Shotgun Lives

Combat to Clays: A Womanâs Journey

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:00:00 +0100

When I left the FBI Academy after sixteen weeks of training in 1986, I was covered in the most beautiful shades of purple, green, and yellow from my face to my collarbone, and down my bicep. The shotgun was too long, and my long neck and high cheekbones made it impossible to mount the gun properly to my shoulder while maintaining a proper sight picture (which is critical to defensive shotgun shooting). I lifted my face off the gun while shooting creating a horrible flinch, and all of the bad hab ...

Autumn Sounds

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:00:00 +0100

There are many sounds that I dislike in this world, one of them being the noisy dishwasher in my kitchen. My wife raising her voice, especially if my name is involved, is another. A blaring radio or television is not a very nice sound. You can add screeching brakes, a noisy muffler, air traffic, and jackhammers to that list, among other things. Sounds that I DO enjoy, and this may surprise you, include chainsaws! Â Chainsaws are manâs work and he is creating something to be used later in a qu ...

DJ and Me

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:13:30 +0100

âDo me a favor, Mrs. Lanier, and shut your left eye,â the instructor said. âMy left eye?â âYesâ he replied, âWhen you see the target clearly, shut your left eye and shoot.â After several misses in a row all I could think was yeah right. Obligingly I did what he asked and wham, the target exploded. âNow, just do the same thing for me again.â Wham, the second target broke. Wow, what do you know, two in a row! Me and my calm demeanorâ¦. âI hit them, I hit them, oh my God, I ...

Old Canvas Gunning Coat

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:00:02 +0100

Today is a rainy day and I canât quite decide on what to do. Like you, Iâve hunted ducks and geese, fished for stripers and blues, and dug quahogs and clams all in the rain. And just once, all three in the same day! But today is different. Iâm thinking of excuses for not going. Itâs cozy here by the fire. I can clean and oil the guns, wax the rods, or take an old toothbrush to some of the green gunk on my reels. Or I could start a new book, or finish an old one Iâve read a hundred tim ...

As Good As It Gets

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 05:00:00 +0100

Story and photos by Mike Childress Last Friday was atypical.Â I got an invitation from my brothers- and father-in-law to come out to the property and take my chances against clay pigeons thrown from the back of an old International Harvester pick-up. Itâs been a while since I shot clay birds.Â More than a little while actually, from the days my dad and I used to reserve our Sundays for the local trapshooting club.Â And, after a day of office work, it was a welcome change. After rummaging aro ...

Dark (Duck) Thoughts

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:01:49 +0100

I have a friend who is a contractor, who likes to hunt black ducks. He handles his downed birds with as much grace as a piece of scrap lumber. Not that he doesnât appreciate his birds, he does, and he is a simple, but effective cook. But as much as I enjoy gunning with him, he and I are two different animals, if you will. I hold my birds in utter awe - no, I donât mean that - I watch in utter awe, when any bird I have shot at falls from the sky. After making a retrieve that would fill most ...

Beat By a Girl

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:46:40 +0100

Elizabeth Lanier is taking some well-deserved time off. She invited Shotgun Life Editor, Deborah McKown, to contribute a guest column this month. Written by Deborah McKown If you try to learn the shotgun sports in mid-life, you go through different stages than when starting out as a youngster from a family of shooters. In the beginning, as a mature adult, you welcome and encourage all the direction you can get. Because after all, given your age, you really want to improve fast â making up f ...

Kim Rhode, Olympian Shooter: âNever Give Up.â

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:04:02 +0100

Wouldnât it be great if four-time Olympic shooting champ Kim Rhode finally appeared on a box of Wheaties? As legend has it, if it had been up to Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the National Rifle Association, Kim wouldâve been beaming her warm smile on the Breakfast of Champions back in 1996, when at age 16, as the youngest member of the U.S. Summer Olympic Team, she won her first Gold Medal for double trap. Even though Wheaties fame has eluded Kim, her star power has risen dra ...

Side By Side

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 05:00:00 +0100

I have always said that if God wanted me to shoot an over under, He would have made my eyes that way. Actually, it might have been my Dad who said that first. He was a straight-shooting Yankee and I assure you, both his eyes were side by side his whole life. Dad hunted with one double-gun for his ninety-two years. It was a second-hand, 12 Ga. Tobin that he bought from a market gunner named Lincoln, in Accord, Massachusetts, back in the 1930âs. I still have that old fowling piece, and even gunn ...

