn stuck ball later on. The little bit of knowledge and experience picked up at random at the range seems to me to be more typical of that place than not- the shooting community (at least off line) tends to be friendly and helpful. For every jerk, I've run into at least a dozen true gentlefolk, knowledgeable and eager to help or share. The ratio strikes me as more favorable than that life generally proffers.

The rifle that I was sighting in is my primary grouse gun. Here in the Southwest we have mountain (blue or spruce in the books) grouse. When flushed, the birds will fly for some distance and then light on a tree limb. A hunter limiting himself to head shots with a .22 rifle picks no lead from his meat and offers the birds a sporting chance. More sporting still is to hunt them with a .22 pistol. Once again limiting attempts to head shots, collecting grouse becomes very challenging. Sometimes the birds are humiliatingly tolerant of bad shooting. More than once I've made half a dozen attempts at heading a bird strutting back and forth on a horizontal limb twenty yards away, the bird not willing to fly but too nervous to stand still, the hunter increasingly hurried, frustrated, and inaccurate. Since I started off embarrassing myself, I will close in the same vein.

Nearly twenty years ago, my father and I were walking down a shallow draw in SW Colorado one afternoon during elk season. We were about 200 yards apart with a narrow band of quakies running down the center of the draw between us as we headed for steeper timbered slopes further down. Right off my boot toe a large male grouse startled out of the sage, running some ten yards before me then rapidly picking his way toward the bottom of the draw. I slung my rifle, drew my pistol, chambered a round, then proceeded to try to get a decent sight picture of a grey-blue grouse head against grey and grey blue sage. The bird complicated things by never holding still- he never ran really hard, but he never stopped. Finally, as he stepped from behind a clump of sage, I tried a shot. Then another, and another. Steadily we worked our way down the draw, both scurrying through the sage, our progress punctuated by the "pop" of my pistol. At one point, hunting through a pocket for more rounds, I looked up to see my dad watching our progress with his binoculars. Soon, we hit the thick aspens, the bird quickly walking between the white trunks (which provided a better sight picture but more cover) and I heard a "pop" from my left to see my father leaning against a tree making his own try. After a humiliating number of shots between us, I looked up from re-reloading my magazine to see my father doing the same. I had hoped he had quit because he had gotten the grouse. "Do you see the bird?" I asked, only to hear "No, do you?" We searched a bit but he had distanced us and was laying low. He had walked right out of our lives.

more gear

Hunting as art?
Maybe as craft. I'm thinking about the line between ethics and taste in the gear that we use.
Last year I took up black powder for the first time, lured by early elk season and the (illusory, as it turned out) prospect of fewer hunters. I chose to use an Austin Halleck cap lock mountain rifle, which is, generally, a copy of the rifles produced by the Hawken brothers and others for fur trappers and other western explorers. The rifle has fixed sights and, cosmetically, could pass for a 19th century piece of tech from a distance. However, it isn't entirely authentic. The barrel is modern steel, of a length and heft designed for a modern foot hunter rather than a horse riding mountain man, and it is rifled in a twist designed for modern conical hunting bullets. For that matter, I loaded the rifle with a modern black powder analogue to make cleaning a bit easier and corrosion less of a problem. Those choices represent a compromise on my part in a series of aesthetic choices. Within the regulations of my home state, I could have used a telescopic sight on a rifle indistinguishable from a modern bolt action, except for the limitation that powder and projectile would have to be loaded from the muzzle end. Modern muzzleloading rifles have made the sport more popular and extended the range at which the arms are capable of reliably and quickly killing game from 100 yards or less to 200 yards. In addition, stainless steel, along with modern breach designs and ignition systems have made the rifles less subject to corrosion and less subject to misfires.
Over the course of the short season, I didn't see another hunter using a traditional muzzleloader.
I could have gone further, though. First, I could have chosen a flint lock, perhaps more authentic for a mountain rifle and certainly requiring more care in handling and use. I could have chosen a rifle with a barrel designed for a patched round ball, definitely more authentic to the pre-Civil War era and less deadly, particularly at longer range. I also could have used black powder. For that matter, I could have dressed in period dress, buckskins and linsey-woolsey. The latter would have felt too much like play acting to me. As for the rest, I wanted something which a hunter in 1840 would have recognized and even perhaps used and, within that limitation, I wanted the most deadly combination in order to most limit the chance of wounding my prey rather than killing it quickly.
I think that choice is typical of many that I make in hunting. While I admire fine double shotguns and own a perfectly decent over/under, I carry a gas operated semi-auto with a military-type finish and a plastic stock while duck hunting. The gas gun has much less recoil and you don't wince when it bangs off of a rock or takes a dunking. It is a tool, albeit a favorite one. On the other hand, the plastic stock on my primary big game rifle will probably have to go. It is ugly, of course. Practically, it is not that comfortable, a bit noisy, and cold to the touch. I would prefer to replace it with a laminated wood stock. Those stocks are still fairly ugly, so far as grain goes, and they almost as much synthetic (glue) as wood, but they are warmer and quieter than plastic, without being subject to the warping, softening, or as much chipping as wood.
I find the choices people make in how they go about choosing their gear for hunting and fishing nearly always interesting and the contrasts in gear fascinating. I'll end with a couple of thoughts. If one ever wishes to see an example of gear being unable to substitute for practice, head to the San Juan River in New Mexico, a famous and crowded trout fishery, in summer. There you will see guys walking around with a thousand dollars in rod and reel, more in flies and peripheral gear, with little idea how to use them. Next, if you want to have fun getting dirty looks or are just generally in a contrary mood and you are familiar with the San Juan tailwater or are good at tailwater trout fishing, go up there with one of the old automatic reels on your fly rod and proceed to catch fish. The only thing that lessens the fun is that the automatic reels are getting old enough (or enough people are so new to fly fishing) that a lot of folks don't realize what they are seeing. That's ok, there will be a few older fishermen who will whip their heads around when they hear the ziiiiip! of the automatic line take up. Bonus points if you use a fiberglass rod!

