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Through the years we’ve learned, like every safari hunter does, that Africa is a big place – a continent, not a country. Actually, there are 54 different countries; we’ve hunted in only six of them – on twenty plus sa...
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MidwayUSA Coffee Table Book The Short Stories of Larry Potterfield Volume 1
MidwayUSA Coffee Table Book The Short Stories of Larry Potterfield Volume 2
MidwayUSA The First 40 Years Book by Larry Potterfield
Dad taught me to hunt and fish, back when I was growing up on the farm in northeast Missouri. Things were much simpler in the '50s and I can't imagine what my life would be like today, had I not enjoyed the benefit of all the instruction of those early years. I shot my first duck at age 9 and my first quail at 13 - the same year I got my first gun for Christmas - a hand-me-down Stevens 16 gauge single shot.
Some of my fondest memories are the hunting and fishing stories Dad and my uncles shared with us kids back then - generally around the wood stove, and other times in the field. Unfortunately, it was pure and simple storytelling, so all I have are the memories.
Now, as a father and grandfather and having hunted and fished all my life, I am taking the time to write down some of my own stories – for the enjoyment of my children, grandchildren, friends and Customers.
Many interesting things have happened to me personally and at MidwayUSA through the years and I've included a few, hoping you will find them of interest. This collection of short stories is beginning to look a little like a history of MidwayUSA and an autobiography of my own life.
These are all real stories that I participated in, nothing is made up; and I write them purely for your enjoyment.
If you’re going to Africa, especially for buffalo or elephant, sooner or later you’re going to want a double rifle. Our family was no different. We started hunting plains game in Zimbabwe in 1993. Russell got his firs...
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A year earlier, Brenda and I hunted Bongo, in the rain forest, of the southern part of this West African country of Cameroon. Now we were back, this time in the northern, savanna area of the country. The primary reaso...
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Yes, I’m a gun collector – a pretty serious one. I enjoy talking about and buying old guns, then studying each one and the company that produced it – all in the context of when it was made and how it was used. It’s in...
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It’s no secret that I like old shotguns, those made mostly prior to World War II, before the gun factories started using aluminum and cast parts and there was still a little or quite a bit of handwork required in the ...
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The way it came to be “my rifle” - and I found out, is as interesting as the rifle itself. It had been “in process” for over two years and, although complete, I hadn’t seen it. Now it was in my hands for a “first” loo...
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Every spring, I start the turkey season full of optimism; somehow suppressing the realities of chasing turkeys in previous years. We have “eastern” turkeys in Missouri, and please don’t be offended if I call these the...
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The Pere Marquette is a small, short river, with lots of smaller tributaries. It flows west, out of central Michigan, into Lake Michigan, near the town of Ludington, which is about a four hour drive north of Chicago. ...
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When you overhear a discussion or argument, between hunters or professional hunters, that includes the words “Softs” and “Solids,” chances are they’re talking about safari hunting on the dark continent. That’s because...
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It was Déjà vu for me, running the trap line with son-in-law Nick; 40 years had passed since I had trapped for furbearing animals. Dad was a trapper, and as a youngster, I’d gone with him many times before having my o...
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This farm consists of over 1,300 acres, more woods than open fields, and has a decent sized creek running through the woods on the north end; then defining most of the eastern boundary. It has a long history of produc...
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If you aren’t a trout fisherman, or a student of the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-1806, you may have never heard of the Madison River. It flows west, then north out of Yellowstone National Park and joins the Jef...
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This was our third deer season, and the first one in which you didn’t get a deer. But deer hunting isn’t just about getting your buck; it’s also about what you learn and the memories that stay with you – sometimes for...
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“Grandpa, grandpa; are you hurt; do you want me to call an ambulance?” Those were the first words I heard, from thirteen-year-old grandson Benjamin, after I slipped and fell ten feet from the platform of our deer stan...
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It all started at that year’s Safari Club Show in Reno, where Russell and I booked a Dall sheep hunt for that August. Sheep hunting begins in mid-summer and is all over by fall. We were on the second hunt of that seas...
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John Jackson III, one of the higher ups in the safari community – and a serious elephant hunter, introduced our family to Bert at the Dallas Safari Club show in January of 1997. John said: “If you want to hunt elephan...
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One of the ultimate “bucket list” items, for a guy like me who’s seriously interested in fine shotguns, is a visit to Purdey in London, England. Not just the showroom in Audley House, but also a tour through the works...
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The grouse came in low and fast (in small groups), slicing through the line from the left and the right, with a few coming straight on. In three days of shooting, I never had a high overhead shot. Switching guns was e...
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One of Africa’s grandest trophies is the leopard – as magnificent in death as he is in life. Leopard aren’t rare or endangered in the safari countries of Africa; however, daytime sightings are unusual, as leopard are ...
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My favorite coyote story of all time is of a coyote I took out of Dad’s traps one fall – all by myself, when just ten or twelve years old. It was a Sunday morning and for whatever reason I was up well before Mom and D...
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Outside of growing up with Mom and Dad, going off to college and then into the Air Force, working for a living, getting married and raising kids; outside of all that, there are many other events and circumstances thro...
