The Field Gun

Posted On October 14, 2024

One of a Hunter’s Most Trusted Companions

Every Hunter Has One

I’d trapsed the mountains with my dad on his fall hunting trips since I could remember. I began hunting in earnest the first year I was legal. Which, in New York State when I was a lad, was fourteen years old. The first shotgun that I took afield was my dad’s vintage five shot pump sixteen-gauge Ithaca. Dad let me keep it in a wall mounted locking 3-gun rack in my bedroom. For the first season I hunted, that Ithaca was my field gun.

I loved that gun. From the wood grain on the stock, to the etched hunting scene on the receiver, to the ribbed wooden pump action cupping the business end’s bluing, to me, that gun was a work of art. It was simply beautiful.

Fourteen-year-olds in the 70’s had to be accompanied by an adult and could only hunt small game. “Accompanied by an adult” was a term my father interpreted quite loosely. Twenty years before cell phones, after hiking in on a main trail and shooting our compass safety back azimuth together, armed with that shotgun, a box full of shells, map, compass, several paraffin wax waterproofed strike anywhere matches, first aid kit, my buck knife, rope, flashlight, a thermos of hot chocolate, a couple of sandwiches, a baggie of my mom’s homemade cookies, candy bar and an apple, I hunted partridge and snowshoes up and down the Ampersand and Phelps Mountain basins while Dad went his own way in search of a big whitetail buck. His only instructions were “Meet me back here at sunset. If you get turned around or disoriented, use your safety azimuth and you will eventually come out on the trail or road.”

That Ithaca is one of our Monroe family heirloom guns. After Dad died, I passed it on to my son.

Whether it was the first season I was legal to hunt, or the second, I can’t now quite recall, but at some point early in my gunning career, Dad and I began hunting ducks. We’d hunt Middle Saranac, putting in at the Ampersand walk-in and working our way down the river through the locks to Kelly’s Slough and the lower lake and then back. Ampersand and Middle Saranac Lake traffic during hunting season was far lighter then. We could hunt that stretch all day without seeing a soul.

The fall I turned sixteen I was legal to deer hunt. To celebrate the occasion, Dad bought us each a new 12-gauge Remington 870 Wingmaster pump. Chambered for 2&3/4-inch shells, it came with two interchangeable barrels, one full choke barrel for small game and bird hunting, and the other a rifled slug barrel. I shot my first buck later that fall with that gun, along with my first Canda Goose and a respectable number of snowshoe rabbits, ruffed grouse and ducks.

I hunted exclusively with that gun all the way into college. Believe it or not, in 1981 students were allowed to have guns on the campus of Cornell. The only requirement was that I had to store it in the ROTC arms room, which I did. I could check it out on Friday to hunt on the weekends, which, after I linked up with a pair of serious on campus waterfowl hunters, both named Chuck (one a student and still my lifelong friend and hunting partner, the other the campus bowling alley proprietor) was EVERY weekend from early October until mid-December. Occasionally Dad joined us.

The logistical problem was, the ROTC arms room was closed on the weekends, and I lived on north campus in a 6th floor dorm room: 605 Mary Donlon Hall. I lived in that room both my freshman and sophomore years at Cornell before moving off campus. So, while spending weekends hunting ducks and geese over freshly spread manure in a pair of pit blinds we dug on one of Cayuga Lake’s border cornfields, (which was also my study hall. Between incoming flocks of birds, I immersed myself in Soviet Studies and read works such as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and The Riverside Shakespeare) I stored shotgun and ammo in a soft sided zipper shut gun carry case in my dorm room closet before walking it (cased) across campus back to the ROTC arms room on Monday. I guess it was okay, because no one ever said a word.