On guns and hunting

This is inspired by the whole Zumbo thing and the current flap of "hunters vs. shooters". More specifically, this is inspired by a post at Bodio's Querencia by Matt Mullenix, see here: stephenbodio.blogspot.com/2007/03/more-zumbo.htm.
Before I get right into my thoughts, I'm going to digress. One of my stated goals in trying to write a blog was to improve my writing. As anyone who has ever suffered through correspondence or conversation with me knows, one of my weaknesses is for digression. Nonetheless, I will digress and preface what I say here by noting that anyone reading this should go right to the Querencia blog and read it. Bodio doesn't publish enough books (which can be said of any great author) and doesn't do book reviews for Gray's or Fly Rod & Reel anymore, but you can tide yourself over with topical bits of his writing at the blog. On top of that, his co-bloggers are unusually articulate and interesting, making the whole thing very worthwhile. The blog is particularly good for the naturalist hunter, as the bloggers are extremely well educated and two of them are falconers, a group I hold in considerable awe. Falconry requires so much dedication just to get to the point where you can get into the field to hunt and then injects so many variables into the hunt that I am amazed by those who practice the sport. Without being familiar with the falconry community (my knowledge comes from reading about them) I generally believe that most falconers speak with considerable authority when it comes to the ethics and aesthetics of sport. Bowhunters using self bows and hard core primitive hunters using period gear and dress are the only other groups which seem to me to compare.

In the post referenced above, Mullenix (one of the falconers) offers a view of former Outdoor Life editor Jim Zumbo's recent blog post decrying "terrorist rifles", defined as those with actions based on the AK-47 or M-16 (known as the AR-15 in the civilian, non-automatic, version) and calling for their ban from hunting fields. That post created a storm of commentary and invective on the internet, losing Zumbo sponsorship and, ultimately, his job. Scroll down a bit and I express an opinion on the whole thing.
Mullenix notes that he views the post as mostly expressing an aesthetic point of view that AR and AK or other military-style weapons do not belong in the hunting field. He then includes some correspondence with Bodio regarding his question of "what did Zumbo say that was a big deal?" In the comments, other folks note that this dispute has been picked up by the mainstream media, with predictable inaccuracy or misunderstanding.