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Hunting, for me, was never a “dad thing,” where I was the hunter and dragged the family along. From the time the kids were old enough to shoot, in the early 1990s, we hunted as a family. This was our second out-of-cou...
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A bunch of crows is not a flock, but a “murder” – a murder of crows; wonder who came up with such an idea. Also, I’ve never eaten a crow; however, I’ve eaten a lot of crow in my lifetime – you figure. Crows aren’t tho...
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There are times in Africa when game department regulations make no sense; this is sometimes the case of quotas for different species. Part of the problem is the lack of good data and part is the bureaucracy, which oft...
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When there’s talk about bird shooting in Argentina, mostly it’s about three-day, high-volume doves; certainly that was my first experience – and many since. However, there are a few outfitters that offer a variety of ...
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From my perspective, the greatest success, during our first 32 years, wasn’t any of the record breaking months or years, it was that day in November when the United States Secretary of Commerce called to tell us that ...
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Success comes in many different forms; and yes, it can be bittersweet. Such is the story of the Battenfeld company, which we spun out of MidwayUSA in 1999 and developed into a nice, small manufacturing business; then ...
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“Larry, you should buy Fajen; it’s for sale.” Those were the words of Marty Fajen, when we met at a sporting clays event in the spring of 1992. On July 15, the deal was done; the Reinhart Fajen Gunstock Company had ch...
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All that summer and early fall we'd been seeing more deer in the back yard than ever before. One evening we counted twenty, within 100 or so yards of the house — including nine bucks. The biggest was a nice ten pointe...
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Hunting from horseback, in the mountains, is one of my all-time favorite ways to hunt, whether the quarry is elk, moose, sheep or goats. Mostly it’s the pace of the horses and the unique access they provide to the wil...
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Brenda and I were hunting together that clear spring morning and had set up in one of my favorite places – Turkey Hollow. That was the first place I’d shot a turkey on this farm, after we bought it back in 1983.As the...
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The experience started for me in 1994, when my good friend Tom Fruechtel suggested that the Forbes Trinchera ranch would be a good place for Brenda and I to go elk hunting – so, we booked a hunt there that fall. Then,...
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Brenda and I had been to Argentina several times with the family, to shoot doves; but then the idea of a two-mission trip came up; red stag on the front end and doves on the back end. We packed our rifles and shotguns...
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A man doesn’t have many chances to help establish facts that can possibly destroy long-held rumors; but I’ve had one such chance. The opportunity came when reading the Winter 1999 issue of The Double Gun Journal.Sherm...
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Backpacks are standard equipment for hunters and guides, in sheep and goat country, where the horse or truck is often hours from the kill site. Good backpacks are well-designed, well-constructed with quality materials...
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During the first days of the safari, we concentrated successfully on bongo and buffalo; by the seventh day, we’d hunted sitatunga three different ways. The first two were boring; but the third, although much more diff...
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This story starts with The Nearly Perfect Safari Rifle, we built back in 2011; I’ve used it exclusively in Africa since. But, this was the first time Brenda and I had hunted in the rain forest, where humidity is very ...
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Cameroon is a small country on the west coast of Africa; it sits slightly above the equator and shares borders with six countries – Nigeria, Central African Republic and the Congo being the most well-known. Advanced s...
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If you didn't already know, a Missouri Spring Trifecta is shooting a turkey and finding an arrowhead and a mushroom the same day. A “defective trifecta” is something that isn't quite right — like shooting a bearded he...
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Spring is a special time of year, because there are so many exciting things to do that are only possible - or at their very best - in the springtime; and some really are “spoils of the spring.” My vote for the #1 spoi...
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Two of our Air Force friends, Michael Gaudet and Lloyd Smith, introduced Brenda and I to boiled crawfish, while stationed at Blytheville AFB, Arkansas in the early 1970's. Quite a treat for Missouri kids; we were fami...
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Downhill skiing is a lot like running a business, from the moment you start planning the trip there are risks, and once on the slopes, you must constantly pay attention and make decisions. The risks can be as simple a...
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This part of our history starts after our first Baldrige Award in 2009 and ends with the monumental elections in the fall of 2016 – the end of our 40th year in business. We began with the acquisition of the last avail...
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This 20-year period of our history began as we moved into a new building/location, on Van Horn Tavern Road, in January 1989; it was truly a new beginning. The building was modern, steel frame, construction with 10,000...
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There are many stories about how family names changed, a little or a lot, as immigrants came into this country from Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries; the Potterfield name is one of those stories.My earliest-known...
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The French word déjà vu is used when we revisit something we've seen or done before; such was the case with this year's Sugar Camp. My first experience was back in the 1950s. There was a grove of maple trees just sout...
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History has always been fascinating to me and I've enjoyed studying it informally all of my life. From a very broad perspective, history seems to be mostly about geography, civilizations, building projects, wars — and...
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“Walk-up” shooting is a British term. It means walking the fields with a gun, looking for birds. The British also shoot “driven-birds” — where the shooters stand in fixed locations and fire at the birds as they're dri...
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Reloading and shooting often go together; but they’re separate hobbies — reloading requires less cash than factory ammunition, which allows for more shooting. Someone once said that when an old shooter/reloader dies, ...
