I'm Just One Good Excuse Away from a New Shotgun

     As summer gets long in the tooth and humid days give way to cool nights with the smell of approaching fall in the air, my thoughts turn to adding to my modest gun collection. I begin leaving Gun Digest books around the house, and the "Favorites" space on our computer becomes populated with the websites of firearms manufacturers.

     How fortuitous, then, that the Federal Government decided earlier this year that my wife, Lori, and I were eligible for an "economic incentive" payment. Like many, I questioned the wisdom of stimulating our country's economy by going further into debt. However, while I have done some dumb things in my life, refusing free money has never been one of them.

     For many sportsmen, the chief obstacle to acquiring a new firearm is the considerable veto power of a spouse. Lori has never been that way.

     "If you need a new gun, why don't you buy one?" she told me this summer. "You can use the money from the government."

     Of course, I returned her generosity. Marriage, as they say, is about give-and-take. For example, Lori advised me last week that she had not bought a new pair of shoes in ten years and was forced to go barefoot.

     I allotted her $10. I am not an unfeeling soul.

     For years, I've lusted after a 20-gauge side-by-side to tote to my favorite grouse coverts. But I haven't been able to pull the trigger, so to speak, because I don't live in partridge country and don't get after the brown rockets all that often.

     In my neck of the woods, the primary game bird available when fall fishing and deer hunting is over is...the common crow.

     Nobody ever waxes nostalgic about fine crow guns.

     Perhaps I'll be the first. I could order a trim Best Gun from the Basque Country of Spain. Inlaid in gold on the receiver would be a delicate scene depicting a brace of crows tearing into curb-side trash bags.

     Of course, here in the real world, there are three obstacles to me acquiring a new upland gun. First is the fact that a good side-by-side is expensive.

     Second is the fact that they are overwhelmingly made in foreign lands.

     People in Turkey and Italy need to make a living, too, but I can't justify propping up the economies of those countries with a payment meant to support ours. Third-- and this is a mental defect on my part-- a new 20-gauge doesn't fill a significant niche which needs filling.

     The last gun I bought-- a Marlin .22 semiautomatic rifle-- filled a niche. For several years, I participated in a rabbit-hunting tournament based out of a tavern in Monroe. The first year I was invited, I showed up with a Marlin 39A lever gun. My fellow bunny chasers looked at me as if I was from outer space. The rifle was far too slow with repeat shots on speeding cottontails.

     The next winter, I took along a .22 target pistol. Wyatt Earp I'm not. Those bunnies are fast.

     Finally, last winter, I achieved success with the Marlin semi-auto. It was fast and reliable in the cold as we waded through briars in search of rabbits.

     Sadly, this past summer, the bar which hosted the tournament burned down. Now I have the perfect gun in my cabinet for a niche which no longer exists.

     My friend, John, is not troubled by the idea that a gun must fill a niche to be bought. For years, he collected Remington Model 700 rifles-- two in each caliber.

     I can understand that. I'm a Remington fan, and have a Model 700 myself.

     John's problem-- in addition to gun-induced poverty-- is that he is extremely susceptible to advertising shown on hunting programs.

     He is currently enamored with the Thompson-Center Encore rifles that are so common on hunting shows today, and now all those Model 700's will simply become rudimentary tools to him, not even good enough to scrape ice off of a sidewalk.

     Of course, the same fate will befall the Encore when a new rifle comes along. Then, John might only look on his Encores with a slightly wistful eye-- such as you might a former girlfriend who was nice enough, but "not quite marrying material."

     Perhaps I'll buy a pistol-- made in the USA, of course.

     My brother Craig and I, along with our friends Gregg and Cary, make an annual trip to Fountain City. Shooting is our main activity, and a new pistol would be a nice addition to the shotguns and clay targets we bring along.

     In regard to the trip, Cary possesses what men would term an innocent sense of adventure. Cary's wife, Ellen, would use the words "questionable judgment."

     Before Cary left to join us this February, Ellen kissed him at the door.

     "Have fun," she said. "Be safe, and DON"T DO ANYTHING STUPID."

     And so a Saturday morning found us looking out a farmhouse window at a snowy landscape while we drank coffee and anticipated the day's shooting.

     "I wonder if my truck can make it all the way down the valley and back," Cary wondered aloud, before thinking better of it.

     He wondered again and again, until finally, he raced outside to his truck that evening as we cheered him on.

     We watched his taillights shrink into the night, until they stopped, remained motionless for an hour, and winked out.

     Cary clomped into the kitchen after his long walk back.

     "I'm stuck," he said.

     "But I just need a little push," he added, in perhaps the greatest understatement of all time.

     Now, four-wheel-drive is a useful tool. But for it to be effective, a truck's wheels cannot be prevented from touching the ground by six feet of drifted snow.

     The next morning, as we shoveled and shoveled and shoveled, I gasped, "Cary, what did Ellen say to you before you left?"

     "Don't do anything stupid," he grinned.

     Speaking of stupid, I guess buying a new gun probably falls into that category. Our house has been sporadically maintained since it was built in 1940, and there is no shortage of improvements to throw money at. Lori and I charged a new stove, and will probably be better served by using our economy-improving incentive to pay for it.

     So, no new gun for me.

     That's alright. I don't mind.

     Having an oven that lets you know when it's pre-heated is so much better than swinging a nice, light 20-gauge at ruffed grouse or clays on high-house Station 8.