Passing the Baton: Part II

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 05:00:00 +0100

In the July issue of her Shotguns and She-nanigans column Elizabeth told us why she dropped off her two sons at the NRA Whittington Adventure Camp. Now in Part II of âPassing the Baton,â she tells us more about the camp and the benefits it providers to campers and their parents. As our sons boarded the plane headed to the NRA Whittington Adventure Camp with their best friend in tow, I first said a silent prayer that they would arrive safely, then could not help but smile and think, âLor ...

Passing the Baton

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:01:11 +0100

As I studied our two teenage boys standing in the kitchen not too long ago, I thought they bore a strong family resemblance but they could not possibly be related to me. While they were discussing an Ozzy Osborne song I could not help wondering which branch of the family tree they fell out of.Â Needless to say, during this ever glorious stage of adolescence, we view almost everything differently. They love heavy metal, electric guitars, video games and text messaging.Â We canât stand any o ...

Thoughts On Waterfowl

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:00:02 +0100

One day last season, another hunter and myself put up a flock of seven-hundred black duck as we cut across the bay. Thatâs one continuous flock, all at once, of seven-hundred birds. Earlier, that morning, we put up another flock of two-hundred black duck. This has been the norm for many years where we gun on the Massachusetts coast. According to the USFW, DU, and DW, the black duck is in decline. But from what I have seen in the past five years, you would never know it. The biologists tell us ...

Love, Shotguns and DIVAS

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:18:00 +0100

This is the third installment of our occasional series on DIVA, Women Outdoors Worldwide. While there are certainly plenty of women in the great state of Texas who own a gun, Cheryl Long is special among them. Thatâs because sheâs the current president of the organization, DIVA Women Outdoors Worldwide. DIVA is thoroughly dedicated to encouraging and mentoring women of all ages in the shooting sports.Â For more than 10 years through successful clinics for women and youth across the USA, t ...

Doug Oliver: The Keeper of the 16-Gauge Flame

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 07:05:16 +0100

Anyone who shoots a 16-gauge shotgun should send Doug Oliver a big cigar. As founder of the 16 Gauge Society, Doug has been keeper of the flame for a shotgun orphaned by the industry. Over the years marketing decisions within the shotgun industry have relegated the 16 gauge from the second-most popular shotgun to an icon of perfection among a small band of bird shooters. They marketed the smaller 20-gauge rival, despite the superior ballistics of the 16 gauge. At the same time, the 12 gauge ha ...

A New Office

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:46:46 +0100

I'm going to build myself a new office. One that is far away from the house, away from the kids, away from the wife - away from everything. But not too far. Just across the lawn at the edge of the woods. A place where I can think and write and dream all alone or with a special friend.I'm going to keep it pretty simple and put a little wood stove in the corner right over there. I'll add an old, leather couch against the far wall, and a couple of old, wooden chairs with lots of character, and an a ...

With Only the Clothes on Her Back: A Womanâs First Wingshooting Adventure in Argentina

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:37:41 +0100

Argentina. I could not believe it. My husband was taking me on my first wing shooting adventure. Granted, at this time I could not shoot my way out of a cardboard box, but it meant four days of "freedom" from the kids and four days of quality time with my husband. The adventure was about to begin.Â With all the duties of home carefully orchestrated, Owen and I went to meet the other 15 men we were going with. At the time I did not know whether their wives were not invited or maybe this was jus ...

Carving Out the Time

Mon, 04 May 2009 10:59:47 +0100

People often ask me how I find the time to shoot in the midst of a very hectic life raising three children, keeping up with the daily responsibilities of living on a farm, teaching and all the other domestic and civic duties we manage to get ourselves into. I'll tell you how, and more importantly why I make it a priority.It was the sheer enjoyment of shooting and the love of social interaction that led me to form a women's shooting group, the GRITS (Girls Really Into Shooting) about three years ...

A New Gun

Fri, 01 May 2009 11:08:06 +0100

Ladies, how about a new gun for theÂ old hunter?Â He may have a birthday coming up or maybe Father's Day, or maybe "justÂ because..."Â As you know,Â your hunterÂ has been trying very, very hard not to look at another new gun. But how can he look the other way for the millionth time when his favoriteÂ sporting magazines are jammed with all the latest beauties in steel and walnut!Â I'll bet he's been eyeing that Caesar Guerini for a while? Me, too. Gold inlaid pheasants, quail, woodcock...Drop de ...

