... and since there were a lot of complaints from slow readers last time I wrote a story here on the 'Fire--about my POS foreign car, you may recall--I'll use a lot of small words and put in some pictures to hold those fellows' attention. I decided to put it up here on the general Campfire as the subject matter covers a lot of topics, including bird hunting, shotguns, mule deer hunting, pickup trucks, and politics. My POS foreign car (POSFC) does not figure in this story, although several POS foreign shotguns (POSFS's) do.

A lot of folks have been inquiring about whether the old coot--eyeball, that is, not me; I ain't as old as he is, nor anywhere near as ornery--whether the old coot is still alive since he got banned from this here Campfire, I thought I'd put up some photo evidence as proof of life.

First, here's a pic from less than 2 months ago of eyeball and his pard & 24HCF member Sand Billy out of New Mexico, who went mule deer hunting on a ranch near Monahans, and on which eyeball shot the latest and greatest of the many mule deer he's shot over the years. Seems to me eyeball has been slagged on the 'Fire from time to time for not putting up pics of game he's shot, so I guess I'll carry his water for him this one time.



For you tape-measure perverts, that's a 252 green score buck. I'd tell you the story of how he got it, except it took him nearly 4 hours yesterday to tell the story to me, so I'll have to edit the tale some for brevity. I ain't sayin' eyeball is long-winded, mind you; but I won't call you a liar if you say he is.

Well, deer hunting being over, me and eyeball made a plan to chase some quail yesterday. We decided it would be best to meet up on Highway 15 between Kermit and Andrews, which is about as close as I can go to eyeball's house safely. I shouldn't ought to have said anything about his wife bein' mad at me, as she reads posts here on the 'Fire. Seems to me most men's huntin' pards are not well-liked by their wives, and that's just how it goes, I guess. Let's just say discretion is the better part of valor and leave it at that.

So anyways, we met up west of Andrews, and then drove north a ways to a ranch eyeball knows. Which isn't giving much away, as eyeball knows every ranch between Odessa and El Paso, and has permission to hunt all of 'em.

We arrived at the ranch, parked my pickup by a deserted house & windmill, then loaded up my guns & ammo in eyeball's sorry excuse for a GMC pickup and headed west. We didn't bother using roads much, as the oilfield trucks have beat up the roads so much that it's easier on the suspension just to drive cross-country. Which eyeball proceeded to do, at a goodly speed.

Now, I'm not sayin' eyeball is rough on his trucks. He is about as careful with his trucks as Shrapnel is with antique Colt's revolvers, if you catch my drift. (Let's just say if I die and get reincarnated as a pickup truck, please Lord don't let eyeball buy me!)

Bein' sporting men, we eschewed the time-honored west Texas tradition of ground-sluicing quail. That is to say, the birds were so wild we couldn't get close enough to ground-sluice 'em. So we had to resort to the use of Babe the gun dog. She's a 2-1/2 year old GSP bitch, a bit on the small side for the breed, but a real gem.

We unlimbered our POS foreign shotguns. I brought the new pretty sidelock 20-gauge I mortgaged my house for last year (they DID give me a free hat with their name on it, which I thought was nice) and eyeball took out his 12-gauge Benelli, which he had brung along instead of his ol' reliable Browning A5 20-gauge. He advised me to use high-base No. 6 shotshells, as the quail tend to be pretty wild this time of year, especially in the wind. And the wind was blowin' pretty hard yesterday, which made for tough gunning.

Here's a pic of my POSFS for all you gun porn types:



I didn't bother to take a pic of eyeball's POSFS because if you've seen one Benelli, you've seen 'em all...

The first flock we saw flushed 50 yards out, but only flew about 150 yards to the next copse of mesquite. We trudged on over, busted 'em again at about 60 yards, then the third time at about 80 yards. By this time we were all gettin' pretty tired, men, dog, and birds... so when we finally got into them the 4th time, Babe got a good point on several bunches of 'em. She pointed beautifully, much to the credit of her trainer & handler, eyeball.

