For many years I would take the kids down to the creek behind our house and shoot the top out of a nice Spruce for Christmas. I used a 7mm Rem mag and rarely took 3 shots. No worries about the bullets because our hills are so steep that I was always shooting into the opposite hill.
I bet ya'll can't "top" that.
RHClark;
Good evening to you sir, I hope your part of the planet had a decent first day of the last month of the year and you're well.
We can't "top that" exactly, as it surely took us more than 3 shots, but one year in the early '80's it went something like this.
A buddy's grandfather ended up being one of my hunting mentors, who'd tell fantastic stories of the Peace River country - just south of where the Chadwick ram came out of - back in the Great Depression.
Jake had a 95 in .30-40 with which he said he'd killed at least 50 moose, about that many grizzly bears and too many deer and black bears to remember.
Pursuant to this tale however, he said he'd always go top a tree for Christmas with it and thus our inspiration.
Buddy and his wife, our boss and his wife and my better half and I were up in two trucks looking for trees and decided on one to take for the boss's house which had a bit of a vaulted ceiling.
The tree was picked, the spot to shoot agreed upon and out came three .22's.
After at least a box each had been expended, the boss pulled out his 788 .308 and then two or possibly a third shot knocked it down.
When it landed and we walked up to it, of course we realized we'd misjudged the height of the tree by, well a whole lot as it was at least 20' long.
We sawed off what we thought was enough and then when we got to the boss's house we sawed off some more after putting a tape measure to the task.
There were years we cut our own up on the mountain behind the house after that and some years we bought one as there were usually some for sale from different charities.
A few years back we decided on an artificial tree and honestly it's a bit less work, but I do miss the smell of a nice fresh tree in the house. It's not the same without that smell....
Best to you all.
Dwayne
rs of cutting our own trees. When we were kids, for a few years, my brother and I would take his Savage 24 to get a tree. We’d find a pretty good Scotch pine and blast it off at the base with 20 gauge shot loads at several inches. Took a surprising number of shots to get them to break free.