Month: November 2010

MOF Luxury Tours Now Accepting Reservations!

The team at Mouthful of Feathers is proud and excited to announce our new “Luxury Tours” division!

Deluxe transportation and 5-star meals are included:

Our experienced guides uphold the highest standard of professional behavior at all times:

You can count on your unique accommodations having been prepared in advance of your arrival by expert local craftsmen:

Evenings are typically spent sipping rare single malt and recalling days afield around a roaring fire in our turn-of-the-century fireplace, located in the grand lodge:

Previous client testimonial:

“I really didn’t know what to expect when I booked my first trip with MOF Luxury Tours. I had done classic driven shooting at castles in England, amassed thousands of doves per day in Argentina, and even hunted elusive guinea fowl driven by natives on the plains of South Africa. My standards and expectations were high, but I was ready for something different. That’s when I came across the full page ad for MOF Luxury Tours in Gray’s Sporting Journal. I was intrigued, and decided to give it a try. After that first life-changing experience, I immediately booked for next year and can’t wait!”

– Frank Lee Schwetty III

We’re confident that you’ll find MOF Luxury Tours tours to be the most exclusive, lavish and unique wingshooting experiences currently being offered by anyone, anywhere.

Click here for more information and to book your trip of a lifetime today!!

Beer

My beer has been stolen. Pabst. Blue. Ribbon. It’s been stolen by the bro-bras. You know them. Nice enough guys, well-intentioned. Fun to hang out with. But the fuckers stole my beer.
My dad drank it. So I did too. Drank it for years. Chanted the famous Dennis Hopper quote: “What kind of beer do you drink? Heineken?! Fuck that shit!!! Pabst! Blue! Ribbon!!!” Thought about making the t-shirt. Didn’t. Better to just drink it.
Then I noticed everyone was drinking it. It was served in the trendiest bars in the trendiest towns. For four freakin’ dollars a can! You know the towns: the ones with good stuff on the edges like rivers and fields full of Huns. The kinds of places that sadly show up on Top Ten Outdoor Town lists. The places where people move and get the “Insert-Town-Name-Here Starter Kit.” Example, the Bozeman, Montana, starter kit is a drift boat, a Tacoma and a bird dog.
Then I overheard things like: “Bra, want to go drink some Peebers?” and “Hey bro, ‘nother PBR?” To which I thought: “WTF?”
This for a beer that won the blue ribbon in Chicago in another century. This for a beer that has been held in the calloused hands of loggers and miners and union head-crackers and oilfield trash for decades. Now poached by the New West minions and the Subaru cavalry. Alas. One of my pals, a bro-bra, even puts Clamato into his Peeber. To which I say: “WTF?”
So I’ve got a new brand. Or maybe I should say, a new old brand. Stay the fuck away from my Hamm’s. And my Oly. And my Old Milwaukee. And my Schlitz.

Sign of the times

– TR

Chukar Recess

A scrape on my right knee, reminiscent of a ten-speed crash. A bruise on my shin, running knee-cap to ankle. Another on my ass. My shotgun has similar injuries. No matter. I’ve been playing.
I’m doing it again. Now running. She is on birds again, on the slope below, nose in the wind, working them. No doubt. Birds. Here we go boys! I skip over stone and slip on scree, and vault over cactus and long-jump small arroyos. I carry my shotgun in my right hand and sprint. She works the birds with care and expertise and still they go up out of range, no doubt spooked by the stampede of hunters to the white setter’s playground. No matter. It is good to be young again. I can’t stop giggling.

The school yard

– TR

Hard to Argue With

The sign on the diner read, “If You Don’t Stop We’ll Both Starve.”

Hard to argue with, so we did.

And over cheeseburgers and home made fries we basked in all that days on end of hunting new country, on foot and horseback, with friends old and new, can do for the soul. Meanwhile, tired dogs curled up and slept in the way that only hard-working, contented bird dogs can – satiated, and I like to think, already dreaming of being afield again. By the time the pie arrived, there was more right with the world than seemed possible.

Though the hunting may be behind, the trip isn’t over till it’s over, and all these other details are still relevant – almost as important as watching a covey of Huns explode. Almost.