There were several other guys who hunted with us regularly. One of them was a friend of Chuck’s (no, not that Chuck, the other Chuck). Mike was a local guy who (conveniently) owned a gun shop. At some point during my college years, Chuck (yes, that Chuck) convinced me to trade in my standard Remington 870 for an 870 Magnum, so that I could move up from 2&3/4 inch to 3-inch shells. The 870 magnum came with two barrels, full choke and modified, plus it would still accommodate my 2&3/4inch rifled slug barrel, which I kept from my other gun. Shortly after I bought it, I spray painted my 870 Mag and both new barrels in a camouflage pattern.

All through college my Remington 870 Mag was my field gun. At that time lead shot was still in use. The limit was six ducks & three geese back then, along with three “bonus teal”. Between the two Chucks, me, and generally at least one other guy, we put a lot of lead in the air and bagged many birds. Ducks and geese flew in off Cayuga lake to that fresh manure in flocks often numbering in the hundreds. I can remember hunts where we limited out in an hour. I even recall several hunts where we ran out of ammo.

I even shot my second whitetail buck with that gun. I was a lieutenant in Army serving in 10th Mountain at Fort Drum by that time. As can be seen in the photo, I never spray painted the slug barrel. I don’t recall why. I think I feared gumming up the sight.

It was also during that time period that lead shot for waterfowl began to be phased out. Lead shot was to be banned nationally and steel shot made mandatory by 1991. So, as conscientious hunters, we adjusted accordingly. The first steel shot shells that came out were not of high quality. They simply lacked the range and penetrating power of lead, especially for late season full plumage birds. We tried everything; 2’s, 1’s, BB’s, “triple B’s”, we even experimented with T-shot and F-shot. Nothing worked. So, in 1989, Chuck and I went back to Mike’s gun shop and bought a pair of Remington Sp-10 3 shot auto loading 10-gauge shotguns. We even somehow managed to get consecutive serial numbers. Mine is LE89-0996.

For the next twenty years or so, that SP-10 was my primary waterfowl/turkey field gun. I still used the 870 mag occasionally, but for the most part it became my back-up gun.

My son RJ and I shared that gun until he got his own 12-gauge field gun, a 12-gauge Remington V-3.

More recently though, as I’ve passed sixty, I’ve found that 10 gauge too heavy. So, as I’ve grown older, I’ve found myself returning to the field gun of my younger years, the 870 mag.

RJ and I went on our annual father/son duck hunting trip this past weekend. Due to circumstances completely beyond our control, day one was an exercise in frustration, to put it mildly.

There was some sort of zero dark thirty party going on in the South Creek parking lot nearly an hour before sunrise. A truck parked in the middle of the loading area with its tailgate down, coolers open, a group of beverage carrying people milling around. Anxious to get on the water ahead of the hubbub, we quickly unloaded gear, manned our camo painted four-man Grumman canoe and, just as legal shooting time neared, quietly got underway. Just as we were leaving, one bearded tailgate party attendee remarked:

“Another hunter went down ahead of you. He said he’d be hunting the mouth.”

The news of another hunter in and of itself caught us off guard. In the half century I’ve been hunting ducks on that lake, I’ve never once encountered another waterfowl gun on the water. But, then again, opening day this year was a week later than usual, and this being both opening day and a three-day holiday weekend, Rj and I agreed that all things considered, another hunter on the lake was actually not all that surprising.

We also both assumed that “hunting the mouth” meant either hunting the mouth of the river channel down at the bottom end of the lake or hunting the mouth of the river up by Bartlett’s Carry. However, as we approached South Creek’s mouth, three rapid fire gunshots proved us wrong. There was a hunter ahead of us alright. He was set up on the mouth of South Creek, pre-sunrise gunning, unaware of our approach. We were less than thirty yards out.

I immediately let out a yell “Hoa! Hoa! Coming through! Coming through!”

As we cleared South Creek’s mouth we could see a young kid, couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen, with a decoy spread of mallards and black ducks set up in and along South Creek’s channel on the left side. In spite of the fact that he had a duck down in his decoys, my immediate thought was,

“Wow. This has to be one of the most recklessly unsafe places on this lake I can think of for a decoy hunter to set up.”