As is probably clear from my earlier post, I don't see things the same way Mullenix does. I think that Mullenix's view could be summed up by his question "He [Zumbo] was stating, essentially, an artistic opinion. Right?" Adopting that view, though, I would say that one reason that folks got so upset over the blog is that Zumbo's argument (that "those guns have no place on our prairies and mountains) nearly inevitably leads to the conclusion that "those guns have no place".
Although the Second Amendment doesn't mention hunting, for decades "sporting use" has been used as a measure of the legitimacy of firearms ownership. More importantly, a new "assault weapon" ban, much more sweeping that the version which passed in 1994 and expired in 2004, has been introduced in Congress. See http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.1022.IH:. It leaves with the Attorney General wide discretion to ban manufacture of many firearms and would place limitations on the private sale or transfer of guns it designates "assault weapons". Here is one provision of that bill, a catch all provision placing under regulation "[a] semiautomatic rifle or shotgun originally designed for military or law enforcement use, or a firearm based on the design of such a firearm, that is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, as determined by the Attorney General. In making the determination, there shall be a rebuttable presumption that a firearm procured for use by the United States military or any Federal law enforcement agency is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, and a firearm shall not be determined to be particularly suitable for sporting purposes solely because the firearm is suitable for use in a sporting event."

It is almost impossible to find a semi-automatic weapon which is not based upon a design for military or law enforcement use or used by either of those groups. Back when most of the semi-automatic actions were designed, the big bucks were in military sales. Even if a pistol or rifle wasn't marketed to the military or law enforcement, it saw use by them.
I will provide an example. Take the Remington Model 8 (http://www.remington.com/library/history/firearm_models/centerfire/model_8.asp), which was designed for hunters. The U.S. Border Patrol bought a few and used them for years, particularly on road checkpoints. Some were used by airmen in WW I before the rapid escalation of the war in the air led to Lewis guns being employed. Under the new bill, a century old, funky hunting rifle, http://www.collectorgrade.com/bookshelf8.html (look halfway down the page), could be designated an "assault weapon unsuitable for sporting use". After such a designation, you would only be able to transfer (that is, give or sell) your great-uncle's old Model 8 to your son or daughter by going through a federal firearms dealer in a recorded transaction, likely paying the dealer a fee for his trouble and paperwork. If your son was under 18, you couldn't do it at all without committing a felony punishable by 10 years in prison. The same thing could happen to the Remington Model 11 shotgun (http://www.remington.com/library/history/firearm_models/shotguns/model_11.asp), also known as the Browning Auto-5 and beloved by millions of hunters, but used by lots of police and, occasionally, as a trench gun. Now, I would hope that the presumption that these two guns are not suitable for sporting use would be easily rebutted. However, I wonder who will invest the money in the lawyers to take the case to an AG who decides to declare them "assault weapons". The manufacturers? I know the Model 8 hasn't been made in decades, I don't believe Browning's humpback (the Model 11) is under production. I know I wouldn't have tens of thousands of dollars to throw at it.
In other words, expressing the opinion that a given firearm should be prohibited from a particular use, particularly when the person expressing the opinion has a significant voice, cannot solely be an artistic opinion given our long-running cultural battle over guns and over hunting. Now, stating that such and such a firearm or technique has no place among ethical sportsmen and that only an ethically and aesthetically challenged dolt would employ such, that will get you a lot of flak but no cries for blood. Well, maybe not.

