Tuning up my soul.

Last night I poured a glass of Ardbeg and settled in to re-read A Rough Shooting Dog (ISBN: 0385479921), by Charles Fergus. It's a really nice story about the first year hunting with a springer spaniel.

I'm thinking about how the local WMA, McKee-Beshers, is going to look to me with a dog at my side. I'm reading some web posts about how to take full advantage the Potomac during the watefowl season.

It's a bit premature, but I'm getting excited about rediscovering my neighborhood.

Tune -up with Artemis

Took the Mis-tress out for a quail tune-up. Hot, but we had fun. Thanks to Elon for the fine camera work. I'll run her a few more times and then its off to Black Lake for the real deal.

Oh, and the quail, of which there were three...

Breasted, salt rub and slathered in olive oil and garlic. Cinnamon sprinkle on both sides. Grill, baste liberally with orange spice sauce (found in asian section of wegman's). Serve w/ mint garnish. Delicious.










Miss on "slam" point.










Found one in the hedgerow.











The Miss-creant and Pops.

For the one or two loyal readers of Vassili's deer sniping blog, Vassili has updated the blog with an account of his latest kill. Day 50. Some of you might find it mildly amusing.

Josh, that's an interesting looking pooch. Is that one of those naked mole rat terriers?

Breed selected, now on to preparations ...

Just a few short months ago I unloaded all my dog training books to KGT. I had accumulated them over the years knowing one day I too would be with dog.

This past Spring, I had come to the sad conclusion my life would be dogless. I packed up the books (a number of Wolters titles, and a few assorted other authors) and dropped them off with KGT when I visited for Spring turkey season.

KGT is a wise man and insisted, despite my confident contrariness, he would hold the books on long-term loan and not take them as gifts.

I now stand before you requesting advice on books and your own insights concerning training dog as hunting buddy (of the retrieving and flushing kind) and family member.

Umm, KGT , could you send some of those "gifts" back my way?

goose pimples for early goose

Here's another oldie but goodie to get you all pumped up for early goose--or as we in the nuisance sniping trade like to call it, the September Nuisance Goose Season.

Frederic Remington, "Goose Shooting"

I'm wondering what goose sausage would taste like . . . .

Empty out those freezers, boys

Superior Shooter's laundry list of killables reminded me that it's that time again--you should all be cleaning out the freezer of all the old game flesh in order to make room for the new.

Which means that the barbecue grills should be working overtime. Serious sportsmen, of course, will have a full time grill attendant on staff . . . just like they did back in the 1950s, when this picture was published. It was truly the heyday of sportsmanship.

Remember: girls love grills.

cattails yellowing
vacant seats at double black
ducklings hide beneath

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.

I got tired of Vassili's fan mail

Here is some sporting art to get us in the mood for the upcoming hunting season. I don't know about you all, but I can't wait to be surrounded by dead thangs.

The painting is a self-portrait by Alexandre François Desportes, circa 1699.

I'd say that's impact!

Moments after completing this evening's entry for Confessions of a Deer Sniper, Vassili received the following comment, which was then forwarded to me moments before Zaitsev deleted it from the blog.

From: Anonymous <anonymous-comment@blogger.com>

To: jat4@cornell.edu

Subject: [Confessions of a Deer Sniper] 8/04/2006 10:32:43 PM

Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 19:32:45 -0700 (PDT)

u sound like a sick fucker...i hope someone gutts the daylights outta u one day

--

Posted by Anonymous to Confessions of a Deer Sniper at 8/04/2006 10:32:43 PM

I'd say that's impact!

The Site Meter data indicated our fan mail came from India, which gives us the international recognition we have long craved:

Domain Name touchtelindia.net ? (Network)

IP Address 203.101.5.# (BTNL-DL-DSL)

ISP Bharti Broadband networks Limited

Location

Continent : Asia

Country : India (Facts)

State/Region : Maharashtra

City : Pande

Lat/Long : 18.3833, 75.2333 (Map)

Language English (United States)

en-us

Operating System Microsoft WinXP

Browser Internet Explorer 6.0

So we got that going for us!

Five Smart Guys who Hunt and Mr. Mike

Five Smart Guys who Hunt and Mr. Mike

Swamp Poodle

I mean, come on. How cute is that?

The always quotable Aldo

Someone shared this with me recently. Thought you might enjoy.

"The bird hunter watches only the dog, and always knows where the dog is, whether or not visible at the moment. The dog's nose is the bird hunter's eye. Many hunters who carry a shotgun in season have never learned to watchthe dog, or to interpret his reactions to scent"
-- Aldo Leopold, Round River

SJ

Vassili's photos are online

Because Blogger's photo hosting function appears to be all out of whack this week, Vassili (with a little help from his friend, Frank Zappai) posted his deer butchering photos on Flickr. Once you're there you can click on each photo for narrative description of what you are seeing. Path Walker will take special delight in the closeups of the dedicated deer carcass refrigerator.

Enjoy.

dedicated deer carcass refrigerator
in the "open" position

For the love of God, spay and neuter your pets

As per Winchkins's instructions, I googled the excessively large testicled "Tanuki" and got culturally edified. Good for me.

What I don't understand is how a big-balled raccoon dog is such a cultural icon. And why the heck don't they simply snip snip the ferret's jewels rather than make him drag his rocks around on the ground? That seems like animal cruelty to me. And take it from me, hunters are against animal cruelty. Think one shot kill.

So . . . in the spirit of "this is this," I think we should declare July 25 National Trim Your Raccoon Dogge's Testicles Off Day. Your raccoon dog will thank you for it later.

here's one for Cagey

something completely different

sorry, I just couldn't take looking at that cross-dressing ferret of Josh's any longer. Hey Josh, whassup with that rat in drag, anyway? something you want to get off your chest, pal?

Need Input - Family Planning

Well, it finally happened. The kids are asking about getting a dog. I have mixed feelings about it for reasons I won't go into, but I'm not dead-set against it or anything. So, I'd like to open this topic up for discussion ...

...based on the following requirements, which breed would you all recommend:

1. the pooch would be a 95% house dog, 4% waterfowl dog, 1% duties as assigned
2. we have a tiny backyard
3. we live in the developed burbs

A Labba-dabba is an obvious choice, but wondered if other sporting breeds might offer a calmer house presence. Or is calmness in a Lab something I can look for in its lineage?

If I could clone Fiona, I would.

Vassili shoots and scores!

Well lads, the Russian sniper who saved Stalingrad is on the board with his first doe of the nuisance sniping season. You can read about it here.

Orphans

confessions of a deer sniper

Vassili has been at this deer sniping thing now for ten days, and in that time has had at least four quality opportunities to slay deer, three of which he has flubbed and one of which is where he decided not to kill Bambi's and Faline's mother. You can read the gory details here, you might find some of them mildly amusing. In addition, there have been one or two opportunities where that long range sniper rifle might have come in handy. Oh well. It's a long season.