TV shows and safety, a rant....

D

Dave McC

Staff In Memoriam
Although it might look more like a B!t@h and moan session...

I don't watch much "outdoor" stuff on TV, either it's infomercials or,uh, infomercials. I was flipping through the channels yesterday,tho and stopped when I saw a teaser about a southern quail hunt.

The show featured a fresh faced kid named Page who toted a fine looking Parker, and the dogs looked good, so I figured to while away a little time.I love to watch bird dogs work.

A few minutes in, the dogs locked on point,and the sports moved in to shoot. One guy was fast as heck, firing off a shot while the quail were only a couple of feet off the ground,and right over a dog's head! Another guy swung on a bird, and had to abort, because the shot would have gone very close to, or hit, a cameraman.

Now, angles reduced to the two dimensional world of TV can be deceptive, but this was unmistakeable.

And, there had been a blurb earlier, from this Page kid, about how one only loaded up when the dogs pointed, but these safety problems turned up anyway.

A couple of lessons to reiterate...

First, keep the muzzle of the weapon pointed in a safe direction ALL the time.

Second, when birding, KNOW exactly where all the members of the party and the dogs are at all times, and only take those shot opportunities that occur in YOUR segment of the area. If it's a possible for two of you, let the other guy have the shot. I'd rather not shoot than A, create a situation more risky than it has to be and,B, stimulate any actions where someone else figures they NEED to BEAT me to a shot.

If both of you do shoot, the next thing to say is,"Your bird" or "Good shot". Game hogs and unsafe shooters are egregious...

There's no bird on earth worth hurting a dog or even worse, a person.
 
Dave, I don't think you would get any arguments if you were to indiacte that those magnificent dogs are "worth" more than some people (we all know eho "they" are...).

But I digress. Another good post Dave. I've never really hunted with dogs but I also sure do enjoy some of those hunting shows when the dogs are "working". Very precise - and they love it to boot!

CMOS
 
Pop had a gift with bird dogs. He turned out some great ones, and formed a team that I would accompany but not contribute much to.

As for them being worth more than some people, don't get me started(G)....

"Beware of strong drink, it can make you shoot at tax collectors,and miss"-Heinlein....
 
I wish I could remeber the name of the hunter (he is in many videos). But I saw a hunting video that is usually shown at hunter saftey corses or firearm education courses some time ago. The guy wants to demonstrate the proper way to cross a fence or obstacle in the field so he leans his gun up against the fence, climbs over and picks up the gun by the barrel with the muzzle pointing (briefly) right at his face.
 
Good post, Dave.

When the dogs went on point, Dad and I would confer briefly and agree on who goes to which side, and then pick a landmark in front of us that we wouldn't swing past. It was also understood that you didn't break the one eighty to the outside, as the dog handler stayed behind us.
If you've got more than two people hunting, it is perhaps best to take turns walking up the coveys. It gets tricky trying to remember swing paths when you've got more than two shooters. Nobody wants to be the "inside" man.

Many a bird unknowingly saved their feathery arses by flushing toward us in the middle.....this was the "go fly, no shoot" zone.

What do you do about the one that flushes from right between your legs and flys almost straight up? Well, the first thing is to put on clean pants. Next, find a large, flat rock which you can use to pound on your chest to get your heart started again. Then, unload and put away the guns and consume several shots of bourbon.;);)
 
MJC, don't get me started. Someone gave me a video on adove hunt years ago that had the host talking to the camera about how safe his shooting blind was. In the middle of all this, he got sprinkled with small shot from another "hunter"
taking a low shot. He kept on as if nothing happened.

Richard, I recall on ehunt with Pop years ago where the dogs kept going on point as one of us were answering Nature's call. Busted one quail with my wanger out. Pop's classic comment,"If that's what it takes for you to hit them"(G)....
 
We used to hunt ringnecks at a Crown Vetch farm. In the field this stuff humps up into 3 foot tall tangles that the phesants would hunker into. Our Brittanys would obediently point out the occupied vetch pile and wait. Occasionally the birds would not leave their shubery and the dog would get impatient. On several occassions, on a late flush, our one dog would pogo up after the bird and pull it out of the air!

i always wait for the bird to clear the launch pad.

Pheasants are one thing in a close flush but one day i flushed a turkey at 5 feet while working a wood lot!

i thought a small heliocopter was attacking!

dZ
 
This is bringing back memories...

Pop and I were working the old Parlette place and we put up a rooster in some really thick briars on a cornfield edge. The bird actually brushed me going up. Pop couldn't shoot because I was too close,and I was scared and mad, a bad combo in a 15-17 year old boy. I snap shot that rooster with a high brass load of 6s, and if there were 250 pellets in that hull, about 249 of them went right up his wazoo. Distance wasn't 10 yards, maybe more like 10 feet. Ever see a ringneck explode?

As feathers settled down on the greenbriars and the dog looked in vain for something big enough to retrieve, Pop and I looked at each other and busted out laughing.
In some circumstances, words are not needed(G)....
 
Dave,

So, did you do like Pat McMannus and glue the few feathers to a board with a brass plaque reading "My First Pheasant...or what was left of him"?:)

Geez, dZ, a turkey flush at 5 feet? Though I've never experienced it, I can imagine that "attack by a small chopper" would be a fairly accurate description. Did you need new pants?;)
 
NAH, it wasn't my first, might have been my 40th. Pop and his dogs were oneheckuva team.

Maybe 15 years ago,took a shot at a deer but an intervening maple sapling took the slug,a Brenneke, and got cut off about brisket high on a deer. My hunting buddies,after a futile attempt to shorten my shirtail, mounted that maple to a plaque and presented it to me as a 39 pointer. I stood there and called them everything but upstanding, sober citizens...
 
Yup, that's bugged me too. Viewers forget that there's usually a person holding the camera. There's some show on TNN that typically starts and ends with the host shooting downrange - with the cameraman in front of the muzzle and just a few feet to the right of the shooter! $%#&!!!
 
yeah i remenber seeing a show where the host nearly shot the guide dog. the dog was a lttle to eager for a bird and jumped up the catch one :). i heard the guide screaming DON'T SHOOT! DON'T SHOOT! now it amazed me that guys where actully trying to shoot while the dog is in range of the shotgun. now i would hope everyone else would at least wait a few seconds until you shoot
 
That's American Shooter, Carl, and I've heard on another bb that they use two mirrors,and the cameraman is actually behind the shooter.
I know that on some of the trick shooting segments they use a remote camera, for those hitting a nickel at 200 yards with a snubbie shots, or the amazing shots of Byron Ferguson with his longbow.

Cowgunner, people do strange things when the birds launch, I recall one guy, a veteran trap shooter on his first quail hunt, who blasted the sky with one from a low gun position. He was man enough to admit he was wrong,and settled down nicely.

And, going by the number of folks who view this, safety's a major concern to lots of us. Great!! Now, let's get the word out to the rest.

And Happy Holidays...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top