Which was all well and good, except them quail came up so hard and fast and took to the wind so that we had a hard time getting our guns on 'em. I fired 6 shots on three flushes, and eyeball fired 5, and he finally knocked one bird down out of the last bunch. I was 0 for 6. Same deal with the next covey, more or less. So it went for most of the morning. After a while I decided to put my POSFS back in its fancy case and took out my old reliable American 12-gauge, the Ithaca side-by-side I've been hunting with since 1977. (Never mind that it's actually an SKB and was built in Japan, dammit.)

Anyways, I stoked my Ithaca with some fast duck loads, which are handloads comprised of 1-1/8 oz. ITX #6 shot, loaded over enough Steel powder to get 1400 fps muzzle velocity. I have knocked down a lot of waterfowl and pheasants at good range with this load. Yesterday I learned that with this load and a lead of about 40 feet, I could just barely scratch down the occasional quail. So I eventually contributed my fair share to the day's bag, but it wasn't pretty.

Speaking of the day's bag and not pretty, here's a pic of eyeball with a mess of birds at the end of the day:



And of course a pic of yours truly with a brace of pocket rockets, my old Ithaca, and the estimable Babe:



Babe was wonderful, making staunch points a dozen or more times, hunting dead, and retrieving beautifully. For a young dog she did great, great work. She is going to be a helluva bird dog. As far as I'm concerned, watching the gun dog(s) work is the biggest thrill of bird hunting. I can't wait to hunt with her again, the rest of this quail season, and many more to come.

So that brings us to the end of this story. Here's a pic of last night's sunset over the west Texas prairie to say so long.

Great story Doc...

looks like a wonderful outing... dreary rainy winter has me groovin on that blue sky....

thanks for sharing...

Thanks for posting Doc.

I really miss the great pheasant hunting we used to have here.

You're right about watching the dogs...

Good tale well told.

Doc

Damn fine story! Keep on havin those trips! You'll eventually learn how to lead those litle 'brown bombers'!!

Awesome stuff Doc. For the benefit of the rest of the 'fire, Doc and eyeball are both first rate guys and a blast to hunt with, even though they aren't much to look at....... They can both shoot extremely well.

Thanks for the pics and story.

Great story.

If reincarnation is real please don't let me come back as a gun in shrapnel's safe....

Doc,

Thanks for another great story. Didn't know eyeball got banned, that's pretty bad...coming from a guy that got thrown out of Dick's in San Anton.

Glad you posted pics of the shotgun, sort of compensates for the burnt eyes from lookin at the old coots, ya, that was plural! Grin.

Keep writing and Rick B. Might have to start paying you for your stories!

Would love to make one of the Texas get-together one of these times, thinkin that would be a hoot!

I miss my ole buddy eyeball. I really didn't think he caused any problems. Had me a little worried there for awhile but we discussed off-line. Please say hey from all of us.

Looks like a very nice day in TX!

Thanks for sharing Doc!

David

thanks for the update and status report Doc. I sure miss ole eyeball.

Doc,

Great picture story! Good dog.

Thanks for sharing a memorable day with us.

Thanks Doc and tell Eyeball that's a GREAT mule deer. He knows already,but,just had to say/write it.

Well done Doc!

Thanks for the story. Tell eyeball that I said hello. Still haven't figured out how he got banned.

Thanks for that Doc!
A few thoughts.
That looks like more fun than a feller should be allowed to have with his clothes on.

It's nice to have faces to put on the posters.

Thanks for makin' me feel slimmer, and younger lookin'

You two in NO way deserved to have that much fun, and keep to yourselves.

Good times!

Good story and pics.

Would have liked more info and pics on the dog, though.

Eyeball that sure is a funky head of antlers...congrats

Good stuff Doc ,

That's a great buck he got ; congratulations to him

Great story, thanks Doc!

Doc,

Are those Bobwhites or some other type of quail? They don't look like Bobwhites to me as they look more grey, but I figure they might look a little different in TX.

Good job guys, that's a helluva buck Eyeball, congrats.

We call them blue quail, others may call them scaled quail. Very few bobs in this country.

Dang should of made time to drive up, looks like you guys had a good time.

Great write-up. That mirrors my hunting experiences with Travis and although he isn't older than I am, it appears both you and I are more handsome.

Travis has little regard for equipment as he used his black Benelli, while I have an attraction to the more elegant lines of an O/U shotgun. His truck is also well used as you can see behind us, but when it does come to shooting, he can hit his share of stuff..