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It was a big surprise when the Ford tractor came rolling down the dirt road and drove right up to the dead elephant. The tractor was pulling a large flat-bed farm wagon, completely loaded with people from the local vi...
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They call this area The Sand Hills, because of the high percentage of sand. It’s slightly to more seriously rolling, depending on how much sand was blown in during the Ice Age. Many of the fields are enrolled in CRP (...
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In three days of pheasant hunting, I never heard a single bird flush. No mistake, there were lots of flushes, but a 15-25 mile per hour wind whistling past my ears and rustling through the grass and weeds made it impo...
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It’s hard to say where it all got started; our family bought this farm in 1985; but there weren’t many bucks like this back then. Over time we were able to add additional acres to the farm, and seriously improve the w...
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It’s always a surprise to me, when I actually shoot a whitetail deer in Missouri. You see, I’m a fairly particular hunter – here at home. He has to have big and heavy antlers, with eight or ten points. Yes, I’ll shoot...
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There are many variables that can come into play on a hunting trip; they’re called variables because they’re unpredictable and uncontrollable. Hunters call this luck; when the variables go our way it’s called good luc...
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Dear Benjamin,Do you remember that I had to wake you up on Sunday morning when Mr. Big came in, during this year’s youth season; a couple minutes later you shot your first whitetail buck – a mainframe ten pointer with...
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It’s been my great fortune to have shot Sporting Clays with many different shotguns, since my first opportunity, back in the early 1990s. I’ve used pump guns, semi-autos, side-by-sides and over/unders. Often, just for...
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It was late afternoon when our six pickup convoy pulled into Hardee's, on the north edge of Laramie; this was standard procedure for the last day of our annual prairie dog hunts. We would stop shooting about 3:00 and ...
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Tikchik Lake is about 70 air miles north of Dillingham, Alaska - which is 300 air miles or so southwest of Anchorage. The lake is the source of the Nushagak River, which flows east, then south into the Bristol Bay are...
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One of the most beautiful of all the African game animals is the kudu; the large, dark spiral horns with polished ivory-colored tips, the vertical white on brown stripes and the flush of pink inside the ears make for ...
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As far as natural range goes, there may be no trophy in North America with a range greater than the black bear. It extends from Washington State to Maine, from Florida to Alaska - mostly the mountainous areas. Of cour...
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Trophy moose hunting, on horseback in the mountains, is truly an adventure sport! Unlike shooting the first nice bull you see, when trophy hunting you’re looking for “Mr. Big” — and simply “pass” on everything “averag...
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It doesn't make any difference what you're made of, you're going to be a “whipped puppy” when you finish an 11-hour horseback ride in the Yukon mountains. The good news is that we were on horseback; our guides were wa...
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Being “boss” of a family-owned company, a man can have just about anything in his office that his wife is supportive of. Having had this job of “boss” for nearly 40 years, there are lots of things that have found thei...
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One of the characteristics of my personality is that I want to know how things work. Well, not everything — how a washing machine or a dishwasher works is of little interest. But guns, well they’re my passion. I want ...
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Dad never owned a fly rod; for him catching fish was more about filling the frying pan rather than just having fun. However, from the many fishing stories he told, no one would ever think for a minute that he didn’t e...
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Everything started routinely; there were turkeys gobbling to my left at 5:45 a.m. — across the creek. Unfortunately, they went the other way, gobbling occasionally. At 8:00 there was another gobble across the creek bu...
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“Cannon to right of them, / Cannon to left of them, / Cannon in front of them / Volley’d and thunder’d;” — Tennyson’s words, from The Charge of the Light Brigade, kept coming back to me as the turkeys hammered out the...
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Mom never went to high school; it was mostly for city kids back then. She grew up in the Missouri countryside, a long time before there were public school buses. The stock market crashed in 1929, when Mom was six year...
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“If you get all the way to Newdale, you’ve gone too far.” Those were the words of my good friend and host John Baregi, as he provided instructions to get to the place we would be staying. “On the right side of the roa...
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Grandkids are a pretty good excuse to buy a new boat; more room, more seats, more stability – at least that’s how I sold myself on upgrading from the old jon boat to a new fangled pontoon model with a big platform, se...
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The British refer to shotguns simply as guns. During the 19th century, London’s top gunmakers began using the term “best” to indicate that their guns were made to the highest standards of design, materials and craftsm...
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It was an intense amount of labor, but truly a labor of love to be able to study and generally understand America’s old double barreled shotguns – the side-by-sides made in the United States from the 1860s till the 19...
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My first recollection of quail hunting was with Dad when I was big enough to tag along, but not old enough to carry my own gun. A favorite memory was when a big covey flushed, Dad fired twice with his old 12 gauge ham...
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The pheasant season for wild birds was long closed, but on established shooting preserves it often lingers through the end of March. It was December since I hunted in South Dakota, and there’s not much to do in Missou...
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Most of our African safaris have been the 21 day variety, in the Selous Game Reserve of Tanzania. This has historically been one of the best places to hunt lion, leopard, buffalo and elephant on the same safari, as th...
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Lander, Wyoming lies pretty much in the middle of the state, on the road from Rawlings — on Interstate 80 — to the south entrance of Yellowstone National Park. Thousands of vacationers drive through Lander each year, ...
