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In addition to my scope-sighted air rifle, there several pieces of equipment that make up my hunting kit and make my time
afield more productive and more enjoyable.
I am not a pest shooter, potting pigeons and starlings out of the barnyard or the maurading squirrels helping themselves
to the contents of my backyard bird feeder. I am, instead, a pursuer of wild game in wild surroundings. These
surroundings, whether in my former home state of California, my current home in the Cherokee Nation, or any other local where
my small game hunting travels take me, have a few things in common. They are fairly remote. Most require true
four-wheel drive capability to access. Once accessed by vehicle, my hunting will lead me far enough from the hunting
car that I can't rely upon it as a means of support or base of supply.
For the hunting that I do, I need to be "self contained," and that means carrying things like snacks to sustain my energy
levels while out in the field, having the ablity to carry clothes that I shed as the day grows warmer, having basic first
aid supplies on my person, to deal with insect bites, catcus needle pricks, and the like, and I also need a means of carrying
the game that I shoot back to my hunting car, without incurring an undue risk of spoilage.
Indeed, my need to carry stuff on my person is greater than that of a person whose idea of "hunting" is confined to the
take of pests on their own suburban homesteads. For the hunting that I do, mesh backpacks, like the model pictured
to the left, are invaluable. The primary purpose of the pack is to allow me to collect game and carry it during the
course of a hunt, and I prefer this kind of mesh pack because it allows air to circulate around the quail, chukar, rabbits,
and squirrels that normally make up my take.
This particular model wears the Athletic Works brand and was purchased at our local Wal-Mart here in Tahlequah, Cherokee
Nation, for the princely sum of $9.88 USD.
The main bag is more than generous enough to carry a full daily limit of the sort of game that I generally pursue with
air rifles. A smaller second compartment allows me to carry some snack items and a small first aid kit. Side
pockets are designed to accoddate sports bottles, though I use mine to carry a small, light thermos filled with coffee on
cold fall and winter hunts, while the opposing pocket makes a handy place to carry gloves when they are no longer needed.
The bungee cord laced to the front of the pack is used to secure my hunting jacket when I no longer need it to remain
warm and comfortable. This is a handy feature, as it secures the jacket well but keeps it far enough away from shot,
bleeding game in the main bag so as not become stained and soiled from it. With this bag, and the capacity to carry
things that it affords, I can venture far from hunting car and have all I need with me to enjoy a comfortable hunt.
The addition of a huting belt rig allows me to carry items that I need more immediate access to, compared to what I normally
carry in the mesh pack.
The belt itself is by Michaels of Oregon and is now going on its twenty-second season of use. It is made out of
the same heavy duty ballistic nylon that belt accessories for law enforcement are now made from, and it features nylon "Fastab"
buckling.
Items on the belt are subject to change, depending on the area I'm hunting in. In the photo to the left, my belt
rig is in a fairly common configuration for the squirrel hunting I do here in the Cherokee Nation and the Choctaw Nation to
the south. Here in the Cherokee Nation, the terrain is hilly, but nowhere near as steep as it is where I hunt out in
California, and it isn't as rugged generally. Out in California, where shooting upland game birds with air rifles is
legal, I do a lot of chukar hunting. There, I am scrambling across lava rock, jumping from one boulder to the next,
and so forth, while that kind of rough going normally isn't part of my hunting here in the Cherokee Nation.
Here in my home country, I can carry my spare ammo in a simple pouch secured by a velcro flap. The camo-print item
on my belt rig is the ammo pouch I use for hunting close to home, where a hunt is more like a lesuirely stroll in the woods
compared to the High Desert regions of California. Here, the pellets survive the day just fine in the pouch, with the
skirts keeping shape and avoiding becoming mangled. I cannot use this pouch in most of the places where I hunt out in
California, however, as it doesn't offer the pellets enough protection from the banging around they get as a result of hard
scrambles up and down rugged desert slopes.