gear

Far from alone in human pursuits, outdoor activities and the blood sports revel in gear.
When you can not get out in the field to hunt or fish, you can always mess with gear; or think about new gear. Or, now, with the internet, shop.
The pursuit of gear takes so many interesting paths. That archery hunter carrying a self bow probably spent hundreds of hours searching out the right osage orange or yew blank, shaping his bow stave, deciding on a string material (nylon, gut, silk, cotton?) and getting familiar with his tool. The mountain man recreationist, getting ready for a rendevous or a primitive hunt, probably has even more time invested in his buckskins, possibles pouch and every little accoutrement. As for his weapon, go to Track of the Wolf sometime and check out the beautiful examples of period type rifles and smoothbores they offer.
In one form, pursuit of gear can replace pursuit of game. Thousands of dollars spent of rifles, optics, trucks, tents, trailers, stoves, chairs, cots, sleeping pads, rods, reels, lures, and footwear replace money better spent on getting those boots out on the ground, learning about the animals or fish. Only through experience actually in the woods can you form useful opinions as to superior gear. However, while you are getting that experience you will be adapting yourself to your gear, learning its virtues and shortcomings, you find yourself becoming perhaps a little resistant to change.
One classic example of gear problems comes with the big game rifle. Some folks switch so often they never really shoot the rifle they are currently carrying enough to realize their potential with it. On the other hand, stick with that first rifle and you might be passing up something that suits you a little better or that improves your capability and reduces your chance of loosing an animal. Three years ago, I switched rifles. For years I carried a Remington Model 700 ADL in 7mm Remington Magnum. The rifle has a wood stock, a 6x Redfield scope, and a 26 inch barrel. It was first intended for the South Texas senderos, where long shots from a rest are not uncommon and it is a good rifle for that. As an elk rifle, it leaves a little to be desired. The ballistics with heavier bullets, especially the 175 grain bullets, are not great. Not horrible, but not all that impressive given the amount of powder requried to fling the bullet. I grew up in a family full of guys shooting the 30'06, almost always with 180 grain bullets, so the 175 seems a natural choice in the 7mm, especially to achieve more penetration on elk. The recoil from the round is substantial, especially when sighting in on the bench. That magnum case requires more powder which means recoil. Further, the trigger on this particular rifle is very bad, gravelly, long, and with a fair bit of creep. As to virtues, the long barrel hangs perfectly from offhand, just as it hangs up in brush or thick timber. More importantly, the rifle will group three shots into an inch or so at 200 yards using the Hornady spire point 175 grain bullets. Perhaps most importantly, I took my first half dozen or so elk with it, confident that the bullets would go exactly where I pointed the gun. Not only that, but Hornady's sturdy spire point performed wonderfully every time, lending further confidance. Nonetheless, I changed. My rationale was that, after fifteen or sixteen years with the 7mm, I wasn't that happy with the rifle. It worked, and well enough..... however; as elk hunting is, with any luck, going to be a large part of the remainder of my life, I felt I should do it with something that came closer to my ideal. Consequently, I purchased a Savage Model 116 in stainless with a synthetic stock, chambered for 30'06. Now, I shoot the same caliber and cartridge as the rest of the camp. Further, the new rifle has a 22 inch barrel, much easier to stalk with. I would have gotten it with a laminate wood stock, but those were discontinued shortly before my purchase, more's the pity. The new rifle features Savage's "Accutrigger", which breaks smoothly and crisply at three pounds, feeling like much less. I haven't really played with loads for the new rifle, it will shoot three inches at 200 yards with the family favorite 180 grain '06 load, good enough for practical purposes if not bragging material.
Three elk have fallen to this new rifle and my shooting has not been as good with it as with the old one. Part of that is just the circumstances of the last couple of years, part of it is, no doubt, familiarity with the 7mm. Part of it is the lighter weight and lighter barrel of the new rifle, which does not hold as well. I will say that I do not love the plastic stock. It is noisy and the forend is badly shaped (so squared are the edges, and flat the bottom, that it is unnecessarily fatiguing to carry). Perhaps I will change it for a laminated wood stock once I find one for a reasonable price which comes with the pillar bedding which Savage uses now. Of course, every change lengthens time to familiarity. I'll check back in five years or so.

I think that the best thing in gear is not found in a large item, though. Some of the advances in clothing and packs and other peripheral equipment really is amazing in terms of improving comfort. Here's a tip for all cold weather hunters out there- save up and buy a pair of Gore-tex lined pants. For years we hunted in jeans, first over cotton waffle-weave long underwear, then over polypropylene and thermax. Nobody died, no one became frostbitten. Thermax made things much better. Still, we did get wet and spent a lot of time cold. However, in the waterproof pants, many of which are more quiet in brush than jeans, you never have to worry about where you sit, your butt is always dry. Two years ago I crawled for over one hundred yards through knee deep snow to shorten the range to a bull, then sat in the snow against a pine for twenty minutes while waiting out my shot. My butt was cold, but dry, as were my knees. This year, the crawl was seventy-five yards through a fair bit of mud. While I have in the past and would have then made the same stalks in my Levis, the aftermath is much more pleasant without your trousers stuck to your butt and chafing your knees. As thermax and polypro is to the old waffle-weave longhandles, so are the new waterproof pants to jeans or even wool. Life is better with the good stuff.

The other day I asked a friend of mine who has been a competitive bicycle racer for decades what his favorite piece of gear was. What thing, introduced since he started riding, made the biggest difference. His answer was first, perfected spandex bike shorts, which are both more comfortable than the old wool and chamois models and much easier to care for. Next, Underarmor poly tops, which wick moisture and stop wind better than even merino wool, making chilly rides much more comfortable.

