I have recently received a couple of emails from some visitors wondering about the reference I made to a particular deer hunting story from a previous article. I have not asked my father if I can share it on the web yet (sorry pops), but it is a tale of legend within the halls of Rip N’ Tear Hunt Club.
My version may be a bit ‘sketchy’ as I was only 13 (I think) at the time. What follows is the story of Dad’s Pumpkin Gun (pronounced Punkin).
It was a perfect morning for a Deer Hunt. Crunchy snow. No wind. Blue sky.
I was following dad to the first watch of the morning. His pumpkin gun glistened in the morning sun. This gun was a .35 Marlin lever action rifle. It was an awesome looking gun. It had to be because today it was about to become the stuff of Legend.
Our assignment was to vector over to a favorite watch (of our gang) that was nestled between a ridge and a pond. This particular watch tended to produce many sightings every year.
Currently this watch is now called the Junkyard watch and owned by someone outside of our gang. At the time of this story, dad owned the property.
We found a rocky knoll, cleared away the frozen brush at our feet and began to wait. At thirteen, I used to get pretty restless and I have to give dad credit for his patience ‘showing me the ropes’. Just as I began to fidget, I noticed 4 deer heads bouncing down the ridge onto a logging road in front of us. Excited, I whispered over to dad,
“Dad…(gulp) there are some deer on the road.”
He nodded to confirm that he saw them as well.
Dad slowly lifted his gun to his shoulder and waited for the best shot. It seemed like forever but soon enough the pumpkin gun’s barrel erupted with a shot. Four deer pulled a quick u-turn and bounded back up the ridge. More shots rang from Dad’s barrel. Still…four deer continued to run up the ridge. Eventually, dad emptied his magazine and I was on the hunt for more rounds in his back-pack. We thought for sure the deer would be gone by the time we got him re-loaded, but a peculiar thing occurred. The deer had scattered themselves on top of the ridge and stopped moving. Dad kept firing and I kept reloading. Twenty seven shots later and frustrated, dad took a break (this number of shots is still debated among group members today). We thought we could sneak closer to the bullet-proof deer. The deer had to be shell-shocked by now. In short order we reached the top of the ridge. When dad peaked his head over a bank, he saw the deer finally scatter and a few others we had not originally seen. He also saw why the deer were slow to run away. One of his bullets from the barrage hit ‘true’ and a doe was down.
You can imagine the comments the hunt club members shared with dad. They all made references to some kind of World War 3 and I became known as ‘Ammo Boy’. The gun’s sights on dad’s Remington were also called into question.
A pumpkin was used to get an idea of its accuracy. Hence the gun’s nickname. Despite a successful pumpkin test (and various other ‘official’ tests in the future) there was always some excuse when dad kept missing deer with it. This led dad to buy a new gun and to sell the pumpkin gun.
The new owner of the pumpkin gun told dad (shortly after buying the gun) that it was the best shooting gun he had ever owned. Dad still maintains it was the gun that was shooting poorly.
At least I know where I get MY buck fever from.
-Bill Anderson
Muskoka Outdoors