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My first invitation to snow ski came while stationed at Ellsworth Air Force Base, just outside the Black Hills of South Dakota – in the 1974-1976 timeframe. There were a couple of ski mountains there, but I flat out s...
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Once in a while this comes up as a serious question; and of course a serious question deserves a serious answer. To put things in perspective, remember that I’m a hunter, a shooter and a gun collector; I like guns and...
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At the 1992 NRA Annual Meetings in Salt Lake City, Wayne Sheets (NRA Director of Planning and Development) and I were discussing the success of the new NRA Round-Up program that Midway had started in January. I offere...
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The idea came up in the summer of 1991. We’d been computerized for over four years and doing our own programming, so this was something we knew we could — and should do. The name we chose was NRA Round-Up. The idea wa...
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The weather was decent, 40 degrees or so and overcast – but no rain. Christmas festivities would be wrapping up after a late lunch, so it seemed like a good time to go deer hunting.Regular season was wonderful, with m...
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Part of my personality is to always tell a story, as accurately as possible. It always bothers me when I can’t remember a detail and have to say “about” or “approximately,” rather than to provide real data. No one who...
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On this particular Sunday afternoon I was feeling a little guilty, after having caught some nice bass earlier in the week; so, I decided to ask Brenda if she wanted to go fishing. She did! We put in at a 10 acre water...
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There’s something special about a cabin, on a lake, deep in the woods. It’s the joy you feel each time you see it; the satisfaction of a fire in the fireplace or outside in the fire pit; the relaxed feeling when sitti...
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Dear Benjamin,For generations, fathers and grandfathers have been guiding young men like yourself on their first deer hunt; it was my honor and pleasure to be with you when you harvested your first doe, during the ope...
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The adventure began as our hunting party of thirteen flew in from around the country to our jumping off point, Yellowknife, capital of the Northwest Territories, Canada. We boarded a float plane the following day and ...
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The ending of one adventure often means the start of another; such was certainly the case with my Air Force years. On 19 July 1974, at Blytheville AFB, AR, Brenda removed the sergeant stripes from my dress shirts and ...
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Grouse, partridge and pheasant have been the primary game of driven bird shoots in Europe and the United Kingdom, since the 1850’s. The later invention of shotgun shells and break-open shotguns likely contributed to i...
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The things I remember most about this hunt were that it was cold, there was snow on the ground and we didn’t see many deer. Mostly we drove around in pickups, stopping now and then to glass out the windows; but on occ...
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Everyone calls it the Early Goose Season; this year it started on October 3 and ended October 11, running 30 minutes before sunrise till sunset. It’s sort of a “pre-season” opportunity to shoot the local birds, before...
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September is not normally a month that I give much thought to fishing. Dove season opens on the first, the weather begins to cool down and fall officially arrives during the third week of the month. The ducks and gees...
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All three of us knew that this scheduled eleven day hunt in the mountains would be challenging – and myself especially, as this was my second trip to the area and I have a few years on the others. Every hunt is differ...
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There are lots of fish in Alaska, mostly rainbow trout and the five species of salmon. It’s been my great fortune to spend some time up there, fishing the creeks and rivers and those parts of the lakes where the river...
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There were no “silver spoons” in the Potterfield family, when I came into this world, back in the winter of 1949; and there was no electricity in that small farm house in rural Marion County, Missouri. In those days o...
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As we left the breakfast area that morning and headed back to the cabin to gear up for the day of fishing, our pilot/guide Billy Labonte asked the question: “Larry, do you and Brenda want shore lunch today?” Jokingly ...
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There’s an interesting creek I like to walk a couple of times a year, looking for arrowheads - if my schedule allows. This is normally a few days after a heavy rain washes the leaves away, reshapes the gravel bars and...
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You could call it a “fly-in, fly-out” fishing lodge, because before we could fly-out to fish, we had to fly-in. From our “jumping-off point” in Smithers, we flew for an hour or so in a chartered de Havilland Beaver fl...
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Seems like everyone has a fishing story to tell, or at least they should. The biggest fishing story ever told must have been Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (1952) or Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1851); but...
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Of all the places I’ve had the opportunity to visit, this one stands out as one worth going back to. It’s remote and rustic, but very comfortable; and never seems to change. The food is excellent and the views can be ...
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It all began in the fall of 2006, as we started aligning the operations at MidwayUSA with the leadership and management principles from the Baldrige National Quality Award – in preparation for our 2009 Baldrige applic...
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My typical trip to Argentina has been three days of dove shooting. A couple of times I’ve also shot perdiz or ducks — and pigeons, one time. Adding ducks, perdiz or pigeons often requires one or more changes of locati...
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When WWII broke out, Dad was 31, probably still living at home, and still single. They called him up for a physical, but he was recovering from a broken leg, so they sent him home. It was Uncle Sam’s loss, he would ha...
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At 18, frankly I wasn’t prepared or qualified to make my first two college decisions – where to go and what to study. In high school I’d taken all the math and science courses, plus typing and business law; but it was...
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The adventure started in December of ’69, when the Selective Service folks announced my draft number (#121) on national television. I was a junior in college, with a student deferment, so wouldn’t be called up till th...