Much as I love gear and hope to write a bit more about it, I think that the real progress has been made in the little things. New cartridges, wonder blends of graphite in fly rods, those things may add a little edge here and there. Better clothing and easier care have made time in the field much more comfortable, allowing us to concentrate on enjoying those all too fleeting days.

gun community

I was thinking about gear the other day and considering composing something about gear intensive sports, which can include hunting and fishing, when I came across the recent series of events involving the outdoor writer Jim Zumbo. Zumbo is an editor and writer for Outdoor Life magazine. I believe he took over the position of shooting editor from Jack O'Connor. As such he has had a long career in an influential publication. Over the President's Day weekend Zumbo wrote on his blog (which was on the Outdoor Life magazine web page) a post stating that he was on a hunt and had just learned from his guide that many of the guide's clients shooting prairie dogs and jackrabbits use AR style rifles. That is to say, semi-automatic rifles built on the same action as the AR-15 and the same basic action as the M-16 (lacking the latter's capability for burst or automatic fire). Zumbo then launched into a bit of a diatribe about how he considered such rifles "terrorist rifles", along with AK style rifles, and that such had no place in the pursuit of game. As I recall, he pretty much said there was no need for such rifles, period. One fairly short quote gives the sense of the message: "Sorry, folks, in my humble opinion, these things have no place in hunting. We don’t need to be lumped into the group of people who terrorize the world with them, which is an obvious concern. I’ve always been comfortable with the statement that hunters don’t use assault rifles. We’ve always been proud of our 'sporting firearms.'" The blog has been taken down, but you can find the text at http://xavierthoughts.blogspot.com/2007/02/new-gun-control-advocate.html
I'm not going to provide the links to the rest of this story, just go to the home page at Xavier's just above and he has the information. Shortly, the post made it onto a couple of message boards for gun owners and shooters, who were largely responsible for four thousand some comments before the blog was taken down by the magazine. Remington, one of Zumbo's major sponsors, ceased sponsorship and published a message from its CEO to that effect within a day or so. Other sponsors also pulled out. Apparantly, Zumbo has since lost his job as senior editor or shooting editor with the magazine. He has since issued two apologies. Looking around the web, many commenters seem unappeased, with lots of talk about "Fuddites" (aparantly Elmer Fudd- incompetent hunter- Luddites, very funny, really) and the gap between recreational shooters & collectors and hunters.
I'm pretty aware of that gap, as I've lived it. In high school I was on two rifle teams and shot matches and serious practice totalling about 1100 rounds per month at the peak. I attended several state and regional matches a year and went to the highpower championships at Camp Perry a couple of times. I held NRA certification cards in five disciplines (which just means I shot a sanctioned match in five sports, but I wasn't classified "Sharpshooter" or "B" in any of the sports). I hunted, but not that much. I was too busy shooting. In contrast, I haven't shot an NRA sanctioned match in over ten years. I shoot a couple of hundred rounds a year in practice in an effort to maintain my skills at some minimal level. In my spare time, I fish and hunt and backpack and scout. Quite a lot, actually. For a while, I was out 40 weekends a year, leaving only a weekend a month for housecleaning, gear maintenance, and planning. Surprisingly, I didn't date at that time. Nonetheless, I'm now one of the "hunters" rather than "shooters". I could easily live with four sporting arms, none of them semi-automatic. However, I would never choose to do so, nor would I suggest that anyone else be required to so limit themselves. The chest beating by the folks who are into guns, many of whom don't talk about formal competition much, it getting to be a little much. They are verging on committing the same error Zumbo did, which is to divide the community of sportsmen, which is a mistake.
