The Countertop Chronicles

Sometimes it pays to get the hell out of dodge.

Sitting in DC, no matter who I talk to, its just a constant barrage of bullshit. Leaving the city of talking points, therefor, is bound to be a refreshing change.

With that in mind, and considering this new moon is the start of this years rut, I decided to head south, to North Carolina and get an on the ground feel for what the election will bring (and with the hope of landing a buck Sarah Palin could be proud of).

Yesterday afternoon saw us outside the Eastern Carolina town of Keanansville where I learned the local bucks are mostly dog driven and just not too big.

Spend some time at the Keanansville bait and tackle as folks hauled in the first bucks of this falls big buck contest. Some nice bodied deer, but a little lacking in the rack department.

We headed out to greener pastures though, a 3,000 acre QDMA managed property with gated access (not high fence, simply gates at the driveway to prevent folks from coming in

They put me on a stand overlooking a river bottom and under some powerlines. Had about a 1500 view down in both directions and sat down around 5pm to watch the action.

And action it was. At a range of about 800 yards (too far for me to shoot) I witnessed 3 bucks in a battle royale on a grassy bluff overlooking the river. I was mesmerized, when I decided to look the other way and saw 5 medium sized does grazing.

All of a sudden a small 6 pointer, probab ly 2 year old, buck jumped out into the field. He had a nice rack for his age, and will certainly be a wall hanger, but not yet.

He too became a bit skittish, and I was hoping a dominant buck would appear, but none did. Instead a couple of more does wandered out.

Still, as the sun went down, I could hear deer fighting all around. Eventually, a nice sized doe materialized, and with shooting time down I decided to take her with a 185 yard shot to put food in the fridge. The 140 grain sierra game king powered by 54.5 grains of h4831 was just devastating, putting a small slit into her left side and blowing a good chunch of her heart and lungs out a softball sized hole on the right side. She was knocked down, then sprang up and ran about 20 yards leaving a river of blood behind.

Word to the wise, if your hunting in the afternoon, don’t forget a flashlight. And have a backup. Its tough to dress a deer in the dark.

My buddy final picked me up, and under the lights of his truck, I gutted her and then hung her over night.

Its now 6:15 am, and a brisk 31 degrees. I’m in a different stand, closer to where those bucks are and along a line of heavy scrapes and rubs between some food plots, a watering hole, and the nasty tangled brush the big boys love.

Can’t see anything, but can hear lots of deer. Shooting time starts in 20 minutes or so.

Marylands 3 day early muzzleloader season got underway yesterday. I made it out, and with 5:00 am temperatures near 70 wasn’t too suyrprised to see few others out. It was a full moon though, and that made for nice visibility, and I saw a ton of deer feeding on the bean field I’ve been scouting out this summer.

Unfortunatlyan by the time the sun was up they were gone.

Made it out this morning too. It is a good deal cooler, car thermometer was showing 43 at 5 am, is showing 50 now. I was not dressed appropriatly to sit in a stand in those temperatures, and had a cold as balls morning. To make matters worse, I didn’t see one single deer.

I’ve got to head to Williamsburg for a political fundraiser today so I won’t be getting out again this weekend.

So, my birthday is coming up next month, and in a little over 50 days we’ll have an election. And Hunting season is here. All adds up to - its time to buy another gun.

For awhile, I was thinking about plopping some change down on a Homeland Security Rifle - some evil liberal scaring nightmare rifle. But in recent weeks my thoughts have drifted towards something more Kerryesque - namely a nice side by side shotgun for bird hunting (don’t EVEN start on the idea of getting an O/U).

Now, I have a side by side - its a 12 gauge hardware gun that was my fathers. Its got some nice scroll work on it, and actually comes to point fine. But its a little heavy, and frankly it just isn’t as nice as some of the old school side by sides.

What I really want is a 16 gauge SxS. I have an old single shot 16 gauge - with some gorgeous walnut on it. But want a SxS. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to find one in my price range. So, I’m willing to look at 12’s and 20s and 28s. Amongst the guns I’m looking at is a German Guild Gun.

And thats where my question comes - what do they mean by Guild Gun?

And does anyone have info on German Guild Guns?

This weekend was marked by extreme weather variability.