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A few hunting places stick in my mind more so than others — perhaps because there’s something special and unique about them; and I find myself telling the same stories time and again — not just about the hunt, but als...
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We were called the “honor guard;” it was an additional duty assigned by the base commander, and I served on it for a few months during my enlisted time. Apparently every Air Force Base in the country had one – each co...
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This was a fairly routine turkey hunt, until the shooting started. My dear friend Paul had come from Portland, Oregon to hunt turkeys. Having known him for many years, I volunteered to be his guide and even loan him a...
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The classic turkey hunt has the hunter locating a roosting gobbler and getting close — well before light; then calling him down into an open field or woods. The turkey struts and gobbles (as if for the camera) and slo...
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There are probably a couple of dozen reasons that I go turkey hunting each spring. It’s hard to say which is most important, some likely more than others, but they’re all special to me. Most are very reliable, like fi...
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Whitehorse, Yellowknife, Smithers and Norman Wells; these, and a handful of others, are small but important communities in northwest Canada that are the “jumping-off points” for hunting and fishing trips to the Canadi...
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When it comes to dove hunting, I don’t have a single favorite shotgun in my gun collection; but please don’t feel sorry for me – I have many favorites. Here in Missouri, dove season begins on September 1; I’m almost a...
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Every hunting trip begins with a plan; but often that plan changes – depending on the luck. I wasn’t on this hunt, so it’s Brenda and Sara’s story – as told to me. They were following in the footsteps that Russell and...
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We were driving down the middle of a big “sand river,” looking for sign, about mid-way through a 21 day safari. Lion was on the top of the list, but we hadn’t seen any evidence of lion on the dirt roads running throug...
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Did anyone explain how we hunt chamois and tahr down here? Frankly, the question seemed unusual. We had hunted for a few days on the North Island and were now on the South Island looking specifically for these animals...
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Once in a while it makes sense to mount some type of a drive when hunting whitetail deer in Missouri, especially if they aren’t moving much and you have all the right conditions – safety being the most important! Ofte...
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Many of my most enjoyable hunting trips have been on horseback in the mountains of Alaska, British Columbia, Yukon and the Northwest Territories of Canada. On every hunt, it was a long trip to the jumping-off points a...
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As moose hunts go, this one started routinely – get packed and sighted in, fly up to Whitehorse in the Yukon Territories, take a bush plane to a small lake in the middle of the Canadian Rockies; then hunt for a few da...
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As a shooter, a hunter and a gun collector, it’s been my great fortune and pleasure to study and shoot an example of pretty much every popular shotgun made during the last 150 years – at both targets and birds. From t...
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There’s nothing in my childhood memories about shooting or hunting with a single shot .22 rifle. Dad had an old worn-out falling block .22, of some sort - that he used for killing hogs, when we butchered; but I don’t ...
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In 2002, we developed a stock finishing kit, a reblueing kit and a stock checkering kit – using mostly Winchester Model 67 .22 rifles for the various experiments. Gun-smithing classes for a few Employees were a logica...
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Rabbit hunting is something I never give much thought to, until after the first of the year. For me, it’s just a matter of priorities; you see, deer season and the holidays take up most of my spare time as the year wi...
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First, let me say that Brenda and I didn’t travel all the way to New Zealand to hunt turkeys; we were there for chamois and tahr – mountain antelope introduced to New Zealand in the early 20th century, from Europe and...
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It was an interesting year of transition – 1985, as we had just closed the gun shop. The phones rang, the mail came, we processed the orders and the little brown truck (UPS) took the packages away each day. It was a m...
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It was lunchtime in the African bush and three of us were sitting at a table under a shade tree. November is the dry season and often a curious honey bee will cruise around the lunch table looking for anything wet. We...
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It just seems right for a man to have a 30-30 lever action rifle and to find the time to use it, for its intended purpose. For me, that’s mostly whitetail deer and coyotes, with an occasional rattlesnake and some targ...
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It all started at the beginning of the last leg of the stalk, when my guide asked how far I was comfortable shooting. My response was simply that 300 yards was about it; he said “Good, some guys claim they can shoot a...
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If the word ‘backup’ means lesser value or importance, then it isn’t proper to call this gun a ‘backup’, because it’s very special to me. You see, a gentleman would always take two shotguns on a pheasant hunt, just in...
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We named it ‘Grand Central Station’ back in 1985 -- ‘Grand Central’ for short -- when we first hunted there. In the fall the deer often move through this area all day long, as there are large tracts of woods on the ea...
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Sometimes it’s the little things that stick in your mind; Dad was a beekeeper. It wasn’t a major part of his life, just a hobby really. The most colonies I ever remember him having was 25. But the bees were always the...
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Nothing quite excites or satisfies like the anticipation of opening morning of deer season; at best, the night before is restless. Sure the anticipation dulls a little with age, as dreams of the 30 point buck are repl...
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A driven bird shoot had been on my wish list for years, but when the invitation came, I almost didn’t go. After looking at the price tag, my answer was “no”; but Brenda suggested that it would be a great opportunity f...
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With some degree of regularity, I receive invitations to participate in sporting clays events – mostly they’re fundraisers, and often for the Boy Scouts or local charities. Sporting clays originated in England and cam...