As I see it, Zumbo's errors are three, and I can't feel too sorry for him losing his job because of their egregiousness. The first is ignorance. He mentioned that he heard that some AR type rifles are "tackdrivers". For the last ten years are more, the highpower service rifle competition has been dominated by the AR type rifle. Match shooters will not adopt an inaccurate platform. If he didn't talk to competitors, he could have cruised around the web. Not many custom makers of bolt action rifles offer the accuracy guarantee you can get from Les Baer, http://www.lesbaer.com/ar223.html, or Clark Custom, http://www.clarkcustomguns.com/gatorar.htm who guarantee 1/2 minute of angle (which is to say, a group of shots, usually three to five, will stay within a half inch circle at 100 yards, a one inch circle at 200 yards, and so on) for some of their ARs. That is "tack driving" in the book of any but the most serious benchrest competitor.
The second is pandering to fear of "scary looking guns". He said "As hunters, we don’t need the image of walking around the woods carrying one of these weapons. To most of the public, an assault rifle is a terrifying thing." If my memory serves, Zumbo competed a bit in highpower rifle silhouette in the late 70's and early 80's. That is a competition shot offhand at ranges from 200 to 500 meters. Many of the rifles used for the competition back then looked like ray guns, with brightly painted fiberglass stocks in thumbhole or high combed configurations, heavy stubby barrels, some with flutes cut in them, and large target scopes with enormous adjustment knobs on them. Some even had electronic triggers. While the action might have come from a pre-64 Model 70, the end product bore no resemblence to that sporting rifle and might appear pretty scary to someone not familiar with the game. They were also frequently single shot and, apart from being more accurate and a pain to carry due to their configuration, no different in technology than any treasured bolt action sporter, whether London best or Winchester Super Grade. Scary does not equal deadly. More importantly, any restrictions or guns by action type will be far reaching, as only a half-dozen mechanisms account for the vast majority of our guns. As a gun writer, Jim Zumbo should be aware of this.
Most egregiously, Zumbo fell into the idea that "if it isn't for hunting, we don't need it". He spoke of banning AR and AK type rifles from the hunting fields. The idea that firearms must have a sporting use in order to fall within Second Amendment protection is specious. In fact, in United States v. Miller, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=307&invol=174, a 1939 Supreme Court case (one of the few addressing the right to keep and bear arms) which upheld a 2nd Amendment challenge to the legality of the National Firearms Act's prohibition on shotguns with a barrel less than eighteen inches, the court premised its conclusion on the fact that such a weapon would have no place in a militia. Arguably, any single shot or double barrelled weapon would have no place in a militia, as they are obsolete, militarily. In contrast, an AR or AK type rifle is eminently suitable for such duty.
Rather than delving into 2nd Amendment analysis and interpretation, I will say that in a world where hunting is practiced by a shrinking segment of the population, we cannot ignore natural allies. Gun hunters and shooting enthusiasts are such. The logical conclusion of Zumbo's post is that hunters should join in condemnation of "assault rifles" and call for their restriction or ban. I suppose we are to then hope that we will be left alone to practice our increasingly esoteric sport. However, when animal rights groups seek to ban hunting as cruel, or gun control advocates declare those precision bolt-action rifles "sniper rifles" and a threat to the common welfare and seek to ban them as well, hunters would find themselves very alone, politically speaking, and likely out of luck.