Looks like a good day was had! Congrats to I on the muley.

I did know I got banned, I did know you were younger than him, what I didn't know was that Sealbilly was so damn ugly, Never would have guessed.

Great post Doc, Please tell I I said hi and will call him soon.

Great story, DR.

Excellent.. Thanks..

Once love hunting the wild birds.. they were everywhere it seemed but crops changed, predators were introduced from out west to the fox hunters delight and the quail population vanished.

I miss it.

Thanks for the post Doc, you and Eyeball.

Nice story Doc and you are correct about watching a good bird dog hunt more than the shooting part. My GSP is 5 months old and if he lives to see next season (his first obviously) he'll be hell on pheasants.

Good read.

BTW, where'd you boys find gun racks for your walkers?

Damn fine story, both of you.

Two Texans found some birds.

Stop the press.




Dave

It was a nice post, can't you for once just pass it by and let others enjoy it and wonder how eyeball managed to shoot anything with his head up is ass?

Thanks for the good story, Doc. I likes yo style. Your last picture would be described as "the sun kissing the earth goodnight" by a bunch of these modern day story tellers instead of just calling it a sunset or something close. You told a lot of story in short order.

Thanks for answering for me, Johnny, I been busy around the homestead this afternoon. We got into a mix of bobs and blues on this trip. The first one I scratched down was a bobwhite, everything else I shot was blues. eyeball got a couple more bobs as well.

Well, Shrap, I'm pleased to see you two boys and us two have some parallels going on. I expect we could have a decent bird hunt together if either of us was ever crazy enough to drive to the others' state...

Oh, and thanks for recognizing that the double-gun guy is always the more handsomer one...

Dad called them on occasion...Mexican Quail! Bastids will fly a mile sometimes before taking cover again!!

Blues,Cottontop or as I call them @$#$%^&*&(!

Tell I that I sure miss him here. We had some good private conversations, and I'd like to see him back here.

L2S

I can't decide which of these two posts is funnier.

More to the point, I can't figure how a man can cuss so loudly and creatively when he misses a shot on quail with his head so far up his ass...

Sorry boys, I got it wrong and have gone back to correct the OP. It was SAND billy that guided eyeball on that muley hunt.

eyeball's mulie is outrageous. Howdy Docs.

Nice write up, Doc.

Guess I missed it, what got EB's balls in the ringer?

I'm not privy to why he's not able to post on the 'Fire, and don't care to know. That's between him and Rick. I just wanted to let some of his pards here know that he's doin' fine and got a nice muley that might be the new state record, and we shot some birds.

As for why his balls are in the ringer at home, I am not really privy to that, either, but apparently when I made my tongue-in-cheek comment in the OP that she wanted to rearrange my manly parts, it didn't help ol' eyeball's domestic tranquility none...

I might like to make fun of the men who hunt birds with me, and make fun of myself hunting birds, but a good bird dog makes his own fun and it's my favorite part of my favorite kind of hunting. Without our dogs, we men must hunt alone, and that is too lonely to even contemplate.

Soooo, Sand billy is the ugly one aye? Maybe Troy ain't so hard to look at after all.

That Spanish-made copy of Holland & Holland SLE (minus self-opening mechanism) isn't that bad. The finest shotguns in the world are made in Europe. The only manufacturer of consequence in USA is CSMC over in CT making A.H. Fox shotguns. While the list is incomplete I will suggest some names to you: Holland & Holland, Purdey, McKay Brown, Georges Granger, Lebeau Courally, Beretta Custom Shop, Arrizabalaga,......Piotti,.....

I won't argue with you regarding the quality of European shotguns. The Spanish guns are the best bargain among the European guns, in general, although the buyer should probably educate himself prior to buying. Terry Wieland's book Spanish Best is a great resource in that regard.

Man looks like fun. Hell of a buck too.

Nice buck, and that would have been a fun trip for birds!



I wouldn't mind getting drunk with anyone posting on this thread.

That's a hoss buck! Nice job Eyeball!

Doc, I may have missed it...what is that fancy pants sidelock? Looks beautiful.