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It was an amazing 7-1/2 years from the day my brother Jerry and I opened the gun shop, Ely Arms, Inc., in 1977 till Brenda and I closed it just after Christmas in 1984 – to become mail order only, with a new name – Mi...
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Dad collected arrowheads and he had a cigar box full of his best ones. I don’t recall that he actually took the time to hunt for them, but likely walked upon them while hunting, fishing or running his trap line -- and...
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Matt and I were on a ten day moose hunt and asked the guides to keep us together the first few days; they were fine with this and just wanted to know who would shoot first. As Matt is a few years younger and had not s...
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Gunsmithing, at its most basic level, is simply the thoughtful use of hands, eyes and brain to disassemble and reassemble a firearm, and to shape and finish wood and metal parts – but how does one learn to do those th...
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Dad was a reasonably serious fisherman, from my perspective – mostly for food, not sport. In our area of Missouri many of the larger ponds and lakes were stocked with largemouth bass, bluegill and channel cat. I have ...
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On their respective fourth birthdays, each of our two children received his/her first rifle and got to shoot it. Now at four years of age, they didn’t get to keep these rifles in their rooms; we kept them in the vault...
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In the wild and remote areas of western Canada, they use the term ‘fly-out’ fishing; as the only way to get you to most of the best streams and lakes is to ‘fly-out’ from base camp – in a small plane, with floats atta...
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Gilbert was his given name, but everyone called him Bert; and he was a pretty good hunter and trapper. For dad, a gun was simply a tool he needed to hunt for food or fur and to run his trap line. In my early years, he...
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It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of computers in Midway’s early years; when we opened in 1977, our cash register was the most complicated piece of electronic equipment in the gun shop. It had depar...
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The term ‘one hundred straight’ only has meaning to a clay pigeon shooter. It may have been coined in the late 19th or early 20th century when clay pigeons and trap shooting were just getting started. Or possibly it w...
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Brenda has a great passion for turkey hunting – far greater than mine -- and it was she that came up with the idea of hunting the Ocellated Turkey, that lives mostly down in the area of the Yucatan Peninsula of old Me...
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“He’s got big palms or paddles -- whichever you call them --, but he’s not very wide.” “There are lots of points on top, but they aren’t very long”. “Look at his front tines, it’s a shame he doesn’t have good palms”. ...
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Everyone knows the fairy tale about Jack and the Beanstalk; but, let me tell you that I have been there and actually seen and touched the beanstalk -- and no longer believe it to be a fairy tale. Jack didn’t actually ...
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The Alaska moose (a.k.a. Alaska-Yukon moose) is the largest big-game animal in North America; they’re also very interesting to hunt -- and as a bonus, they live in some of the most remote and beautiful places you will...
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It was the outfitter's first hunt; he had been a guide the prior year – and he had never hunted this ranch before. Also, he had booked far too many hunters and had to set up a second camp on another ranch - about 40 m...
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In my opinion, the most exciting thing about springtime in Missouri is turkey season; sure there are mushrooms to pick in the woods, fish to catch in the ponds and rivers, and arrowheads to find in the ditches -- but ...
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Important changes often come from small, unknown companies, rather than large and long established ones; such was certainly the case with the availability of bulk reloading components. It all started with unprimed car...
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A friend from ATK/Blount said to me “Larry, if you ever want to take Brenda on a nice elk hunt, I can recommend a great place. They drive the logging roads in old Suburbans and have a wonderful lodge – and a gourmet c...
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Luck is often described as being in the right place at the right time, with the ‘special knowledge’ and ‘right tools’ to take advantage of a situation -- and an understanding of and willingness to take risk; certainly...
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High noon, on the 18th of June was ‘opening day’; but it took a lot of planning and hard work to get there. The idea of a gun shop came during the spring of 1976; there was just a year left on my Air Force hitch, and ...
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The Northern Territories of Australia, mostly between Darwin and Alice Springs, is vast and remote – and the enormous ranches there are called “stations”. This area would be on some folk’s ‘bucket list’, because of th...
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It was a typical ‘first safari’, nine-days of plains game hunting with a standard package of trophy animals, and options for many others. But for me it certainly wasn’t typical, as I never fired a shot – however, that...
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The dirt track ran generally along the side of the riverbed, through intermittent brush, and occasionally provided a great view of whatever pools were still holding water during the dry season. As the safari car came ...
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Dad taught me to fish, back when I was just a kid; it was catfish, bass and bluegill - in the farm ponds and small creeks and rivers of northeast Missouri. Later on, older brother Marion introduced me to rainbow trout...
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White with black stripes or black with white stripes; that idea never crossed my mind when I lined up on his left shoulder and squeezed the trigger. The herd was in a small, burned area, with the male off to the right...
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A 650 grain lead slug, one half inch in diameter, moving across the prairie at about 1250 feet per second; what in the world would something like that be good for? Buffalo! At least that was the thought in 1872, the y...
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It may be quite a stretch, for some folks, as the word “Trifecta” is applied to spring turkey hunting in Missouri – especially for those who know horse racing; but for any hunter who’s been fortunate enough to shoot a...
