Post by cambygsp on Sept 19, 2005 5:41:36 GMT -5
www.wellsvilledaily.com/articles/2005/09/16/outdoors/outdoors00.txt
Evolving equipment changes for deer hunters in the Southern Tier
In the Outdoors with Oak Duke
And the rules have changed again.
Maybe deer hunting has always been an evolving sport.
Sure seems like that's been the case when we look back over our shoulders at that long, winding trail.
Some of us believe in our hearts that hunting should always be the same, a place where traditions are honored and upheld.
The traditions of hunting in the deer woods that we grew up with here in the Southern Tier of New York has changed in spurts and gasps, and then has had long periods of relative calm.
And we can chronicle change by reflecting back on our favorite guns and bows that we carried.
We are facing two big changes this year, the Saturday opener instead of Monday and center-fire rifles instead of slug-tossing shotguns in some Southern Tier and Central New York counties.
Maybe we want to hold on to our traditions partly because human beings don't like to change.
There seems to be so much change in an ever-increasing faster-paced world. Going in the outdoors, gives us a breather from it.
Most of us enjoy and find meaning in gearing up for a hunt. It's a ritual. Some of our equipment has a lot of memories, especially our top piece of equipment, the guns and bows.
But over the years, we've put them up, on the rack or in the cabinet, one by one.
Change.
Many hunters today probably can't believe that my first deer, a four-point buck was taken with my Dad's old double-barrel shotgun. The old side-by-side is a Lefever, a 16-gauge, modified and and full choke. Designed for shooting woodcock and grouse, the only sight is a brass BB.
And then almost 10 years later, in 1974, I got the deer gun that's been carried up through last year - a Browning "humpback" A5. The blue is worn off the bottom of the receiver from use.
Now the old "humpy" is going to stand next to the old Lefever double, replaced by a centerfire rifle.
My Pennsylvania deer rifle, a Remington 700, .30-06 is going to replace the shotgun.
And that's a big change, more like back in late 1970s during bow season.
Now that was Change.
Maybe change seems a lot when it means a lot.
Back in the early 1970s there were no compound bows at archery shops. Recurves. We all shot recurves. Took my first bow buck in 1971 with a Bear Kodiak Magnum recurve. Won the big buck contest with him. Still have the first-place prize - a knife.
Then one day a buddy of mine brought in the weirdest, darned contraption I'd ever seen - had wires and pulleys and was called a compound bow. Shot arrows very well, but was heavy as a leaf-spring and ugly as a possum.
But the compound bow caught on like wildfire and despite all the pronouncements that "they ain't a real bow," most recurves were put up and only the most recalcitrant, dyed-in-the-wool traditionalists continued to carry "stick bows."
So this deer hunter felt impelled to go the other way and get a long bow, a 70-pound Howard Hill longbow made of the finest bamboo (like a fine old bamboo fly rod, remember those? Now fine fly rods are graphite.) Change? Not only hunting but fishing too.
By the mid-1980s, nobody in this neck of the woods was still hunting with a bare bow (no sights,) let alone a long bow. Anyways, the "Big Five" bamboo long bow was very effective and tapped a lot of whitetails, some of which were mounters. Handmade arrows fletched with Spring gobbler wing feathers seemed only fitting and right.
But by the mid-1990s, it was time to change and buy a compound bow. Right shoulder was wearing out. Good thing we've got two.
The Howard Hill long bow is next to the Lefever shotgun now. The deadly efficiency of the compound bow, shot left-handed, was evident immediately from here to Africa.
So now we are going through another change and for many of us, the shotguns will be replaced with rifles.
Hunters have been changing since the first man replaced his sharpened stick with one fitted with a knapped flint pebble.
Wonder if he felt more than a little twinge of nostalgia too?
(Oak Duke, publisher of the Wellsville Daily Reporter, writes a weekly column, In The Outdoors appearing Monday's in the newspaper. He can be reached at oduke51895@aol.com)
Evolving equipment changes for deer hunters in the Southern Tier
In the Outdoors with Oak Duke
And the rules have changed again.
Maybe deer hunting has always been an evolving sport.
Sure seems like that's been the case when we look back over our shoulders at that long, winding trail.
Some of us believe in our hearts that hunting should always be the same, a place where traditions are honored and upheld.
The traditions of hunting in the deer woods that we grew up with here in the Southern Tier of New York has changed in spurts and gasps, and then has had long periods of relative calm.
And we can chronicle change by reflecting back on our favorite guns and bows that we carried.
We are facing two big changes this year, the Saturday opener instead of Monday and center-fire rifles instead of slug-tossing shotguns in some Southern Tier and Central New York counties.
Maybe we want to hold on to our traditions partly because human beings don't like to change.
There seems to be so much change in an ever-increasing faster-paced world. Going in the outdoors, gives us a breather from it.
Most of us enjoy and find meaning in gearing up for a hunt. It's a ritual. Some of our equipment has a lot of memories, especially our top piece of equipment, the guns and bows.
But over the years, we've put them up, on the rack or in the cabinet, one by one.
Change.
Many hunters today probably can't believe that my first deer, a four-point buck was taken with my Dad's old double-barrel shotgun. The old side-by-side is a Lefever, a 16-gauge, modified and and full choke. Designed for shooting woodcock and grouse, the only sight is a brass BB.
And then almost 10 years later, in 1974, I got the deer gun that's been carried up through last year - a Browning "humpback" A5. The blue is worn off the bottom of the receiver from use.
Now the old "humpy" is going to stand next to the old Lefever double, replaced by a centerfire rifle.
My Pennsylvania deer rifle, a Remington 700, .30-06 is going to replace the shotgun.
And that's a big change, more like back in late 1970s during bow season.
Now that was Change.
Maybe change seems a lot when it means a lot.
Back in the early 1970s there were no compound bows at archery shops. Recurves. We all shot recurves. Took my first bow buck in 1971 with a Bear Kodiak Magnum recurve. Won the big buck contest with him. Still have the first-place prize - a knife.
Then one day a buddy of mine brought in the weirdest, darned contraption I'd ever seen - had wires and pulleys and was called a compound bow. Shot arrows very well, but was heavy as a leaf-spring and ugly as a possum.
But the compound bow caught on like wildfire and despite all the pronouncements that "they ain't a real bow," most recurves were put up and only the most recalcitrant, dyed-in-the-wool traditionalists continued to carry "stick bows."
So this deer hunter felt impelled to go the other way and get a long bow, a 70-pound Howard Hill longbow made of the finest bamboo (like a fine old bamboo fly rod, remember those? Now fine fly rods are graphite.) Change? Not only hunting but fishing too.
By the mid-1980s, nobody in this neck of the woods was still hunting with a bare bow (no sights,) let alone a long bow. Anyways, the "Big Five" bamboo long bow was very effective and tapped a lot of whitetails, some of which were mounters. Handmade arrows fletched with Spring gobbler wing feathers seemed only fitting and right.
But by the mid-1990s, it was time to change and buy a compound bow. Right shoulder was wearing out. Good thing we've got two.
The Howard Hill long bow is next to the Lefever shotgun now. The deadly efficiency of the compound bow, shot left-handed, was evident immediately from here to Africa.
So now we are going through another change and for many of us, the shotguns will be replaced with rifles.
Hunters have been changing since the first man replaced his sharpened stick with one fitted with a knapped flint pebble.
Wonder if he felt more than a little twinge of nostalgia too?
(Oak Duke, publisher of the Wellsville Daily Reporter, writes a weekly column, In The Outdoors appearing Monday's in the newspaper. He can be reached at oduke51895@aol.com)