How I Shot With the Stars

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:30:40 +0100

Most people agree that baseball is the all-American sport. But after spending three days in San Antonio, Texas at the National Shooting Complex, I would argue that the sport which best captures the heart and soul of the American spirit is skeet.Professional baseball has been battered by drug scandals, crass commercialism and outrageous salaries - giving a black eye to the American core values of fair play, self-determination and mutual respect.By contrast, tournament skeet remains firmly in the ...

The Shotgun Education of Miss Prisspot Chicken Doo

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:17:46 +0100

I will never forget the first time I saw one of my best friends take a shooting lesson. First let me tell you about her... picture this: nice pants, tank top with crocheted pullover, huge hoop earrings, high heel boots and blond hair poofed way up...Yep, that's how Sandy Nunnally showed up at her first lesson. To this day I still get a laugh out of it.Her son had convinced her that they needed to pheasant hunt as a family. That it would be fun. Again, this is a woman who used to run if a goat lo ...

The 3 Â½ Inch Magnum

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 18:41:06 +0100

I've been shooting waterfowl now, for over thirty years and have arrived at a few of my own conclusions. One of them being that the 3 Â½ inch magnum waterfowl load is a completely unnecessary American obsession.The 3 Â½ inch load punishes my shoulder, makes me flinch, causes my Browning Gold to jam, and does nothing that I cannot do with a standard 3 inch shell. Gene Hill said something to the effect that, if you can't reach what you are aiming for, find a way to get a little closer. I assure yo ...

Mississippi Duck Hunt â Battling Bad Weather and a Lack of Toothpaste

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:24:54 +0100

I'm not usually the kind of woman who hollers out to perfect strangers in public. But, my choices were continue lurking around a Memphis airport telephone booth or find out if the two women strolling by, one in a camouflage jacket, were my ride to Hunter's Paradise Lodge. "Hey, are you Shannon?" I blurted.The woman in the camo coat, who was pushing a cart piled high with pink luggage accented with white polka dots, turned around and said "You must be Tammy."Imagine my relief. I was lucky because ...

March

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:43:17 +0100

As I sit here at my desk, a heavy blanket of snow is falling outside my window. It is the month of March and the first day of spring is not far behind...March is a kind of "down time" of year for me, a time of putting things away. The hunting season is long over and the fishing season is still a ways off. The decoys - it is so hard to put them away for another year... But reluctantly, I take them one by one to their resting places in the basement. The plastic ones, anyway. The woods and the cork ...

Pheasant Phun

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:46:10 +0100

I was recently invited to go to South Dakota pheasant hunting, and what a trip it was. Kirstie Pike the President of Prois Hunting Apparel, Keli Van Cleave, and I went as Prois Hunting Apparel Pro Staff members and were treated to outstanding hospitality by the owners and staff of Pheasant Phun at the Olsen Ranch in Hitchcock, South Dakota. Dave Olsen is the proprietor and the head wrangler of the operation. Dave's mom, Annie, and his father, Art are some of the nicest people you will ever meet. ...

Jim and Bugsy: Against All Odds

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:34:55 +0100

In a riverfront honky-tonk deep in the South, the sliding doors open to the verandah, women sat on bar stools wistfully blowing cigarette smoke at the stars.It was the kind of forlorn place where a man could bring his bird dog and let it curl up on the floor between the stools, and you could never tell which one stunk worse - the man or the dog.Time was of no consequence in this place, here on the river, in the darkness, where the hours and minutes were marked by the bug zappers incinerating the ...

Meet the New Ladies Shooting Syndicate

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 03:07:16 +0100

A venue for traditional wingshooting will soon open, tailored specifically for women - and it's about time.Called the Ladies Shooting Syndicate, it's the brainchild of Blixt & Co. in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The Ladies Shooting Syndicate is by membership only. It organizes splendid shooting trips to luxurious destinations for like-minded women. In eff ...

My Afternoon With Olympian George Quigley

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:04:10 +0100

My Afternoon With Olympian George QuigleyWritten by Rick Robinson Author, part-time fisherman and lousy shotThe picture which the folks at Shotgun Life have used to introduce me to you ought to tell you something.Â All the people profiled in this fine publication are pictured holding their favorite shotguns.Â My profile picture has me holding up a beautiful l ...