something cultural

I saw an interesting discussion over at 2Blowhards entitled "Taste and Aesthetics: Gay or Not-Gay?" which has probably aged down into their archives by now.
See http://www.2blowhards.com/
In it, Michael Blowhard wonders why appreciation for art and aesthetics, whether it be opera, painting, dance, food, dress, or decoration is frequently seen as gay in American culture. I got to thinking about the whole thing a bit from the only perspective to which I can bring credibility- that is to say the purely personal and anectdotal.

First, a disclaimer: gay- nothing wrong with that. A-ok, do what you want with whichever person you want (who has attained their majority). Get a civil union, health benefits, tax breaks or penalties, no problem.
Second, a disclaimer: I have no complaints, I just think all of this is amusing.

So, anyway, speaking from my own experience, in seventeen years or so of adult dating I haven't found aesthetic appreciation or (I flatter myself) sophistication to be particularly useful as a tool for garnering feminine attention.
I can't really speak to art. My knowledge is mostly limited to a few college classes. I've been to a few museums and like some photography, non-abstract painting, and non-abstract sculpture. I like some folk are quite a bit. However, my knowlege base is small and my vocabulary limited. In this way, my Philistine credentials are good.
On the other hand, I live in a city where you will see jeans in almost any restaurant. For work, I wear a suit nearly every day. It trickles down, my dress will generally be a bit more formal on social occasions than most of the crowd. More importantly, my shoes are polished and my belt matches them. My shirts have neither holes nor stains and are tucked, my gig line is straight and I generally follow the guidelines set out by Michael Flusser.
I've accumulated nice furniture and put some thought into what goes into my house in terms of color and coordination. I own china and will serve you on it. I like wine and know a very little bit about it. I cook, to my mind and reportedly, well. I also cook frequently, feeding myself on a daily basis and friends regularly.
While women have expressed some appreciation for the above, particularly cooking, I gotten a bit of an impression that they'd rather raise up or civilize a fellow who dresses terribly and lives in squalor on canned sphagetti. That impression has been elevated by listening to comments between women, many of whom seem to take a joy in the "my significant other is so clueless in the kitchen/dressing/decorating department" conversation that has no parallel I've encountered among men.
While some of us might thing of Cary Grant as a template for masculine appearance and manners, I think Russel Crowe has a bit more currancy. Pity.
I've actually been told on a couple of occasions that I would have been assumed to be gay, but for the fact that I fish & hunt. Since I'm not a sports fan, the blood sports may be the only thing saving my heterosexuality. Strange, that. I've a gay friend who is a rabid baseball fan, I don't know that his knowledge and enthusiasm has given him "straight cred".
A related but interesting topic: why is fps, sectional density, and discussion of actions and ballistics (guns) or scents, calls, and camoflauge (hunting) not gay?

a dead horse

"Why hunt?" is a question which has received a lot of attention from persons smarter and far more articulate and patient than I. Nonetheless, the query is one which almost any hunter will encounter more than a few times. On one hand, it is tempting to provide a trite and dismissive answer. You aren't going to convert, or probably even really satisfy, most questioners with your answer. Thus, the easy response: "to eat" or "because I enjoy it". The real answer is more complicated, ranging from quasimystical granola (because participating in the environment [beyond mere breathing and creating waste] strengthens my feeling of connection to place and other animals) to go-to-hell luddite redneckism (that's how I grew up and the animals taste good) to attempted pc nonoffensiveism (I enjoy collecting game, which I eat all of, as it gives me a chance to spend time outdoors and a source of low-fat, free range, hormone and antibiotic free meat and further encourages me to recognize my impact on the enviroment by facing the consequences of direct predation).
All of the above are true.
I don't know that I have to, or should have to, justify hunting, though. I am comfortable with the thought that I'm a predator and confident that my self identification as such is accurate. Those sharp teeth up in the front exist for a reason. Further, there is no time when I feel so comfortable, so in a given moment or place, as when I'm hunting. Fishing can come close, but it is seldom the same. I'm not certain why that is. Nonetheless, place me on a dark spruce hillside with some fresh elk sign and give me a morning to explore it and see if I can get up on them. Then you will find me at my most contented.
Then, too, I feel more and more that meat is more honest when you've directly sweated for it and the collecting of it is not a sure thing. Work hard to find a meat animal, cause and face its death, and you might enjoy your meat a bit more. Maybe not, agriculture is certainly more than enough work. Raise your own pig or steer and slaughter it and you'll be just as invested. Unlike hunting, I doubt it will be fun.
The fall that I don't try to go hunting something will be well and truly wrong with life.

fall is almost over

At least, fall is almost over in the sense that the last couple of hunting seasons are winding down. Ducks closed last weekend. Goose season (snow geese, anyway) goes on for a bit and a couple of weeks are left during which quail are legal, but that's about it.


I got out a couple of more times for ducks. I never did figure out a spread that really appealed to the birds, but I did get into a few. Enough for a batch of gumbo and a couple of dinners, anyway. I also had a couple of really beautiful mornings on the river, which was nice. My last hunt, a kingfisher sat out on a stump in the middle of my decoys for a good long while. Everytime I would move to check for incoming ducks, he'd cuss me a bit. Sort of the bird version of a red squirrel "something here isn't right- hey, everybody! look at that lump over there- it moves!".


