Historic photograph uncovered

Recently I assisted the significant other of a prominent grouser in the relocation of said grouser's personal collection of pressure-treated lumber and double-pane windows. For this act of charity I was granted the temporary loan of the following historic photo.

famous grouser

Please assist me now in figuring out what this grouser is doing. Is he:

(a) Training his own super breed of pokey dotted, ground-snuffling Andy Amman cows to work as a brace for serious work on grouse?

(b) Moving to the Finger Lakes region with the expressed intention of putting Cagey out of a job?

(c) Engaged in habitat manipulations in the FLNF to increase woodcock breeding success in one of Jim's favorite brushy pastures?

or

(d) other?

Epic group portrait

So far nobody has blogged the epic photo that Path Walker orchestrated . . . at least forty-five minutes in the making, with a cast of thousands. Here for the first time in cyberspace, is that captured moment in time.

seated, l to r: Path Walker holding Brad 'Brody' Pitt, Lil' Billy corralling Spy and Maya, Dr. Dirt grinning over Lilly, The Vicar of State College clasping Claymore's collar, el Jefe grasping Gaston de Phoebe, and Safari Jim with Meg and taming Thor God of Thunder
Standing, overseeing all: our host, The Captain

...wish it were Ducky

Couldn't stand the chimps anymore, or the lack of grousey porn...so, I went digging in the photo archives and found these two photos taken duck hunting near Nangemoy on the Chesapeake Bay, circa 2000. Classics.

Enjoy.

Merry Christmas Grousers!

Tori, Fiona & Spencer, and Cagey with geese-
first day-after-christmas goose hunt at Canoga farms.

More goodies from the archives

This one also appeared in December of 2005. Enjoy.

Let's Have Some Fun: You Provide the Caption

Hey lads,
Let's experiment with what I'd like to call, an "interactive feature." :-) I provide the photo, and you all provide a caption and/or description of what's going on.

I'll start:

(1) "This is a picture of Keith trying to stay tuned up in between the first and second duck seasons."

One from the archives

I got tired of looking at Linda Lovelace. Josh, you certainly do post some, uh, interesting posts.


This was originally posted to grousers on December 21, 2005. Enjoy.

Another long lost photo from Pete's Black Lake hunt

Hey lads,
Last night I spent a considerable amount of time padding about the dusty archives in my robe and slippers, piecing together a photographic record of our group's various exploits. You can look forward to seeing more of my discoveries in the weeks to come.

This photo is of Pete, Keith, Mike O, and Little Billy returning from their duck opener up at Black Lake. Keith's boat has broken down, so our heroes have had to borrow the S.S. Ankle Deep. As you can see from the photo, everyone got his limit except Pete. heh heh

The owner of the skiff and his young son seem to be taking it all in, while Pete and Keith are both striking in their white fedoras--Keith especially.

later boys.

This one by request

A banner day in the killing fields. Limits for all at the Murray farm. 2004.

send me your hunting photos

Hi gang. For the last month or so I've been playing with setting up a Flickr account and uploading all my hunting-related photos to the Flickr site. You can set these up as private or public photos, and right now I've got them all set to public so you can see them if you'd like--the web site is http://www.flickr.com/photos/frankzappai .

So far this is just a free account, which gives me 20MB of upload privileges a month, and a limit of three photo "sets," which right now are deer butchering, Kate the Great, and Grouse Camp. If you guys send me enough photos, I'd go ahead and get the "pro" level for 20 bucks a year, which would allow for unlimited uploading and unlimited photo sets.


Right now I've mixed in photos that I've taken and also ones that some of you have taken--mainly Andy, Safari Jim, and one or two from Pete. I've tried to give credit where credit is due, but if I've missed any attributions let me know. Also, if any of you has a problem with my having posted your pictures, just let me know and I can either make them unpublic or completely delete them. But my hope is to eventually make this a complete photo archive for all of us.

So please take a look at it, and let me know what you think. These photos will have permanent links to them, so you'll be able to access them and look at them anytime. Just the thing for gifts! Suitable for framing!

Anyway, let me know what you think--and please start sending me photos.

Must be everyone's gearing up...

Wow, even Superior Shooter's call for grouse group gabbing has gone unheeded. I'm guessing everyone's just busy polishing their dekes in eager anticipation of another long hunting season.

Well, I've been busy at least. Made up a beautiful batch of venison summer sausage--turned out awesome! I went back to the store today to order another 2-3 pounds of pork fat for the next batch, which I figure will fill the smoke box with 20 pounds or so. Just in time for goose season, early grouse, and who knows, maybe even Safari Jim's Michigan grouse camp. Say Jim, is that still a possibility? haven't heard. I don't know with the price of gas whether I'll even be traveling this year, but we can still hope, can't we. Anyway....

Here are some vintage sporting road hunters to pump you up.

Come to think of it . . .

We haven't heard from Kleinman lately, either. I think the boys are out during January intersession painting the town Cornell red.

Here we see the lads just back from a trip to the shooting preserve, tossing back some cold ones, with their State College pal Lou Soprano.

Rico likes this place because it reminds him of the bar in Cayuga, Wisconsin.

Those were the good old days . . .

Keith led us to believe that the goose hunting last week was nothing short of . . . I believe the word he used was . . . "phenomenal."

Above is a photo from last week that Keith just got back from the developer's (he's still using film, sadly) that shows him, Ernie, and Mike O leaning against the overburdened recreational vehicle that the lads use in the field to haul their carcasses home. As you can tell from the photo, last week's goose hunting was indeed nothing short of phenomenal. Those sure were the good old days.

"Tell us the one about last week again, Uncle Mike." Boy, we love that one.

And as you can also clearly see from the photo, Cabin Boy (leaning, far right, in runway pose) is resplendent in knickers and argyle socks.

A young ethicist soaks his wispy

Sure hope this rare photo of Tantillo made it to the blog. We can only imagine what he was thinking ...

"Being bald isn't so bad"

"It's good to be the king"

"Tragic wisdom -- always remove the forks before you take a bath in the dish pan."

Back atcha, Milt Smelt! rising birds, harumph!

with poor gordie out
of breath, Milt Smelt sluices the
wood cock on the ground

Honorable precedent for Mr. Bill's kite killing

My curiosity about bird hunting vicars now satisfied, I turned my attention to a topic that has piqued my interest since the comment Bill provided about his new nickname, "KK."

So I researched the topic of "kite killing." Truly we live in the Golden Age of Technology.

All it took was a search on kites used for target practice, which turned up the following link about the U.S. Navy's use of target kites in World War II. Be sure to watch the training film!

Where's Weik Been? or, Where's Weik's Bin?

I know what Weik is up to . . . now that huntin' and fishin' season is over, he's got his head in the skull bin preparing specimens for science. After all, we all know "Everyone should have a skull bin."

Ah, an oldie but a goodie. Weik, if you're alive out there, nod yer head.

out.