SHOTGUNS and SHE-NANIGANS

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 05:00:00 +0100

For the most recent Q&A, please scroll to the bottom of Elizabethâs column... SHOTGUNS and SHE-NANIGANSA WOMAN'S APPROACH TO SHOOTING FOR FUN AND FRIENDSHIPWritten by Elizabeth Lanier Getting Started PULL - What can I say?Â It is my favorite four-letter word.Â Why, you might ask?Â Well, it's the word used to release a clay target, but what it really turns loose is more fun than you can possibly imagine.Â From the moment I step into a shooting box and put two she ...

Judy Rhodes Gets Women Out of the Mall and into the Hunt

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 05:00:00 +0100

There was a golden time in America when fresh-faced kids could routinely bring their guns to school, stash them in their locker with books and lunch boxes, and then after football practice all run out to a big field and shoot at rusty cans and elusive squirrels with their very own .22.As a girl growing up on a ranch in Texas, those days are still a living memory for Judy Rhodes - and it's her mission in this God-given life to share that boundless joy with other women today.Judy has been toting a ...

You do what... ?

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 13:25:59 +0100

She's a teacher, an artist, and a ballet aficionado originally from Brooklyn, New York--and an avid clay shooter!If this doesn't entirely add up, don't be surprised. Sometimes, even Bonnie Berniger herself wonders how she ended up becoming passionate about clays shooting."My friends can't understand how I can go from the arts to shooting," she says. "People from Brooklyn don't understand that shooting could be a sport. They associate a gun with crime. When I come into work happy after a weekend ...

Mister Big Bore

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 02:37:11 +0100

It started in a pizza and sandwich shop in South Philadelphia, and eventually led to one of the great finds in the world of big-bore collectors. Today, Bernie Liberati can legitimately claim he is the only man to own two consecutively numbered L.C. Smith 8-gauge shotguns -- a highly coveted find given that only 35 total were ever made. The achievement is ...

Breaking Clays in the Other Napa Valley

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 20:35:42 +0100

This article is the second part of Deborah McKown's four-part series on clays shooting in the San Francisco Bay area. Part I reveals a little-known skeet field inside city limits. Afterwards, Deb and friend Diane head to a nearby micro brewery with a stunning view of the Pacific Ocean. Now here is Part II...

The Corkells, Charlie & Chris

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 15:39:12 +0100
Chris Corkell leads the way into the gazebo of station six at Pintail Point. She's followed by her husband Charlie, instructor Wes Russum and their trapper, Kelly. The presentation is a report of outgoing crossers -- in a breeze coming off the Chesapeake Bay -- and Chris is up. After Kelly pulls the lookers, Chris pauses to take i ...

From the Visionary Who Brought You Benelli: The New Regionalism in Americaâs Shotgun Sports

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 15:33:17 +0100
In the back lots of Hollywood, when you say Jack, everyone knows you mean Jack Nicholson. In the shotgun industry, when you say Jack, everyone knows you're talking about Jack Muety. If you ever owned a Beretta, Benelli, Franchi, Stoeger or Blaser, Jack Muety has helped you find the right shotgun -- and made sure you enjoyed it. You would be hard-pressed to ...

Exposed: The Georgetown Trout & Gun Club

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 15:25:10 +0100
The phone rang and I got my assignment: track down the elusive chaps at the Georgetown Trout & Gun Club for a daring exposÃ© in Shotgun Life. Only in certain circles did the name Georgetown Trout & Gun Club ever bubble to the surface. It was the equivalent of the Order of Skull & Bones at Yale that counted presidents, spies and billion ...

My First Duck Hunt

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 21:49:04 +0100
by Hellen Lee-Keller, PhD.I got up early on a frosty winter morning to prepare for my first duck hunt ever. Sacramento can get pretty chilly in the morning. I packed my new camouflage bag with snacks, camera, money, ID, and all sorts of other goodies that Holly told me that I'd need for our day out. After getting all geared up, I kissed my hubby goodbye and headed out the door. Derek wore a bemused smile on his face as he watched his Los Angeles-bred wife march out the door carrying a camouflage ...

Women and Shotguns

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 21:48:07 +0100
Meet woman shotgun maker, Marty Fajen. After 27 years at stock-builder Reinhart Fajen, she knows what it takes to fit a shotgun to women. Thatâs why she started Tristar Sporting Arms in 1994. Her mission? Make shotguns specifically designed for the female anatomy.When she started Tristar, Marty researched Fajenâs records, culling the measurements collected for women clients. She came up with the size of the typical women shooter, and more importantly their unique differences from men. Women ...