Yesterday, Saturday, I was scheduled to join the local chapter of Safari Club International on a dove hunt. Hurricane/Tropical Storm Hannah had different plans as she dropped (if the water in my garbage can is any indication) 11 inches of rain Saturday afternoon.

I’m hopeful the hunt will be rescheduled till next weekend, but even if not, Saturday’s rain was a blessing.

Knowing the weather would be beautiful (but expecting something warmer than the 73 degrees we had) my buddy Jason and his dog Max made plans to meet at the McKee-Besher dog training fields (just one more way in which Maryland is more friendly to hunters).

We were scheduled to meet at 1:30. Jason was running 20 minutes behind so I took Rex out into the millet field to see what we could jump up. Saw a few doves, and one chuckar, and was otherwise thrilled with how he quartered the field.

Rex and Max had never met each other before, so we let them just run around and get acquainted while Jason and I set the gear up. Training was less than successful, as we started with what were largely blind retrieves (someone standing in the woods to the side throwing a dummy while the guy with the dog fired a shotgun and sent the dog out).

Max had no problem running to get the dummy, he did a pretty good job of tracking it down. But he was completely unable to return it - running off in the other direction. Needless to say, Jason was a bit disappointed as its better (in my book) to get no retrieve than an uncontrolled dog running away.

Rex had some difficulty with the blind retrieves. He simply wouldn’t do it. He never marked the bird in the sky, and was too distracted by both Max and I, acting like the 8 month old puppy he is. I would send him out, but he wouldn’t go. However, if I started walking him in the direction of the bird, I could then send him out the rest of the way and he’d return to my hand.

We then went to visible retrieves, without the shotgun. Simply throwing the dummy where he could see them. Rex was marginally able to be sent to one or the other on command.

This is really the first time I’ve worked him since picking him up. I was a bit disappointed, and am thinking of taking him down maybe next weekend for more one on one with the trainer. In the meantime, I’m working with him every morning and evening this week. We will see how he improves.

After finishing with the training, we crossed the road and checked out one of the sunflower fields the state manages for doves. Saw a bunch flying about, and little evidence of hunting (ie: only a couple of shells on the ground). While there, we spotted some very fresh deer tracks, cutting across the field to a point in the far corner.

Turned around and then took the dogs all the way down the road to check out a swamped and an area that occasionally holds flooded timber. On the way, we saw two gorgeous Nerodia Sipedon hanging out in the spillway of a water control gate.

A little further down, just before the river, we hopped in through the hedge and popped out on an agricultural road. Saw a fair amount of deer activity in the area, with a huge corn field to my left. There were a number of great spots to hang a tree stand. We hiked down the road about a mile and popped into some seriously flooded timber and then followed the dogs pretty far into -at times waste deep water - till we hit a flowing flooded stream. The state usually keeps this area dry most of the summer in order to let vegetation grow, and then dams it up so it floods for duck habitat. This was prime prime duck habitat and will be a fantastic place to hunt this winter. At one point, the dogs flushed (is that the word) a slew of wood ducks.

On the way out, we saw a hawk take down a dove in mid air and stumbled upon the remains of another dove (feathers on the ground and in the trees) that met its maker.

Here’s some info for folks interested in cleaning Doves quick and easy

Speaking of buying a hunting license, well, the prices in Virginia are still outrageous.

Resident State Hunting $18.00
Resident Bear, Deer, & Turkey $18.00
Resident Muzzleloader $18.00
National Forest Permit $4.00
Migratory Waterfowl Conservation Stamp $10.00
Contribute $2.00 to Hunters for the Hungry $2.00
Total Fee $70.00

Since its still early, and I’m not hunting deer for another 2 months, I opted to just get the Resident State Hunting license, the National Forest Permit, and thethe Migratory Waterfowl stamp (I also picked up a federal stamp).

Once deer season rolls around, I’ll add the others.

So I was thinking, since it looks like Gov. Palin is going to miss at least the early part of this years hunting season (actually, I have no idea when it goes up in Alaska), I should blog mine. And, I get the double benefit of also getting to shill a little for Sportsmen for McCain/Palin (of which I have a role, but thats as much as I’m disclosing about myself) and continue the dog training blogging.

And so, today, labor day September 1 was the start here in Virginia of Dove Season. And a less than glorious start it was.