However, it not being my role to tell other hunters where they should and should not hunt, RJ and I simply bypassed him and made our way up the west shoreline of the lake.

Much to our surprise, several shots rang out above us, spooking a back bay flock of mergansers to untimely flight just as we began our canoe’s jump shooter approach. Twenty minutes of paddling later, as we entered the river inlet below Bartlett’s Carry, we spotted their source. A second hunter had electronic flapping wing decoys set up in the river there just off a prominent rocky point.

So, after having never encountered another duck hunter and suddenly coming upon two, we turned north with thoughts of heading to Weller Pond. However, Hungry Bay’s howling winds quickly quashed those thoughts as we cleared Stormy Point.

With Bartlett Carry’s river access occupied, South Creek’s mouth blocked and the day’s whitecap winds prohibiting our usual Weller Pond route, we suddenly found ourselves facing the fact that day one of our annual father/son duck hunt was essentially over before it had even begun.

So, we turned back into South Creek’s mouth, once again passing the young duck hunter who was ill advisedly still set up there. A pair of small, motorized boats had also gone in ahead of us a few minutes earlier. By then it was nearly 9 a.m. Shortly after we bypassed him, a couple with a dog in a canoe approached us. We warned them of the hunter ahead and advised that they give him a shout. They seemed very appreciative of the warning.

By my count, not counting whatever boats that parking lot party may have eventually put on the water, that made four different boats passing close by that hunter as they entered and exited south Creek that morning. As I said earlier, I cannot think of a spot on the lake that a hunter could choose that would be less safe.

Regardless, my son and I agreed that that this hunt was over. Day one of our annual father/son duck hunt had somehow been taken from us and bestowed upon someone else. As we were unloading pour canoe, the couple that had passed by us on South Creek returned. The winds stymied their plans too. The man simply shook his head, commenting:

“I brought the wrong boat today for this wind.”

So, in a period of just a few minutes, they passed through that young South Creek hunter’s dangerously placed decoy set-up twice.

Despite our high hopes, day two of our annual father/son duck hunt didn’t begin much better. For unknown reasons we could not solve in the dark, RJ’s V-3 jammed as he was loading it. So, he spent the day hunting “old school” with my 870 mag. It’s a good thing I always carry two guns (I keep a Remington 11-87 in my case as a back-up, so the old man pulled that out.)

I was secretly pleased that RJ chose the 870 over the 11-87. For me it made the day special. It was fun watching him pump that gun’s action as he fired. There is just something about a pump versus an autoloader, that split second between shots. A hunter has to be more deliberate maintaining his lead on his target bird as he shoots. RJ had not fired that gun in a while, so it took him a shot or two, but as our hunt neared its conclusion, he found the 870’s rhythm and we found success on our hunt.

I told RJ at one point as we were taking a break from our hunt:

“This gun will be yours someday son.”

RJ chuckled.

“Yeah, but it’ll be the last gun I get. I can’t imagine you giving it up willingly while you’re still alive.”

Now that I think about it, he’s right.

As we pulled into South Creek at the end of our hunt and debarked our canoe, another group of men were there unloading a pair of small, motored boats. One of the men remarked

“Well, there’s Mr. 870.”

I did not recognize the man. I found his comment odd though, because at that point all of our guns were unloaded and cased, so he had no real way of knowing I indeed had an 870. I have no idea how he knew me, or who he was. Perhaps he had encountered me there before, seen my gun, and I simply did not remember. Maybe he’s read some of my stories. I really don’t know.

Caught off guard, I simply responded:

“Yup, that would be me.”

As I’ve had time to reflect on hunting, hunters and field guns, I guess that’s really an accurate summary. I’ve spent the better part of a lifetime hunting with my trusty companion.

My Remington 870 Magnum.

My true field gun.

Especially suited for annual father/son duck hunts.

**********

Until Our trails Cross Again:

ADKO