I’m pretty sure a terminal like Boston maybe only handled a dozen or fewer firearms every year even before the Covid lockdowns.
Thanks for your report and congrats on what sounds like a corker of a trip. I'd love to hear more details RE: self-guided driving side trips while in between hunts. Wife and I are fairly well-travelled and sounds like something we'd very much enjoy.
Wife and I hunted Botswana in '18 with Tholo for PG out of Maun and had the time of our lives. Little correction, however, if I may: you may be 'pretty sure' about what Boston's Logan handles annually as far as firearms, but you'd be way, way off base. On just one of many traveling hunting trips flying out of Boston, I've both checked firearms and witnessed several others doing same for the same flights (to AZ, AK, WA, ID, FL, OR, WY, SD, etc. Lots of guns getting on planes @ BOS.
I realize that this liberally dominated cesspool is not generally known for anything resembling conservative in nature and being hunter friendly, but it's a mistake to assume that the predominant political affiliations here can be equated with a distinct and absolute lack of hunters/shooters. We exist, and we travel, and we hunt.
Cheers,
KG (Boston born and raised and current MA North Shore resident)