To start with, I got back from the beach last night at 1:00 am. Woke up at the crack of dawn this morning, and unpacked the cars. Rushing and racing, hoping to get out early so I can run down and pick up the dog and get out with him and the trainer. The only problem was - threefold.

First, for some dumb reason Virginia doesn’t allow you to shoot doves during the early part of the season before noon.

# Season Dates:

* September 1 - September 27
* October 4 - October 31
* December 27 - January 10

# Bag Limit: 15 daily and 30 in possession
# Shooting Hours: Noon until sunset in first segment, ½ hr before sunrise until sunset in last 2 segments.

WTF???????? Today, it was about 90 degrees at noon. There were no doves flying about. If they are going to impose a stupid restriction on hunting till mid afternoon - do it in December, or October, when its cooler.

Second, rushing down I realized I hadn’t gotten my license yet. No problem, I drive right by Gander Mountain. Rush in, grab some ammo, head to the counter and . . . . . VADGIF computer system has crashed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Gander’s computers can’t log in and get me a license. Holy crap!?!?!? Well, no fear I continue on and stop at the general store near the dog trainers, and low and behold I get my license at 12:50pm.

Three, get to the trainers, and we are out in the field by 1:45. Its hotter than the hinges of hell, and my poor black puppy dog isn’t taking the heat well. He’s quartering the field, heck he flushed a couple of quail (not in season) but by the time we worked the field a full 3/4 miles he’s clearly a little overheated. So we rest under a tree, and then work back to the creek and let him swim and discuss dogs and life and where his training will go.

Doug, the trainer, has some sage advice. He’s a great dog. He’s a smart dog. He’s an energetic dog. He’s still a puppy. Don’t train him at all. Give him a break, don’t press him this week. Get him out next Saturday and shoot some doves over him. Make it fun. Don’t overwork him. He’s gone through training, now its time to play the game. At this point, he thinks the best training for the dog is to get him in the field and have him

We also talked about future hunts for this season. He thinks Rex is big enough and certainly trained enough, to start in on the early goose season. He referred me to a local guy who went out and got 10 geese this morning and was asking him if he knew someone with a dog. Hoping this one works out.

He also referred me to someone who has a hunting preserve - both for Sportsmen for McCain purposes as well as someone who is much closer to me (Doug is about 2 1/2 hours away, this other guy is 40 minutes away) and has a hunting preserve. He said that he’s always looking for guides with dogs to take his clients out - and suggested I think about bringing Rex over and getting lots of experience by helping to guide on the weekends with him this winter. Pay is in tips, and having been to a shooting preserve before, those tips might very well be high enough to pay for most of my hunting this year (well, local stuff, not the trip to South Dakota or Missouri). We also talked some about getting pheasants and bringing Rex back down to run on those with Dog’s dog later in the fall when the weather gets better. Oh yeah, and I can hunt deer on his land . . . . sweat!!!

So, all in all, it was a great day (any day in the field is) even though I returned empty handed.

Nothing better . . . . got to love the sea trout

Summertime Baked Lemon Trout

4 whole fresh Trout
2 cups bread crumbs
2 cups Chardonnay
1 lemon
4 scallions
1/4 cup minced yellow onion
minced garlic (to taste)
butter

Clean and gut fish
Mince scallions and onion, mix together with breadcrumbs in a bowl
Coat baking tray with butter (use tray large enough to hold all fish)
Cover bottom with minced garlic (to taste)
Open up body of fish and place slices of lemmon
Place fish, side by side, in pan
Place small chunks of butter on each fish (to taste)
Pour wine over fish into pan
Squeeze juice of 1 lemon into pan over fish
Cover fish with mixture of breadcrums, onion and scallions
Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes

Enjoy!!

As we sit here waiting for Hurricane Fay to hit.

I made three visits down to the trainer this week, Last Saturday’s was not very productive, thanks VDOT, but I was determined to work with the dog. I found time to do that on Tuesday, and left the office early to make the drive down. We spent about 2 hours with him.

Rex is coming along nicely. He’s turning into not only an incredibly intelligent lab but a picture perfect lab - with the height and dimensions of an American field dog and the gorgeous blocky lines of an English show dog. Jack Jagoda and the folks at Deep Run really know how to bring out the best in a litter of pups. My trainer, who has a gorgeous black lab puppy 1 week older than Rex has consistently called Rex smarter and better looking than his dog: a perfect lab.

