Wanna know what I’m doing right now? Chances are I’m sitting at my computer going absolutely crazy because work is getting in the way of my dove hunting. Good Lord, we get only 15 days of good dove hunting here in California, and the opener this year is on the worst possible day for me. A Thursday. Not just a work day, but a really demanding, frenetic day. And I guarantee you there are mourning doves cooing on the roof over my head.
A lot of people (like me) have gone to a gun store, shouldered their soon-to-be-shotgun, looked down the barrel and thought that it fit just fine. And so did their friend who came along with them, and most likely the salesperson as well.
Having dogs around all the time is just part of my day-to-day life as a hunting lodge operator and wife of a wingshooting enthusiast. They’re everywhere…in my house, my yard, my office, around the lodge, at the ranch kennels, in the hunting guides’ trucks and dog trailers, in the hunting fields and pastures. I mean, literally everywhere. I think we’ve either owned or hosted every imaginable breed of bird dog at Joshua Creek Ranch at one time or another over the past 22 years, including some deaf dogs, three-legged dogs, half-blind dogs, and old arthritic dogs who wouldn’t give up hunting any more than their deaf, half-blind, old, arthritic masters. And I love having all those dogs around….IF they’re well trained and have nice manners.
I sat across the picnic table from shotgun instructor extraordinaire, Gil Ash, as he drew a simple diagram on the yellow legal pad between us. At first it looked like ripples emanating out, but then he started adding numbers to the curved lines until he finally turned around the pad to face me.
Years ago, I had the opportunity to bird hunt in Mexico when I was the Senior Editor at Petersen’s Hunting Magazine. I thought I had died and gone to bird hunting heaven. Ducks, geese, quail and dove in virtually unbelievable numbers.
It’s late morning on a Saturday in mid-July at Joshua Creek Ranch and seems unusually still and quiet after being abuzz day and night for the past week with high-energy active teenage guests. The JCR staff performs post-guest clean-up dutifully, but with the help of some extra young people. All are anxious to be done with their work and on with enjoying some time off after a very intense week of managing the busy itinerary of the group that just departed. What’s been going on the prior week has become one of my favorite activities at the ranch…the Youth Outdoor Adventure Program (YOAP).
I am not a gun nut.
I don’t flip the pages of high-end gun magazines, staring at beautiful guns and sighing wistfully. I don’t need a different gun for every type of hunting I do. And about the only engraving I need on a gun is a serial number.
From this day forward, let it be known that my name is Ken, Destroyer of Rabbits and Obliterator of All Targets that have the Audacity to Roll Before me.
At the expense of incurring the wrath of all the shotgun manufactures I test guns for – this is written in stone – a new gun price depreciates significantly the moment you sign on the dotted line for the sale. Walk out the showroom door with a new smoothbore, try to sell it the next day, the next week or the next month and you are going to see that the new gun is worth considerably less than what you paid for it. This isn’t a completely bad thing for there’s a lot that can be considered rewarding to buying and shooting a new gun.
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