Maggie's Farm

From a Maggie's pal, seeking intertube fame and immortality no doubt. Nice dogs, though - including "Maggie":

Went preserve hunting on Saturday in Delaware.  We killed 16 of the 20 pheasants
and 39 of the 40 chukars that were put out for us.  The two best looking
critters in the picture are obviously the German Shorthaired Pointers, Maggie
and Ellie.  Both absolutely broke solid.  So-so retrievers but so-so was good
enough.  The outiftter included his venison chili for lunch as part of the
deal.  An excellent time was had by all.

A pal stopped by for a beer with his pup the other day after work. A sweet, gentle puppy. Can you name the breed?

Re our post yesterday about waxed cotton jackets, I stumbled upon this one which comes with blaze orange patches at L.L. Bean. Darn cheap too. Probably other people also make them.

Showing a bit of blaze isn't just for hunters - it makes good precautionary sense when hiking in the back woods during deer season.

Our rule is to never hike during deer season when wearing brownish clothing and antlers.

At brunch on Sunday after church, a friend's wife told me how she managed to find a breeder with a fresh litter of prize Clumber Spaniel pups. She sent my pal off to bring one home two weeks ago.

He came home with two.

"I figured the pup would need a playmate." Liar. I know what happened: he couldn't decide which of the ones rushing to lick his hand, so he took both. She told me his little dog-buying trip cost them close to $6000.

Last time I went to look at a litter of pups, I would have bought the whole darn litter of 8 unless wife and daughter had been present to lend some sanity to my puppy-weakened condition and limited me to one. Note to self: Stay away from puppies. Lead me not into temptation.

Here's a Clumber Spaniel site. Yes, they do hunt, but I've never seen one in the field.

Some people like to crate their dogs at home, and some do not. Furthermore, some dogs love their crates and some hate to feel confined. We tended to crate our previous dog, but not our current pup. I never minded the look of a dog crate or two in a family room, but Orvis has some that are more functional for people - and which look more like furniture.

Info for the one on the left, and on the right. Each comes in three sizes.

A fellow can always use another comfortable jacket. Here are a few outdoor and sporting jackets from the Orvis Hunting catalog. (For full disclosure, Orvis was kind enough to UPS $1 million in US currency to our Cayman banker as our compensation for posting this.)

These fine-looking fancy jackets are obviously not meant for heavy brush-busting, chain-sawing, snow plowing, duck hunting, or ditch-digging.  (Waxed jackets are a separate topic.)

Top one is Beretta's Gun Six Coat. The middle one is Orvis' Waterproof Loden Wool Shooting Coat. The bottom one is Orvis' Estate Tweed Gore-Tex Jacket.

You won't believe these, at Big Government.

Have barf bag ready. Government teachers at government schools, paid for by us.

The Englishman has, as have many of our friends.

Tell us what hunting you have done this fall (not including pen-raised birds or half-trained farm Mallards - that isn't hunting - that is shooting. Not that there is anything wrong with it.)

As a nod to huntin' season, our current image on top is from Currier and Ives' American Field Sports series. I do not see Snipe too often anymore, but I do not know why. Last time I saw them in any numbers was in a Manitoba marsh.

An email from a good pal, with photos (Harley is the Lab, Yankee is the Large Munsterlander with the white chest. I don;t know the name of the other Large Munsterlander.):

BD -

Enjoyed your posts on “Where I wasn’t”, and have very fond memories of the trip to Manitoba with you all. I just returned from a week in Saskatchewan for ducks/geese and then an upland hunt with my Large Munsterlander dog club.  Attached is a photo of the Abby Hotel (built ca. 1913) where we stayed, and a couple of the dogs and birds.  That’s Yankee with the Hun on the fence post.  Harley probably made his last trip.  Tired, but happy.

C.

PS  On the “tailgate” picture, ignore the biodiesel bumper sticker.  Truck belongs to a friend who is a bit liberal.  Makes for some long road trips, until we agree to disagree.

Hey - I know what that is like. Been there. Gotta stick to other topics, like the meaning of life and shotshell loads.

Returning to the dock after an afternoon/evening shoot. A well-stocked bar awaits (always with the Spicey Clamato), with wild game hors d'oevres (like wild duck liver pate with cognac, stir-fried Coot breast with garlic, soy sauce and scallions, fried duck gizzards, or sweet and sour wild duck wings), then a great dinner. My favorite is the beer-batter fried Walleye, fresh from the lake. Afterwards, Port and Cuban cigars around the fire while telling lies and distinctly non-PC jokes. Not too bad.