We’ll see if I can turn this terrific foundation into a field champion and hunting master.

Anyway, on Tuesday we took out 3 dogs - Rex, the trainers black lab pup Dylan, and his 3 year old German wirehaired retriever who’s name I forget (Sandy??) and worked on double inbound retrieves.

We would switch each dog off to work the retrieve, with the other two staked out to the left and right. This worked to train the dogs both to be obedient until it was their turn as well as to get the dogs generally excited but able to maintain discipline.

Trainer went out about 30 yards and blew the duck call, then threw dummies to the right and left. On my command (and we worked on both my command and my signalling) we would send dogs out IN A STRAIGHT LINE to retrieve dummy and immediatly return it to hand and then come to a heel/sit position for direction for the next retrieve. Dogs had this down cold, but it took some work with me to get my motions and direction down. We discussed pack theory some, and how dogs learn/respond and take command in wild (and his experience training wolves compared to training coyotes) and how that relates to my role as team leader. We also worked on the form of my hand signals and my presentation to the dog, as well as little things like clearly demarking for him the difference between work and play (attention/at ease).

Yesterday, I woke up at 4:00 am, packed the car (was heading down to the Georgia coast for vacation) and was on the road by 4:30 to meet the trainer. Hit traffic, at 5:00 am, on I95 in Stafford (VDOT’s 511 traffic info called it “congestion from volume,” they had closed 3 lanes and an exit down for construction/re-paving”), and made it to the trainers just before 7:00 am.

Had another client there (with an english pointer) and Doug anounced that he saw the quail moving and wanted to get the dogs on em quick. We immeditly let the dogs out - Rex, Dylan, the german wirehair, the english pointer, and a springer spaniel. Had them quarter the field, crossed a stream, and drove the quail into a thick brush. Dogs then rouded up the birds, got real birdy, and started to flush them directly at us one at a time on Dougs command.

Nothing as pretty as a covey of quail launching. Really, all the upland game birds are gorgeous on take off.

Afterward, we went back up to the kennel, put a bunch of pigeons out in traps in the brush, and then worked the dogs on them, releasing and shooting them, and sending dogs out one at a time to retrieve.

Very good day, worked the pups hard, and was back on the road by 9:30 am (finally made it down to Georgia at 5:30 pm).

I’m supposed to go Dove Hunting September 6th at Remington Whistling Wings with the Safari Club.

Get in to work this morning, and I find out that I’m being called to visit with someone down in Oklahoma on September 5 and 6 for a two day Dove hunt in Southwestern Oklahoma.

Well, there is something fundamentally wrong with the road system in Virginia. Somewhere, someone, screwed up in a tremendous way, and frankly I doubt this state will ever be able to fix what is wrong. And no, simply throwing money at Northern Virginia isn’t the solution - in fact, the idiots at VDOT have shown time and again that more money only leads to more ill considered worthless projects.

No, things need to be peeled back - and the entire morass needs to be examined and perhaps, if possible, ripped up and started all over.

Case in point:

I was supposed to do three things on Saturday. I was going to head down to meet my trainer and work with the dog. Then, I was going to head over to Richmond to the Virginia Sportsman’s Show - I had free tickets compliments of the Roanoke Times. Then, we were gonna race back up to NoVA and shoot some skeet.

We had it timed out right, but then we hit the Virginia road system.

Dog Training
Told the trainer, I’d be there at 10:30 with my buddy. We were gonna work the dog a couple of hours in the field . . . shooting some birds over him and working on different retrieving scenarios. I left, for the hour and 45 minute drive, at 8:30. No traffic at all, till I got to I-95 - and then just sat. And crawled. Finally making it to Fredericksburg at 10:30 and not getting down to his place till noon. Where I got to spend all of 15 minutes with him because I was so damn late.

Sportsman Show
We then left, drove on I64 over to Richmond. No problems here, and the sportsman show was neat. Great, impressive, buck collection. Someone clearly has better property to hunt than I do. Saw lots of neat hunting gadgets, almost bought a couple of duck calls, and got to speak with some hunting guides. All in all, it would have been worthwhile, except I was so ticked off about not getting to train with the dog it just ruined the whole experience for me.