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There was a time, many years ago, when some people thought leopard were nearly extinct; but this was before they came to understand that it was only daylight sightings that were rare – you see, the leopard hunts at ni...
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There’s more to an Argentina dove shoot than pulling the trigger and seeing puffs of feathers – though that’s the best part. But answer this question: “If you take every shot in range, can you run the gun?” These Bene...
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It had to happen sooner or later – ‘the gun that won the west’ going with me on the Nail Ranch hunt in Texas. Finding a good Winchester Model 1873 saddle ring carbine (SRC) in 44-40 was the problem; it had to be all o...
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In August of 1971, during a short vacation between college and the Air Force, Brenda and I drove to Devils Tower National Monument, in northeast Wyoming; it was there that I first saw prairie dogs. You could call them...
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It took a while for me to decide to tell this story, because I was running with a loaded gun; so hopefully everyone understands that as an experienced hunter, and someone who has participated in shooting competitions ...
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A couple of old .22 rifles were always on my pack list for the Nail Ranch hunt in early November. Between morning and afternoon hunts, we always had some time on our hands and shooting old .22 rifles at swinging metal...
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One of the trophies on Russell’s wish list was Lion, so we were always looking for lion tracks in the dirt roads as we drove around. On occasion a lion will be spotted from the safari car, but normally you find the tr...
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It was like a page from a western novel, if you leave out the part about how we traveled to Texas. Our camp was six ranch-road miles from the bunkhouse, in a pasture called Northeast Collins, on the historic Nail Ranc...
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“Do you want to shoot a croc?” With that simple, unexpected, whispered question from my professional hunter, this story begins; you see, we were looking for a hippo to shoot for lion bait – and the thought of bumping ...
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Prairie dog hunting in the Shirley Basin, north of Medicine Bow, Wyoming was one of my favorite past times in the 1980s and 1990s. Back then, the more remote areas had seen little or no shooting pressure and were lots...
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How many guns does one man need to shoot prairie dogs? Well, at least three, one for up close, one for mid-range and one for way out there. Always experimenting, I settled on a three-gun battery that made the most sen...
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George Spence was a locksmith at Blytheville AFB, Arkansas, when I arrived there – right out of basic training -- in November of 1971. A few months later there was a QA, in one of the gun magazines, on where to get am...
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At sunset we erected a simple monument, on the escarpment above camp, overlooking the Mbaragandu River; it was our tribute to Brigitte. We spread her ashes on the ground, covered them with sand; and added warthog tusk...
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At 5:30 in the evening, the three rams abruptly filed down from the rim rock and began to graze on the high, rolling pasture. We had watched a band of nine rams the day before, but they were farther out and hadn’t yet...
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“Just take the two-track to the right, under the power lines, and follow it till you get to The Reservoir; there are lots of prairie dogs there.” Those were the words of the rancher, offering advice about the best pra...
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“Do you want to shoot a hippo?” The safari car had stopped, without apparent reason, and this question was put to me by the PH. “Where?” “There, sleeping in the water.” “What would we do with him?” “Use him for lion b...
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A friend once introduced me as having a PhD in Gunology. Of course there is no such degree; but if there was, possibly I would be a candidate -- and one of the principle reasons is my having attended a great many gun ...
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Dad liked to hunt squirrels and regularly we would have fresh squirrel meat for lunch or supper, when I was growing up. There was a story he told us once about how he had pulled a wounded squirrel from a hollow tree b...
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The safari car was coming in for the evening, just at last light, when they spotted a lone wildebeest bull, standing broadside about 200 yards off to the right. As Brenda needed leopard bait, she and the PH bailed out...
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In the larger hunting concessions of Tanzania, it’s pretty common to be 50 miles or more from base camp at lunchtime. The plan for the afternoon might be to continue on a particular dirt track or be someplace special ...
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It was a very early Parker shotgun, with a three-digit serial number and in pretty nice condition - which was what got me interested in the first place. But, the clincher was the back-action locks, which feature a v-t...
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Guns have been an important part of my life, since I was old enough to shoot –guns to hunt with, guns to shoot, and also guns for collecting. Often I’m asked which gun is my favorite; but there’s no simple answer to t...
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It was Russell who was after a lion and we had hung baits in many places but hadn’t seen any lion tracks. Late in the safari, and a few days after the full moon, it was suggested that Russell and his PH might walk in ...
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We had just finished a wonderful fourteen day hunting safari in northern Zimbabwe and had allowed a couple of extra days at the end to visit Victoria Falls and the nearby town of the same name – just being tourist.Vic...
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One of the greatest pleasures of an African Safari, for me at least, is the morning coffee break – it’s definitely one of the underrated joys of a Safari, and I highly recommend it to everyone. There’s no set time or ...
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A lot of things had to line up perfectly to make this story possible — #1, Lonoke County, just east of Little Rock, Arkansas, was the home of the Remington ammunition plant. #2, Remington was producing a new 45 acp sh...
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Any male leopard is a great trophy; but sometimes, in far away and remote places, you find a real monster. We were hunting in Maasailand, in northern Tanzania, just below the border with Kenya. The principle vegetatio...
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Your first cape buffalo will dance around in your mind for the rest of your life, not necessarily because of the size of the trophy, but rather because of the circumstances of the hunt - no matter how routine. We were...