     Yeah... I didn't think you'd buy that.

Apocalypse Now: When Even the Sheepshead Won't Bite

     I'm ready. And I expect you are too-- ready to feel a warm breeze on your face and to feel line slip through your fingers as a fish takes the bait.

     The fishing opener might not be as big of a deal as opening day of gun-deer season-- because fishing season lasts so much longer-- but it's close.

     Part of the reason it's so exciting is that we're enduring another long winter. Of course, I'm not referring to first-ice, fresh-snow-on-the-evergreens winter, with deer season just concluded and venison in the freezer. I mean the mid-February kind of winter, where you sit on the ice all day for a wind-flag on the tip-ups and a perch you could read a newspaper through. It's leave-for-work-in-the-dark and come-home-in-the-dark winter-- the kind where you kick at the frozen slush clods clinging to your vehicle and break a toe, thus ruining the weekend's planned rabbit hunt.

     I get through winters like a lot of outdoorsmen-- with a little ice-fishing and a little rabbit hunting. And, of course, I watch fishing shows on television. You know the kind-- walleyes the size of spaniels are the norm on every cast, motors never conk out, and nobody ever botches a net job with the fish of a lifetime on a buddy's line and then has to endure the long drive home with that fact sitting cold between them like a marital infidelity.

     When I tire-- usually quickly-- of watching fishing shows, I pull out my fishing journals. I've kept them since I was a kid. It's fun to relive memories, whether of ancient times or the season just past.

     A highlight of last season was a particular trip to Port Washington, a location my wife, Lori, calls my "Happy Place." On the day in question, I caught a huge brown trout shortly after arriving-- a great start to the day.

     Things got worse in a hurry, though, when Lori arrived and I had to explain that I'd blown the week's budget on a $54 electronic scale and a visit to the taxidermist. Happy Place, indeed.

     Older journal entries take me farther back, to Menasha, where I grew up a few blocks from Lake Winnebago. I was obsessed with fish then, same as now, and spent every available moment on the water.

     Looking back, it was a kind of paradise. Apologies to my hometown-- it was a wonderful place to grow up, and I'm sure it still is-- but I believe that's the first time anyone has ever used the words "Menasha" and "paradise" in the same paragraph.

     It was impossible to get skunked, or at least it seems that way to me now. If the walleyes wouldn't cooperate, then the smallmouths would. If the bronzebacks didn't bite, there were always white bass. If the white bass weren't willing, there was always the lowly sheepshead. If the sheepshead weren't biting, though, then you had best get your spiritual affairs in order, because that is the first sign of the impending apocalypse.

     Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to a trip I made to Lake Winnebago last summer.

     "Should be a sure thing," I told my co-workers. "After all, I grew up there, and even if conditions are a little tough, well, I am an extremely talented fisherman."

     I didn't actually say the last part, but I certainly felt it. Hey, I thought. I'll ask my dad if he wants to go. Ya know, it would be kind of a nice thing to take the old man out, fill his freezer with walleye fillets, and just generally repay him in some small way for being such a great father over the years. On top of being an extremely talented fisherman, I'm also a genuinely giving soul.

     The night before our trip, I packed an arsenal of equipment into my boat. I neglected nothing. Heck, I even replaced a trailer tire that was looking worn. In addition to being an extremely talented fisherman and a genuinely giving soul, I'm also exceptionally well-organized.

     I hit the road under a sky filled with bright, crisp stars, or at least stars which were bright and crisp once I left Madison and they were no longer so tightly regulated.

     I enjoyed the time to myself. I sipped coffee to the hum of the radials, and listened to the o-dark-thirty radio themes of spiritual salvation and home hairball remedies.

     In Fond du Lac, the sky began to split with lightning, and as I drove through the little towns of Pipe, Calumetville and Quinney, I looked to the west and saw dawn breaking over a lake pounding with waves.

     O.K., I thought to myself, this is a little tough. I downgraded my assessment of the day's possibilities to maybe four walleyes apiece instead of the full bag.

     Dad looked skeptical at the door when I rang the bell, with the Weather Channel screen sprawling like a green amoeba behind him, but we headed to the launch once the sirens abated and the last barnyard animal had cleared the roof.

     In the water at last, I pulled the starter cord on my 9.9 outboard and it roared (well, popped) to life-- and promptly quit.

     You know that little hose at the back of an outboard that squirts the water out after it has cooled the engine? Apparently it's crucial that the hose be outside of the motor, and not inside of it.

     My father, who built a houseboat in our backyard in his early 30's, quickly figured that one out. His son, who at almost 40 is reasonably adept with a mechanical pencil, did not.

     As we cleared the High Cliff harbor and headed south toward Stockbridge, the wind had abated somewhat. However, it was at this point that I admitted to myself that while I was familiar with the west side of the lake-- or, more specifically, with a tiny section adjacent to where I grew up-- I didn't know a darned thing about the east shore.

     "All right," I said to the fishing deities. "I'll make you a deal. Two walleyes apiece. They don't have to be huge, you understand. Then, maybe throw in a jumbo perch and an undersized bass and we'll call it a day."

     We trolled and we jigged. We casted and we drifted, until at last, the extremely talented fisherman and his father called it quits and headed back to shore.

     Final score?

     Me?

     Do I have to come right out and say it?

     Dad?

     One sheepshead.

     Apocalypse narrowly averted, and another notch in the belt of Boy Genius.