Skeet Shooting
We raced on out of the Sportsman Show by 2:00pm, with what should have been a 90 minute drive on a lazy Saturday afternoon to get to shoot skeet. Heh. By 3:30 we had traveled 30 miles and reached Fredericksburg, where I tried to hop on VA17 to save time - and went 3 miles in 1 hour - before bailing and hopping back on 95. In another hour we moved another 25 miles and I was able to hop on VA 234 to cut across over to Mannassas. By then, it was nearly 6 and having sat in a car for 8 hours already it was too late to do much skeet shooting - so we hopped on I66 - and sat for another hour, not getting home till 7:30.

Thanks Virginia, For Ruining My Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday
I made up for it Sunday.

Started the day looking at canoes. I think I found a great one - I’ll be testing it out tonight to see if I want to buy it. Its an Old Town Duck Hunter - about an 18 year old canoe - thats perfect for hunting as well as for trips down the river with the family.

From there, I threw my kayak in the Potomac at Pennyfield lock. It was a gorgeous ride.

I paddled up into the islands and explored them a bit, taking coordinates on my GPS and checking out how they had eroded since last duck season. Your not allowed to built permanent blinds on them, but we constructed a series of makeshift blinds with deadfalls, etc. last season that survived most of the winter. Unfortunatly, it doesn’t look like any survived the spring floods. Whats more, there was a fair bit of erosion going on, and some new channels opened up.

I ran into this guy right in front of one of our old blinds.

I also got out and did a bit of scouting in one of the areas I go deer hunting. The corn didn’t look so good, but they had a real healthy crop of beans. It should be a good season!

Getting ready for shotgunning season around here. Doves and Resident Goose open up Labor Day weekend, Teal is September 15. Dogs back down to training this week for a month, while I’ll be stepping up the skeet shooting in preparation.

This was played once, in an acoustic set on 12 July 1970, and is also on Pigpen’s “home tapes” (which is where the lyrics below are taken from).

Bring Me My Shotgun
Words and Music by Lightnin’ Hopkins

Go, bring me my shotgun, bring me back some shells
Why don’t you just bring me my shotgun
Bring me back about a pocket full of shells
Well you know if I don’t get myself a little competition
You know there’s gonna be some trouble ’round here

Well you know my mama told me, when I left my door
She said, “you gonna have bad luck, son, don’t care where you go”
So why don’t you bring me my shotgun
Bring me back a pocket full of shells
Well you know if I don’t get myself a little competition
You know there’s gonna be some trouble ’round here

Early in the morning when the sun gonna rise
She’s laying there rolling them old bloodshot eyes
In the morning bring me my shotgun
Well, I can stand any mess for a while
But I can’t stand it for very long

Woke up this morning
Found out some [jack strap?] had gone took my room
Woke up this morning
Found out some [jack strap?] had gone took my room
Yeah you know he took along with it my woman
That [jack strap?] going to meet his doom

That’s why I say bring me my shotgun, boy
I want you to bring me back some shells
I said why don’t you bring me my shotgun
Bring me back a pocket full of shells
You know if I don’t get myself some good competition
There’s gonna be some trouble ’round her

I posted about him playing with the Second Amendments the other night. Most of the press, and attention to him, focused on his role as the touring keyboardist for the Rolling Stones. Of course, he was pretty damn rocking long before that . . . coming on originally for the Brothers and Sister’s album taking the place (on piano) of the departed Duane Allman in the Allman Brothers. Here he is talking about how they came up with Jessica from that album

Of course, one could argue (one will argue) that from an American perspective, Jessica is really why Rock and Roll was invented.

Lyrics?? Who needs lyrics. This is the Allman Brothers were talking about!!!

Of course, there is a second part to this post . . . .and thats to quote this NY Times article on Chuck and how he incorporates hunting as an active part of the management of his land.

For Mr. Leavell, hunting is an integral part of responsible land stewardship. Voracious herds of deer need constant thinning, and hunters, like tree huggers, he points out, are important allies in the battle for land preservation.

Stick that in a hippy Vegan the next time they attack you for hunting.

Spent 9 hours yesterday fishing the Upper Potomac - spent about 7 of them standing in the water in the waist deep water.

Exhausted, sore, sun burnt, loving life.

Todays promised posts will be delayed.