Time to thoroughly clean and put away the duck gun and start thinking about fishing. Hope everyone else had a good season.

that Cohen movie

I while back I caught the film "Borat" with a group of acqaintances. I was ambiguous about seeing the movie after reading a little about it because it didn't sound very funny. Despite hoping for a pleasant surprise, most of the film I found annoying and very little funny. In contrast, most of the audience found the film hilarious. I couldn't figure out why, as (my acquaintances at least) were a very educated crowd who seemed fairly politically correct, something the film is not. I never realized that portraying ignorance, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism, heck, celebrating those things, was funny.
I thought about the whole thing a little more and talked it over some with friends, but didn't come to any conclusion. The other day; however, "Fresh Air" on NPR featured an interview with Sasha Baron Cohen, the creator of the film and character. (I'm sure I could provide a link, but my skills are minimal and I'm sure any reader has the Google-fu to find "NPR" and "interviews" and then the one with Sasha Baron Cohen.) Listening to the interview, more particularly the interviewer's questions, I had the following idea why Borat strikes so many as funny and is lauded as much as it is: the movie reenforces stereotypes that many college-educated people have regarding "regular America's" xenophobia and racism. The character Borat singing "throw the Jew down the well" and having a kareoke crowd join in on the chorus just shows how bad most folks really are (actually, this wasn't in the movie, it was from his television show and a comedy album). Drunken fratboys waxing enthusiastic about the return of slavery (which was in the movie) shows the way most of America thinks. I believe that is wrong, but also think that it is a common belief among certain folks.
I'd love to see the unedited footage from which the movie was constructed.
What struck me most about the interview was Cohen quoting the historian Ian Kershaw that "The road to Auschwitz is paved with indifference" in response to a question whether the kareoke bar was full of anti-Semites. I can't help but wonder how having thousands if not millions laugh at anti-Semitic rants helps that indifference (part of the immediate post-movie discussion was along the lines of "Well, Cohen is Jewish so his portraying an anti-Semitic character is ok). That laughter strikes me as a far cry from that inspired by Mel Brooks, who avowed a desire to reduce any glamour or coolness attaching to the Nazis by portraying them as ridiculous.
I'd anticipate someone saying that by exposing the racism and indifference lurking just beneath the surface of America we are made more careful of it or can be more honest about ourselves. I just don't get that vibe from "Borat" or my experience with the film. I see a guy making outrageous statements and, because the character is a benighted foreigner who gets varying levels of agreement from non-actors, audiences laughing. After all, they can laugh at jokes about Jews,or slavery because they are too smart to know that those things are ok. As long as they know that stuff is really wrong, it's ok. Right?

So maybe I won't write all that much

Finding time or, more accurately, inclination to write is proving to be more of a challenge than I thought.

One observation- duck hunting this year has been strange and slow. I hunt on a naturally flowing (not so much dam controlled) river in the desert. Most years, I cherry-pick a few drake malards over the course of a season of half-a-dozen or so hunts over decoys. Most of the birds seem to be coming in to loaf in slack water or on sandbars. Every year, the river changes a bit- bars move, the channel shifts, and the birds seem to prefer different areas. This year I just haven't been able to get on the birds. Competition with other hunters has hurt a bit, but I've spent a couple of mornings with what felt like a good set up and few birds come over and almost none come in. I'm not as far along the learning curve as I thought I was.
One thing I enjoy about hunting and fishing is the learning curve. Taking up a new type of chase involves new gear, new techniques, and new animal behaviors. I hunted elk for years before my first success, following years became increasingly successful, although not, and probably never, to the point that I don't go a season without an elk, even with a license for a cow elk. Learning spring turkey hunting required many weekends in the mountains, trying to find populations of birds and trying to determine their vertical migrations. I got to the point where I could get into birds most years (a recent drought has wreaked havoc with turkey populations in the area I hunt), even if don't succeed in calling a gobbler all the way in that often. Similarly, my first season duck hunting was mostly an exercise in trying different things in different areas, while tramping around a lot looking for birds. Anything coming in to the decoys was more a matter of grace than skill. Now, some five years on, I thought I had things pretty well dialed in, but must conclude I was wrong. I need to invest more time in scouting and trying different things.
While learning a new chase is fun, I will admit to an equal or greater satisfaction in having a reasonable degree of competence in a particular sort of chase. Being able to chose to hunt or fish for species x and having y place to do it, with a reasonable chance of success, makes a fellow feel pretty right with the world. I wouldn't even presume to claim mastery of any sort of hunting or fishing, but I do all right by my own undemanding standards. Two weekends left in which to chase ducks, without a little encouragement I'll just have to move to winter pike or trek on over to the San Juan to see if I remember how to do that.

cough cough, tap, tap-tap

At this point, I intend to sporadically post, mostly accounts of days outdoors. My goal is to improve my writing a bit and to do a bit more writing. Check back, just not too soon.