airedale

Those are both good choices, a well bred Feist will also have bred in treeing abilities which makes for a good Squirrel dog which is another whole subject but is about as much fun as it gets. A well bred Jack Russell is tough to beat on Rats. Al

I will say it again there is nothing more fun than hunting with good dogs, I hunted everything that walked crawled or flew with my dogs. Yes Paula when you are as old as dirt it provided me with many years and many dogs, over the years I had a lot more than are shown here. To say I was and am fanatical would be putting it mildly. Al

Rat hunting was a common practice when I was a young guy, farms and any of the many town dumps were favorite places to find large numbers of them. 22 rifles firing shorts was the preferred weapon and both daytime and nighttime hunting could be productive. As the dumps were closed down Rat hunting became less and less popular, these days there is not much activity when it comes to Rats. Hunting them with Terriers on Farms was fun, I still have my home made smoker made from an old string trimmer used to flush them out of their holes. The fellow in the video below hit paydirt big time, I like his up to date equipment, ahh for the good old days, the fun and opportunities were never ending. Things have changed a lot in my lifetime. Al

Nothing like hunting with a good Dawg, a few of my favorites from the last 50 years.

The population in my area is about the same maybe slightly down, where I actually hunt has been devastated by the Gypsy Moth caterpillars leaving zero mast production. I get a few Deer passing through, but most have moved on to surrounding areas where the food supply did not suffer as bad. Al

Some of my favorite most used Woodchuck cartridges. 17hmr, 22LR, 22 mag, 22 Hornet, 223, 222 rem mag, 22-250, 220 Swift, 243, 6mm Remington, 25-06, 357, 44 mag. If I had to pick one it would be the 220 Swift hands down. Al

No small feat in my opinion, good hunting and shooting skills required for that tally with a 22. Al

I would be one of those old timers that hunted Woodchucks during the 50s, 60s, and 70s. It was not a rabies outbreak that killed them off, it was the Raccoons that were decimated by rabies. There are several theories on why the Woodchuck populations crashed, changing farming practices, and the explosion of the Eastern Coyote population are the two biggest factors I think. Many farmers would work hard at getting rid of them from their fields, I believe there was some sort of device that could be put down their den holes that would kill them, hunting was probably the least of their problem as it seemed to have zero effect in the places I hunted. I think a combination of all the above knocked their population down big time and it has never recovered. I was also a big time Raccoon hunter with a kennel full of some pretty fair Hounds and Airedales, I belong to the NY State Houndsmen group and at one of our annual banquets we had a State biologist that specialized in the Eastern Coyote as a speaker. He said they inspected the contents of every Coyote they could get their hands on and during the summer months every single one examined would have Woodchuck in their stomachs. His exact words "if you guys are wondering was has happened to the Woodchucks in NY there is your answer." As for actually hunting Woodchucks there is no bigger fan and participant than me. Their populations when I was young was huge, just about any hay field would hold a bunch. Some of the best days I have ever had hunting were in the Woodchuck fields. The best part is farmers hated them and I was never not granted permission to hunt them anywhere I went, I had one farmer get me on his tractor with him so he could take me to a field that was infested with them. You could make the shooting of any type you wanted, some days it was with handguns at fairly close range crawling on your belly to get close enough for a shot. 22 LR rifles was another favorite way to hunt them walking field and fairly close range. Then there was the big guns, dedicated long range precision varmint rifles that could make kills in the field close to 500 yards if you did your part. I even hunted them with archery equipment and the best shot I ever made with a bow was on a Woodchuck. I feel bad that todays hunters do not have the chance to experience good Woodchuck hunting. Today if you see a Woodchuck he is living close to a road or someone's house, it is all about safety from predators. I have one living under a shed in my back yard, first wild one I have seen in years, he gets a free pass from me as I enjoy seeing him and he reminds me of days that look to be gone forever. Al

Got the bad news the other day from my go to source for ammo, binge buying all I can afford.

I do quite a bit of shooting especially with rimfire firearms, paper targets are great for testing for the accuracy of a weapon and the accuracy of ammunition. Once I find the optimum combo for a particular firearm, paper targets can get boring for me. I love plinking at various reactive targets, commercial metal gongs, plates, bells and spinners and I also come up with ideas of my own or borrow from others. Charcoal brickettes, necco wafers, small clay birds, various leftover garden crops etc etc. A buddy of mine made a suggestion to me about using lollipops aka suckers, said to myself that is a great idea, challenging, cheap, very reactive and no mess to clean up, biodegradable. A little late this year to really get at it but I set up a small sucker target with half inch suckers and think this is going to be fun and challenging. 25 yards pretty easy 50 yards you better have better than average accuracy, at 75 and 100 a tack driver will be needed. Want to add this would work great for pellet and BB guns at shorter ranges. The prototype Al

Hell voting in shitty candidates is the Democrat's creed!! Al

He is pretty neat looking if you ask me. Having raised livestock for many years one of the more interesting things to come across are genetic anomalies producing off the wall colors. Rare most times in the wild but get man involved in their breeding and things can be changed big time. Sometimes it can be a desired trait say like white feathered Turkeys for meat, breeders took those occasional whites that popped up and bred them together over and over eventually getting them to set as a strain having all newly hatched poults come white. Most store bought Turkeys today are white feathered and came from genetic anomalies. Al

Collecting knives has added a side collection of sharpening tools and devices to keep edges sharp. I pretty much have acquired them all and they will all work well if used properly. My best knives are all sharpened by hand using various stones, it is slower and harder to learn but once mastered a shaving sharp razor's edge can be obtained. Below are three of my favorites, a diamond stone, a soft Arkansas and a hard Arkansas. The diamond is only used on a really dull knife to get the edge started, the soft Arkansas will so most of the sharpening followed up by the hard Arkansas for the razor edge. Like with just about everything else there are some youtube videos that can help one get started sharpening with stones in the right direction. Just got done with the Dickinson Crockett and it will shave hair no problem. Al

