I've had a tough rabbit season this year, I think my best rabbit-shooting years are behind me. I've know it would happen, because we do grow old in spite of our best intentions, and reflexes aren't forever. I did finally manage to collect one, today, and it turned out to be a sort of special hunt. Last day of our season, and I was badly wanting one to add to the list of game taken with cedar bark wadding without waiting a year.
I've been experimenting with shredded cedar bark for wadding, and the idea that it can be gathered in the wild seemed an interesting one, so I went on the hunt without wadding of any sort. Not a trivial thing, because the farm is 30 miles from my supply of Circle Fly wads. Once I got to the farm I found a big cedar and peeled some bark, shredded it to load with.
I was carrying my Phillips double flint 20 gauge and loaded both barrels with 70 gr. 2F Goex and equal volume of #6 shot, using the collected bark as wadding. I busted briars for a couple of hours, moved a couple of rabbits, but had no shot. I hiked back to the car for a lunch break and a rest, that's hard work. When I was a kid hunting rabbits we usually stopped by a country store and bought a sandwich for lunch, frequently bologna on white bread with yellow mustard, and a strawberry Nehi. That's a pleasant memory of good times, so I stopped by a local country general store and got one just like it, today. Boy, they still taste good!!
In the afternoon I hit it again. I moved a bunny and missed a snap shot at it, wasn't much surprised. A couple more were too much buried in the trash and too quick for me, they disappeared before I could get on them. But, as they say, fortune favors the foolish, so my turn finally came. I bumped one and it made the mistake of circling to the left and running in the clear for a couple of seconds and I busted it fair, a fast crossing shot at more than 20 yards. That felt good.
I shot my first rabbit at the age of 14 in 1947, using a full-choke 20 gauge, bolt-action Sears and Roebuck shotgun with the nasty habit of occasionally firing when the bolt was closed. I shot my last one at 1400 this afternoon, using a 20 gauge muzzle loading double-barrel flint shotgun. Good memories, both.
Spence
I've been experimenting with shredded cedar bark for wadding, and the idea that it can be gathered in the wild seemed an interesting one, so I went on the hunt without wadding of any sort. Not a trivial thing, because the farm is 30 miles from my supply of Circle Fly wads. Once I got to the farm I found a big cedar and peeled some bark, shredded it to load with.
I was carrying my Phillips double flint 20 gauge and loaded both barrels with 70 gr. 2F Goex and equal volume of #6 shot, using the collected bark as wadding. I busted briars for a couple of hours, moved a couple of rabbits, but had no shot. I hiked back to the car for a lunch break and a rest, that's hard work. When I was a kid hunting rabbits we usually stopped by a country store and bought a sandwich for lunch, frequently bologna on white bread with yellow mustard, and a strawberry Nehi. That's a pleasant memory of good times, so I stopped by a local country general store and got one just like it, today. Boy, they still taste good!!
In the afternoon I hit it again. I moved a bunny and missed a snap shot at it, wasn't much surprised. A couple more were too much buried in the trash and too quick for me, they disappeared before I could get on them. But, as they say, fortune favors the foolish, so my turn finally came. I bumped one and it made the mistake of circling to the left and running in the clear for a couple of seconds and I busted it fair, a fast crossing shot at more than 20 yards. That felt good.
I shot my first rabbit at the age of 14 in 1947, using a full-choke 20 gauge, bolt-action Sears and Roebuck shotgun with the nasty habit of occasionally firing when the bolt was closed. I shot my last one at 1400 this afternoon, using a 20 gauge muzzle loading double-barrel flint shotgun. Good memories, both.
Spence