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There’s no such thing as ‘perfect’, so ‘nearly-perfect’ is about as good as a man can hope for. On safari one year, I got to thinking about what a rifle would have to be to make me really happy – well, it would have t...
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As our plane circled to get downwind of the runway, we could see small herds of buffalo on the hills and in the valleys below. This was a seven day hunt in rough country and son Russell, amazed at seeing all the small...
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Were it not for my introduction to the clay pigeon, this story couldn’t have been written; and possibly I wouldn’t even be involved in the shooting sports industry.Growing up in Marion County, Missouri, I don’t recall...
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The Nail Ranch has lots and lots of whitetail deer – and a fair number of coyotes. In my many hunts there I have almost always got my buck and sometimes shot a doe or two for herd management; and every trip or two I g...
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Hunting with an eleven year old daughter is an interesting experience. By that age she could sit quietly and pay attention for reasonable periods of time, so it was my job to present her with a deer that would stand s...
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He came out of the forest on the right side of the track and raced quickly across the dusty road to the far side; but then he made the last mistake of his life – he stopped. Our safari car was cruising along a narrow ...
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It was Brenda, who wanted to shoot a goat; so when we landed in spike camp the guide immediately said “Brenda, I have found your goat!” The spotting scope was set up, and about two miles up the valley on the right was...
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Intrigued; that’s probably the best word to describe my thinking, when this small pedestal came into view. Our safari car had been climbing steadily for twenty minutes and we were approaching the escarpment that defin...
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Judging the length and weight of elephant tusks is challenging, even for experienced professional hunters; and poor judgment could cost a PH his license.Our routine was to leave camp each morning just after 6:00 am, w...
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It had been a long and successful safari; we had collected most of the desired trophies and were driving around on the dirt roads enjoying the last few days in the bush without a pressing agenda to collect more.This a...
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If you like to set fires and burn things up, you’re called a pyromaniac – except perhaps in Africa. There, if you burn your thumb flicking matches off the striker strip of a match box and set fire to thousands of acre...
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Sheep shooting can be an evening activity, especially early in the season, when the days are quite long. Brenda and I were hunting Stone Sheep on the Spatsizi plateau, way up in the northwest part of British Columbia....
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We discovered the bee hive quite by accident, while putting the stalk on a zebra in the bed of a dry sand river. This dead tree was serving as our cover when we noticed the bees buzzing over our heads -- coming and go...
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In my experience, vultures are one of the unchanging features of an ever-changing Africa. They cruise around effortlessly in the air currents, all day long, looking for something to eat – generally what’s left of an a...
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It was a short track, mid-morning, on the third day of the safari. We were walking at a pretty good clip and came into an opening in the bush to discover the elephant standing about fifty yards to our right; facing us...
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There is nothing in Africa quite as dreaded as a wounded Buffalo, Lion or Leopard. Nearly all of the recorded incidents of maulings or death to clients and professional hunters are attributed to following up on these ...
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Some people say that elk hunting is like spring turkey hunting in Missouri – make a sound like a female; the male responds, comes to the call and you shoot him – simple as that. From personal experience I can confirm ...
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It’s fair to call me traditional, plus I’m a gun collector and like to hunt. Rolling those three things together is the basis for this story. As a gun collector, old Winchester lever action rifles have always fascinat...
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I have never actually hunted for warthog, but have shot a few. You see, warthog isn’t something you go to Africa to hunt, like kudu, sable, bongo or the big five. A warthog is a great trophy, but it is generally an an...
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Professional hunters tell me that judging the length and weight of the ivory on an elephant is just an educated guess, because it is so difficult to estimate the length of the tusks inside the skull and it is impossib...
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If you don’t count the travel time from Missouri to Anchorage, then out to Port Moller on the Alaska peninsula, then the one day weather delay, then the flight to spike camp – well, if you don’t count all of that time...
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We had made a nearly-perfect stalk on a pair of warthogs and were standing quietly watching them from about 40 yards distance – already having made the decision not to shoot. Even though the understory was light, they...
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“Did you shoot that big elk above the fireplace?” No, but I can tell you an interesting story about it!We arrived in our New Mexico elk camp a day early, to allow for some scouting. The head guide said that he had flo...
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We saw him just at last light, way off to the south, as he lumbered down out of the willows toward the lakeshore – wow, was he big!Next morning we climbed a steep hill on the opposite side of the lake, which gave us a...
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My rifle was what Teddy Roosevelt referred to as “the medicine gun for lions” – a Winchester Model 1895 chambered in 405 Winchester. Teddy hunted Africa in 1909 and wrote up his adventures in African Game Trails. Now,...
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“Can we get closer?” Those were my words to the guide, as we looked down the mountain at the seven rams – nearly 600 yards away.We had been working these rams for four days, but bad luck with fog, horses and terrain h...
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In the time it takes you to read this story, the grizzly bear hunt started and ended – about 60 seconds. I thought about titling this story “From bare to bear in 60 seconds”.Brenda and I were half-awake, but still snu...
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It had been a long and impossible track, interrupted by the wind, the rain and a group of females; but we had seen him for a few seconds, just 20 minutes into the track, and knew this was a bull we couldn’t give up on...
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