Par Excellence Deer recovery Airedale Terrier "Grizz" Passed, she was owned by Richard McCorkle a retired police office down Georgia way. A member of my Airedale board for many years with too many recovery tales to count, Grizz and Richard made a lot of hunters happy. I will miss her exploits. Al

Throughout my adult life I have been dabbling with a modest collection of knives I have accumulated down through the years. I stick with mostly American made pocket knives as they were about all I could and can afford. I was introduced to the knife collecting world as a young fellow on an Elk hunting pack trip in Colorado that me and my Dad went on many years ago "1970". In our group was a gentleman named Ralph Bone, he was from Lubbock Texas and by trade a custom knife maker. I thought I was a high roller with my brand new Buck folding 110, old Ralph brought me down out of the clouds showing me some of his creations that cost 10 times as much as my Buck. He went on to explain why a custom knife cost so much, in a nutshell a ton of hand forging, fitting and polishing the finest materials available. Ralph was an original member of the Knifemaker's Guild which in itself has a lot of notoriety but he also went on to become master engraver and custom gun maker. The best thing coming out of meeting Ralph was he sat me down and showed me how to properly sharpen a knife with a stone, I still use that method today so many years later. So I have long been on a quest to own an original Ralph Bone knife, any made directly by him were way out of my price range until a little while ago. I struck paydirt from an old collector that bought one directly and personally from Ralph out of his shop in Lubbock many years ago. We did a bit of haggling on the price and made a deal. The knife pictured below is used but in mint condition, has the belly zip hook along with the original Johnson sheath. I will use this knife and hope to make old Ralph proud.

Still smoking fish in my old stone age "Little Chief" which it seems I have had forever, it has held up well. Al

Back when I did a lot of rabbit hunting some of my favorite habitat was exactly like the overgrown brush filled orchard described above. Turn a couple of Beagles loose in that stuff and you will see Deer come flying out in all directions. Al

Once they realize they are being hunted they will revert to nighttime activities and hole up during the daylight hours where they feel they have the best cover. I hunted on a big farm outside of Norwich years ago, on a side hill there was an old over grown apple orchard, an almost impenetrable entanglement of high brush, briars, brambles along with scrub apple trees. After the opening week bombardment I think almost every deer in that area would take up refuge in that mess. We would surround it and try to drive it but had very limited success. We would save our doe permits for the last day of season and one of those years I was a driver trying to flush something out to the watchers. I literally had to crawl at times to get through in pouring rain. I got to a bit of an opening and was looking ahead with my binoculars and caught just a wee bit of movement, a good look showed three does lying flat on their stomachs not 20 yards away. I was up above them a bit and drew down on the biggest one and aimed right for the middle of her back and killed her right where she laid. The other two took off like a bat out of hell but they never emerged where the watchers were stationed. They just circled and hid in that hellhole. I had one heck of a time getting that doe out of there and I will tell you what. I never went in there again. Al

Gotta love Wolc logic

I never have my gun hanging from my shoulder when actually hunting. For me they earn their keep especially when you have to drag one out or on a long walk out at the end of the day. Al

For me a sling on my rifle is an essential, I use them strictly as a carrying aid and a rifle without one is uncomplete for me. Years ago some slings were used as an aid for steadying your rifle for more steady aim and precision shooting, I tried that method but it never took hold with me. The military believed in them, don't know if they still do today, I have an adjustable military leather sling around here somewhere. A simple nylon strap works just fine for me most of the time, on my heavier rifles I will use a wider strap to distribute the weight better. Although I have some nice leather slings the ones I like in the field are made from nylon or Cordura, All except one use quick detachable mounts, I have one with snug down loops on the ends I use for any sling less firearms mostly double shotguns. Below are some different examples I use. Al

Happy Turkey Day everyone. Al

The RCBS chargemaster came yesterday, I got it setup on the bench, watched RCBS's video on how to operate it and today after I got my chores done I sat down and put it to work weighing and charging about 100 256 Winchester mag cases. Right off the bat I could see this electronic job is not as fast as the old tried and true beam scale, drum powder measure and bench trickler. After using the old stuff for over 50 years and thousands of loads I got pretty good at using it with both speed and accuracy. That being said I do like this gizmo even though it is slow. After I changed my loading routine I became more familiar and got things moving along. When powder charging I always did the whole batch at once and then moved on with the whole batch to the press to seat the bullet. With the electronic job I started with a sized case, charged it with powder, then set the powder pan right back on the electronic charger to get a new charge and continued on with the newly charged case to the RCBS summit press where I seated the bullet. This charge master is very accurate right to the tenth of a grain, A little bit of a learning curve but once I got into the groove I started cranking out rounds at a decent pace. So while I do like the thing because it is all in one and takes up less bench space I do not believe it is any better than the old drum measures and beam scales. Maybe as I use it more I will shine up to it. So as far as loaded ammo I am set for awhile, I have some 60 gr Wichester open points, a pile of Missouri Bullet company 85 gr lead hard cast that duplicates the old 25-20 round, then some high octane stuff 90 gr Sierra HPs and some Barnes 80 gr copper, I had to remove the plastic tip so they would fit in the magazine and so they would function in the rifle. Al

Touched off a few handloads with the 44 mag revolver the other day making sure she is hitting where I aim. Got to thinking about the father of the 44 Mag Elmer Keith. I used to subscribe to Guns and Ammo and read his column every month, also have two of his books which for me were entertaining as Hell. The ultimate big bore fan old Elmer's idea of a Deer rifle was a 458 win mag. Gone but not forgotten. Al