Quail is my favorite bird to hunt. Never seems to be just one that flushes, and they sure as hell all go in a different direction. I think they make my dog just as crazy as they do me.

I'll have you know I'm f'n gorgeous! I mean besides I could loose a little weight but other than that I'm gorgeous. I could also have a little more hair but I'm still gorgeous, maybe if my ass wasn't so flat I would be just a little more sexy but most people tell me I'm gorgeous. If hair wasn't growing out of my ears I could have any woman I wanted and when I trim it I'm gorgeous. If I got braces and my bottom teeth were strait I'd be a 10 but a 9.5 is still gorgeous.

Since my great Weimaraner "Buster" died, and his daughter Mara is old, blind, near deaf and wobbly, I've basically given up on bird hunting.
After the joys and thrills of great bird dog work, hunting without a dog is a pale and unsatisfying activity.
As retirement nears, our plans on traveling make it unwise to get another Weim puppy. It would be a disservice to the dog pend it's time on the road traveling in a travel trailer.
I miss it, and would love to hunt over someone else's dog if I had the chance.

Doc and Shrapnel, Black Benellis are damn sexy especially with a little mud on them it's the stud behind the gun that makes it work.

Doc, good thread and nice double. I look for subject matter over pics but both is great. Our Bob whites are all but gone, y'all are lucky to still have wild birds.

I was thinking that hat should read Uggie. I have been shooting their boxlocks since the early 80's and own a handful. I will bring my Uggie slug gun to the hog hunt. Way back when I was chasing a particular 20 bore sidelock that a shop in Midland had. I had multiple exchanges with Terry who ultimately steered me away from the purchase.

Outstanding as always, Doc. Thanks for sharing

DO NOT READ THIS BOOK!!!

I got it when it was first published and it compelled me to visit Eibar, Spain. I came back with an AYA and Ugartechea, both fitted for me at the factory by the owners personally.

If you read that book, you'll be buying sexy shotguns. I'm warning you!!!!

PS - Used the Ugartechea 28g just yesterday on quail, chukar, and pheasant. A beautiful blue sky day and good dogs to work over.

This ^^^^

Thanks for posting, Doc!

Doc

With all of the American dogs out of work, you couldn't find one to hunt with and had to use a POS foreign mutt...a kraut yet. You know we fought them in WWII.





Sounds like it was a great day and I'm green with envy!

'Tis indeed unfortunate that a fine thread like this one has to be prefaced with reference to naysaying by the manopausal clique here.

Chalk me up as being among those who are puzzled by Eyeball's banning and saddened by his absence. 'Tis another loss to the 'Fire.

Anyways.....

...I have always thought scaled/blue quail should be characterized as being dangerous game... ...on account of all the guys who must get heart attacks trying to get them to quit running and fly


Looks like a great time, congrats

Birdwatcher

Correct identification and keen eye, my friend!! Of course, you've seen it before: I brought it to the Texas "hog hunt" last Mmarch.

Birdwatcher - I sent you a p.m.

Hatari ... Yes, Weiland's book is dangerous! I'm glad you & Pugs & Jorge had a good hunt, wish I could have joined you! As for my Ugartechea, it's a lovely little 20 gauge and the first of that bore I've owned, being a confirmed 12-bore man. The fellow who sold it to me ya e me a hat from his store gave me an ugly hat that says "Cabela's". I prefer this other hat, procured for me by The Redhead at the DSC show a few weeks ago. Funny how the snooty folks at the English gun displays get all friendly-like when a good-looking woman in a fur coat smiles at them...

Virtually all men get unsnooty when conversing with a good looking woman.
Weather was perfect for us. Looks like you had a great Plan B, and good time. When we get you out here I'll tell you the long story about my trip to Eibar. Basques are an interesting bunch.

Plan B was okay, if you discount having to listen to eyeball's endless tale of how he shot that mutant muley. Looking forward to hearing your tale of Basque Country!

at least i'm in good company when it comes to his missus, she feels the same about me for some reason.

Thanks for the pictures, Doc. Ralph told me about the buck but numbers don't do him justice.

I'm glad to hear the little Gyp is working out. When he got her, I told him I hope she turned out great since I've never seen one of the Continental breeds worth hauling home.

That is a heck of a buck!