Where is the electric from? Rented diesel generator on a trailer. Chugga chugga chugga.

Readers know that I like to hunt on the northern end of Lake Winnipegosis in the first week of October. Having just returned from a 2-week trip to Europe, I couldn't really do another week so soon. Thus Gwynnie and some other Maggie's Farm pals are up there without me.

Here's the old private duck hunting club where we stay. It's an old log structure with rough clapboard covering.  Open only 6 weeks per year. Females not allowed except for the cook and housekeeper. It's 13 miles from the nearest "town," which consists of a tiny old general store (duct tape, chewing gum, cigarettes, batteries, work gloves, wool hats, rope, Coco Puffs, milk), a liquor store, and a gas station, all on one dirt parking area. Mostly Indians up there, and some Ukrainian farmers.

One of the equipment shacks - a 100 year-old log cabin:

 More photos of the fine old club below:

Where I am not, but where I would love to be this week. Up in Manitoba, climbing out of a lumpy old bed into the frigid room, layering one's clothing, covering it all with camo, scarfing down a quick coffee and maybe a brandy and an apple or something, loading some ammo into the ammo boxes, and getting those duck boat engines running in the frosty morning and heading out onto Lake Winnepegosis to match wits with the migrating ducks (who are famously smarter than humans).

I think Gwynnie will retrieve some photos for us...

That's King Buck on the 1959 Federal Duck Stamp. A great champion, and the prize of avid sportsman John Olin's Nilo Kennels.

In 1931 the Olin chemical and ammo company bought the bankrupt Winchester Repeating Arms company, and still owns the trademark for the firearms and makes the ammo.

The story of Winchester is the sad story of manufacturing and unions in the Northeast. From the Wiki:

By the 60's the cost of skilled labor was making it increasingly difficult profitably to produce Winchester's classic designs, incorporating as they did considerable hand-work. In particular, Winchester's flagship Model 12 pump shotgun and Model 70 bolt-action rifle with their machined forgings could no longer compete in price with Remington's cast-and-stamped 870 and 721. Accordingly S. K. Janson formed a new Winchester design group to advance the use of "modern" engineering design methods and manufacturing principles in gun design. The result was a new line of guns which replaced most of the older products in 1963-64. Unfortunately the reaction of the shooting press and public was overwhelmingly negative: the popular verdict was that Winchester had sacrificed quality to the "cheapness experts,"^[1] and market share continued to decline as Winchester was no longer considered to be a prestige brand. Gun collectors consider "post-64" Winchesters to be both less desirable and less valuable than their predecessors.

Labor costs continued to rise, and a prolonged and bitter strike in 1979-80 convinced Olin that firearms could no longer be produced profitably in New Haven. Therefore in December 1980 the plant was sold to its employees, incorporated as the U.S. Repeating Arms Company, together with a licence to make Winchester arms. Olin retained the Winchester ammunition business.

From 1981 until 2006, Winchester guns were made by the U.S. Repeating Arms Company. When U.S. Repeating Arms went bankrupt in 1989 it was acquired by a French holding company, then sold to an arms making cartel sponsored by the Belgian Herstal Group, which also owns gun makers Fabrique National (FN) and Browning.

On January 16, 2006 U.S. Repeating Arms announced it was closing the New Haven, Connecticut, plant where Winchester rifles and shotguns were produced for 140 years.^[1] Along with the closing of the plant, the Model 94 rifle (the descendant of the original Winchester rifle), Model 70 rifle and Model 1300 shotgun would be discontinued.

On August 15, 2006, Olin Corporation, owner of the Winchester trademarks, announced that it had entered into a new license agreement with Browning to make Winchester brand rifles and shotguns, though not at the closed Winchester plant in New Haven. Browning, based in Morgan, Utah, and the former licensee, U.S. Repeating Arms Company, are both subsidiaries of FN Herstal. In 2008 FN Herstal announced that it would produce Model 70 rifles at its plant in Columbia, SC.

It's interesting to read the histories of companies. Here's the history of the Olin Corp, which still makes Winchester ammo. I had the pleasure of meeting some good folks from the company recently.