Rather than have a bunch of pellets loose in the pouch, I prefer to put a very few in it -enough for a "1 shot, 1 kill"
limit of rabbits or squirrels. I find that having just enough ammo in the pouch for a day of game taking helps prevent
the fragile skirts from getting mangled. If I need more ammo, I have a seperate supply. In the photo, that seperate
"main source" is located to the right of the ammo pouch. It is a custom-made piece of leatherwork loosely modeled after
a product called a "Snuff Caddy" which is intended to hold a can of moist, smokeless tobacco. I use empty plastic "snuff
cans" to carry my bulk ammo supply. The cans are color-coded, with the black being used for .177 shooting and tan being
used for .20. The cans are kept full to prevent individual pellets from moving too much.
At about the middle of the belt rig, you'll observe a US military surplus canteen in a custom piece of leatherwork made
to carry it. I designed this leather canteen carrier to securely hold my canteen under the rough and tumble of hard
going without requiring an overflap to keep the canteen secure in the pouch. The result is that the canteen comes out
when I want it to, with one hand required to remove it, and it does not come out when I don't want it to. The canteen
is the genuine Vietanm War article and I've had it in my possession since I was six years old.
To the left of the canteen, and the shadow cast by it, a small black nylon case attached to the belt holds a Bushnell
8X30 monocular. Even in small game hunting, I believe that using a riflescope for anything other than aiming is a very
dangerous practice. Generally, the close-quarters nature of small game hunting doesn't make viewing optics quite the
important piece of kit that they are in big game hunting, yet there are still times when the eye could use a little help in
picking out game from the moderately distant shadows, and that is when this item really comes in handy. It works well
enough when you need it to, and unlike large field glasses hanging around your neck, it doesn't get in the way when
it isn't being used. I believe that Bushnell may have discontinued the manufacture of these, and this is a shame because
they have far better optical quality than most of the super compact, foldable field glasses of Chinese manufacture on the
current market tend to possess.
The final piece of kit on my belt rig is a knife that was custom made for me by L.O. Albach of La Palma, California,
and is one of my most cherished possessions. It is just the right size for making quick work of skinning rabbits and
squirrels, and is handy for other uses, too.
In addition to this custom skinning knife, I also carry a multi-function Mauser pocket knife, market by the German Masuerwerke
firm, and manufactured under license by Switzerland's Victorinox company, who market a range of Swiss Army knives familiar
to most outdoorspersons.
The photo to the left illustrates an alternative ammo pouch that I often use while hunting small game with air rifles.
This was originally made by Tex Shoemaker and Sons for the purpose of carying medical Latex gloves on police equipment
belts. Instead of carrying medical gloves, I use it to carry a medical foam insert. One side of the insert has
a series of .172" holes in it that I made with a heated drill bit. Because the foam expands a bit but wants to return
to shape, it holds dome-head .177 pellets securely, by the head. With this arrangement, I can carry 14 pellets at my
fingertips without worry of skirt deformation. The opposite side, or bottom, of the foam insert is arrayed with a series
of .195 holes to carry .20 (my favorite caliber) dome head pellets.
Another alternative to the foam insert that I use here in the Cherokee Nation for foul weather hunting also has a medical
source. I use compartmentalized plastic "pill boxes" intended to hold a supply of patient medications -a daily ration,
if you will. Those that I use have two rows of opposing compartments, with five compartments to the row, for a total
of ten. When I use this instead of the foam insert, each compartment is filled with a single pellet. When using
this pill box, the skirts remain undeformed.
Lastly, I should mention that I utilize a carry strap on my mildly hot-rodded .177 R-9. This rifle is carried far
more than it is shot, being used principally for the take of chukar, as the long (by spring piston air rifle standards) shots
presented make hitting out to 55 yards or so a necessity, and this rifle shoots faster and flatter than my .20, which I rely
upon for general use. With the .20, the number of shots taken per mile of country traveled is much higher than it is
for the .177 and because it is so frequently called into action in comparison, I find the carry strap to be more of a burden
than a help on the larger bore rifle. On my .177 R-9, the strap is attached via a set of Michael's of Oregon quick detachable
sling swivel studs intended for use on Marlin 336 lever-action firearm rifles, wherein the front stud is a band-type that
clamps the barrel and is aided in staying put with a dab of epoxy, while the rear is of the wood-screw type that self-threads
into a hole drilled near the toe of the stock. The rifle with sling appears on the homepage.
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