– Smithhammer

Unrequited

It’s not you, it’s me…

It’s not you, it’s me.
You are great – beautiful, classy, refined – but it just wasn’t meant to be.
I knew it couldn’t last when we met. You were out of my league – unattainable. Through some bad decisions on the part of your previous owner, I lucked out and we ended up together.
What we had was beautiful, but we both knew it wasn’t forever.
Let’s just go our separate ways and cherish the time we had together.
I’ll go back to my old, lowbrow ways. You will go on to someone special.
Someone with a gunroom, and maybe a collection of leather-bound books and an apartment that smells of rich mahogany.
I wish you all the best, and I will remember you fondly…

– GM

In Praise of Working Guns

It is the gun I take into harsh, unforgiving, devil bird country without thinking twice. The gun that gets grabbed to ride in a scabbard lashed to the side of a saddle. It has broken my fall, more than once. It has taken doubles on wild chukar in near vertical terrain. It has been carried on in the pouring rain without thought of turning back. It doesn’t get cleaned much, but then again, it really doesn’t seem to need it, either. It doesn’t shrink from dirt and dust, it seeks it. It is, in short, a working gun – one who’s sheer, stripped-down functionality is it’s primary virtue.

There is a part of me that would love to be so resolutely practical as to own only this one gun, and in many ways, I’d probably be all the better for it. As the saying goes, “Beware the man with one gun, he probably knows how to use it.” But the truth is, I own others; guns which are nicer, though stop well short of aristocratic – a line that my pocketbook and my ego are loathe to cross. But this simple, unadorned pump has a well-earned place in the gun closet. Perhaps a place disproportionate to its cost given the company it keeps, or more likely a direct result of it.

And while I’ll probably never be self-disciplined enough to limit myself to this one gun, I’ve developed my own, similar adage – “Beware the man who doesn’t have a simple, working gun in the gun closet at all – something’s not right.”

– Smithhammer

Sweetness

Sometimes, she is lost in the crowd, run-over, crotch-sniffed and dry-humped by big males.

But somehow, she always finds her way to the front and she is there, frozen and steady. Cat-like on the creepers. Chukars and pheasant and sage chickens mostly. The walking birds. Moving now. Then frozen.

The males, if they pay attention, nearly always come in second. When she is second, or third, or fourth, she gives quarter without complaint. She honors. Literally. She honors friends’ Griffons and short-hairs. She honors big white rocks. She honors feed tubs and salt blocks.

And she honors me, especially on the days when it is just her and her fine nose and her glide and float, her creep.

A friend watches her from horseback. She’s working sage chickens. She is a cat, and looks over her shoulder: “Um is someone going to come shoot this bird?”

And she moves as the bird moves, never pushing too far, stopping now and looking back at us and the friend is off the horse and moving in. “Okay, it’s about time.”

And slinking and then frozen and then the bird goes up and the gun barks and she has honored me once again. Make it last, this rare privilege, this fine honor, this sweetness.

– TR

Waiting For Godot (Upland Version)

 

Scene:

Late October, overcast. Two hunters are conversing in an SUV, driving through CRP fields somewhere in Idaho. Though it is 35 degrees out, windows are partially rolled down in defense against persistent dog flatulence. As a result, wind turbulence fades in and out in the background throughout the conversation. Both hunters have hardly worked at all for the last month in order to devote more time to chasing birds. Hunter #2, in particular, has hunted something like the last 25 days in a row…

Curtain Rises:

Hunter #1: Talked to Q last night. She said she’s taking tomorrow off.

Hunter #2. Cool.

Hunter #1: She said she’s got some stuff to do in the morning, but it sounds like she’s psyched to hunt the rest of the day.

Hunter #2: I thought you said she was taking the day off?

Hunter #1: Yeah, I did. She’s taking the day off.

Hunter #2: But….you just said she’s going hunting.

Hunter #1: Yeah. She is. She’s taking the day off.

Hunter #2: But…how can she be taking the day off if she’s going hunting?

Hunter #1: (Turning to look at Hunter #2) What? Yeah, she’s taking the day off – taking the day off from work. She has a job.

Hunter #2: Oh….from work….taking the day off from work…gotcha.

(Scene ends with both hunters now quiet and staring ahead at the road, dangling on the precipice of self-examination. Sandhill cranes are heard in the distance.)

Curtain Closes.

 

– Smithhammer