Women Shooters

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 21:47:06 +0100
Youâve spoken, weâve listened, and now weâre here to champion your cause.On the skeet field, on the sporting clays course or out on a driven pheasant shoot, women say that men can be a real pain in the stock butt. Men either gush with gratuitous and contradictory advice, or they pretend that the women shooting next to them simply donât exist.And then thereâs the gun makers. When the heck are they going to wake up and make a shotgun for small-framed women that has a 13-inch length of pu ...

The Secret Passion of Anginette Jorrey

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 21:42:25 +0100
In her sexy black dress and four-inch stiletto heels, no one could have guessed her secret passion. But finally, she revealed it to a handful of men at a private party -- changing the course of her life forever. This story begins in January 2003 in a trendy section of Dallas. Anginette and her girlfriend hosted their annual soirÃ©e. The cocktails were chilled, the hors d'oeuvres extravagant and the guests straight from central casting of a smart Hepburn classic. The warm glow of the house agains ...

Ethics, Shotguns and a Man Made Whole

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 21:40:57 +0100
by Irwin GreensteinThe years passed in Colorado, he got married, had kids, and had not picked up a shotgun in nearly a decade. That wouldâve been around 1970. Now itâs 1996, and Michael Sabbeth vividly recalls that pivotal moment in the Denver suburb of North Cherry Creekâ¦âIâm in my law office, itâs lunch time and I get out and walk to a sandwich shop. Thatâs when I run into my frie ...

Alessandro

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 21:39:04 +0100
Was it because he used to cut class to go shooting? Was it because his father was a champion skeet shooter in the Army? Was it that darn Remington 1100 of his? He was shooting 100 straight in skeet -- and that was no fluke. His vest was covered with patches. Whatâs up with that kid, anyway?His Fatherâs Beretta Well, Alessandro credits his ...

You Must Be Kiddingâ¦ Skeet Shooting in San Francisco?

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 21:33:52 +0100
The prospect of a long, holiday weekend put me into action. I'd jump on a plane and head west to San Francisco -- catch up with friends and do a little skeet shooting.Skeet shooting in San Francisco?Â I know it sounds absurd, but the cradle of American counter-culture does in fact have one clays shooting facility right inside the city limits. Called the Pacific Rod and Gun Club, it's a time capsule from the 1930s, with the original clapboard clubhouse pristine under a grove of trees. The buildi ...

Shotgun Lives

Combat to Clays: A Womanâs Journey

Autumn Sounds

DJ and Me

Old Canvas Gunning Coat

As Good As It Gets

Dark (Duck) Thoughts

Beat By a Girl

Kim Rhode, Olympian Shooter: âNever Give Up.â

Side By Side

Passing the Baton: Part II

Passing the Baton

Thoughts On Waterfowl

Love, Shotguns and DIVAS

Doug Oliver: The Keeper of the 16-Gauge Flame

A New Office

With Only the Clothes on Her Back: A Womanâs First Wingshooting Adventure in Argentina

Carving Out the Time

A New Gun

How I Shot With the Stars

The Shotgun Education of Miss Prisspot Chicken Doo

The 3 Â½ Inch Magnum

Mississippi Duck Hunt â Battling Bad Weather and a Lack of Toothpaste

March

Pheasant Phun

Jim and Bugsy: Against All Odds

Meet the New Ladies Shooting Syndicate

My Afternoon With Olympian George Quigley

SHOTGUNS and SHE-NANIGANS

Judy Rhodes Gets Women Out of the Mall and into the Hunt

You do what... ?

Mister Big Bore

Breaking Clays in the Other Napa Valley

The Corkells, Charlie & Chris

From the Visionary Who Brought You Benelli: The New Regionalism in Americaâs Shotgun Sports

Exposed: The Georgetown Trout & Gun Club

My First Duck Hunt

Women and Shotguns

Women Shooters

The Secret Passion of Anginette Jorrey

Ethics, Shotguns and a Man Made Whole

Alessandro

You Must Be Kiddingâ¦ Skeet Shooting in San Francisco?

Combat to Clays: A Womanâs Journey

Kim Rhode, Olympian Shooter: âNever Give Up.â

With Only the Clothes on Her Back: A Womanâs First Wingshooting Adventure in Argentina

Mississippi Duck Hunt â Battling Bad Weather and a Lack of Toothpaste

From the Visionary Who Brought You Benelli: The New Regionalism in Americaâs Shotgun Sports

You Must Be Kiddingâ¦ Skeet Shooting in San Francisco?