SFC B
Well-known member
This is my some what late start documenting my yearly exercise in in futility. In reference to my title ....well here we go. I had made preliminary but firms plans to travel to the UK after a 4 year absence to chase Mr Red again with the assistance of Lee. Had a time frame set up to work with his schedule and that of my wonderful friends who lodge me and indulge my excess while on Blighty. Last full week of SEP and FIrst of OCT were to be the trip. This summer has dragged on to beat the band (although I did spend an all time high amount of days lounging and drinking by the pool-see below for stock photo) and I have been dying for fall to arrive. Fast forward to a conversation out of nowhere that derailed my plans.....but for something much more important. As the summer drew to a close I was at the pool one of the final days and set my mate and his wife in JOE a message with a pic from the pool (they have stayed with us and love the place) and note saying how much I was looking forward to hanging out with them for more than a week this time. Uncharacteristically a response took more than a day. I got a note back from Nettie telling me that Ian's best friend (who has no family) had come down extremely ill, been diagnosed aggresive end-stage cancer and was not long for the world. Ian was (and still is) his full time carer through this and then will be responsible for clearing his estate. She apologized for him as he couldn't get through letting me know himself. I told her the truth that I understand this would NOT be the time for my visit and to please assure him to not worry in any way about me but to enjoy the time he has with his mate. Most of us know that pain of losing someone close and it hurts me to know Ian is dealing with that.
Once the shock and sadness toned down a bit I realized that now I was sitting with time scheduled off from work, the inability to get back on track with a request around 2nd season here in CO and a loooooong wait until what would be my first shot this year in November back home. Feeling a bit sorry for myself (while knowing it was small potatoes cosmically) I moped about for several days. Then, one night after work I retreived my cell from my locker (we aren't allowed to have them on the sales floor) to find a message from the leader of a group that does outdoor stuff for vets and had been associated with a couple of my old army buds. He asked that I call him back, but it was too late that night so I called first thing in the morning. He asked if I had availibility short notice for 27-29 SEP? I said "As a matter of fact I DO!!" LSS.....I will be heading up to a location North of Baggs WY to chase a pronghorn buck and attempt to fill a landowner cow elk tag along with it!!! My birthday will be a couple days before that so it will be a good way to usher in 55.
As for the rest of the season.......CPO, Redman and Cush will be heading up for 2nd season here with a few tags between them. I will be headed to IN for the last week of archery (crossbow) and the first week of firearms with Redman and Casey. CPO will come at the start of firearms and then he and I will head to WI for firearms opener and a few days as well. Nice that Thanksgiving is late this year giving me plenty of time before the "you BETTER be home" date.
If anything else comes up (hopefully some waterfowl this year) I will be adding that in willy-nilly. On a side note, I got to shoot with the folks from Burris Optics last week through work. I have one Burris scope on my son's 44 handi rifle which has served well, but admit I have not been the biggewt proponent of theirs. This outing was a chance to see and shoot their current line out to 1000yds, see some of the Steiner optics included under their umbrella (as they are both owned by Beretta), shoot one of my all time lusted-after rifles...a SAKO TRG 22.... and get an early look at and shoot the new updated Fullfield line of scopes (great fetures coming for the money). I found their stuff to be easy to use, the Eliminator 6 and Veracity PH intuitive to use (I don't want to listen to anyone beeeotch about wether they should be used in hunting.....I won't and don't care). Most of all what I took away was that this was a leadership group that actually cares about what they are doing, their products and getting their partners information along with hands on opportunities. They brought 3 senior execs (including the head of product developement), the German Steiner rep, their regional sales guy, one of their competitive shooters/coaches and a sales assistant (just to cook us lunch and help set up) down from Greely. They came early, had everything ready to go BEFORE SP, had a full classroom set up in the field for prior to shooting learing, generally cared and were very excited. I can honestly say that this was by FAR the most amount of effort ANY vendor has put forth and I greatly appreciated it. As a cherry on top they are building a new facility here in CO and are looking to INSOURCE more of their product assembly back here to CO (similar to what Leupold does but without the cloak and dagger about where the components come from....currently only the XTR and a line of Steiners are assembled in Greely). A bit long winded, but now we are off......BTW, just read currently 110 deer have been checked in in IN
Once the shock and sadness toned down a bit I realized that now I was sitting with time scheduled off from work, the inability to get back on track with a request around 2nd season here in CO and a loooooong wait until what would be my first shot this year in November back home. Feeling a bit sorry for myself (while knowing it was small potatoes cosmically) I moped about for several days. Then, one night after work I retreived my cell from my locker (we aren't allowed to have them on the sales floor) to find a message from the leader of a group that does outdoor stuff for vets and had been associated with a couple of my old army buds. He asked that I call him back, but it was too late that night so I called first thing in the morning. He asked if I had availibility short notice for 27-29 SEP? I said "As a matter of fact I DO!!" LSS.....I will be heading up to a location North of Baggs WY to chase a pronghorn buck and attempt to fill a landowner cow elk tag along with it!!! My birthday will be a couple days before that so it will be a good way to usher in 55.
As for the rest of the season.......CPO, Redman and Cush will be heading up for 2nd season here with a few tags between them. I will be headed to IN for the last week of archery (crossbow) and the first week of firearms with Redman and Casey. CPO will come at the start of firearms and then he and I will head to WI for firearms opener and a few days as well. Nice that Thanksgiving is late this year giving me plenty of time before the "you BETTER be home" date.
If anything else comes up (hopefully some waterfowl this year) I will be adding that in willy-nilly. On a side note, I got to shoot with the folks from Burris Optics last week through work. I have one Burris scope on my son's 44 handi rifle which has served well, but admit I have not been the biggewt proponent of theirs. This outing was a chance to see and shoot their current line out to 1000yds, see some of the Steiner optics included under their umbrella (as they are both owned by Beretta), shoot one of my all time lusted-after rifles...a SAKO TRG 22.... and get an early look at and shoot the new updated Fullfield line of scopes (great fetures coming for the money). I found their stuff to be easy to use, the Eliminator 6 and Veracity PH intuitive to use (I don't want to listen to anyone beeeotch about wether they should be used in hunting.....I won't and don't care). Most of all what I took away was that this was a leadership group that actually cares about what they are doing, their products and getting their partners information along with hands on opportunities. They brought 3 senior execs (including the head of product developement), the German Steiner rep, their regional sales guy, one of their competitive shooters/coaches and a sales assistant (just to cook us lunch and help set up) down from Greely. They came early, had everything ready to go BEFORE SP, had a full classroom set up in the field for prior to shooting learing, generally cared and were very excited. I can honestly say that this was by FAR the most amount of effort ANY vendor has put forth and I greatly appreciated it. As a cherry on top they are building a new facility here in CO and are looking to INSOURCE more of their product assembly back here to CO (similar to what Leupold does but without the cloak and dagger about where the components come from....currently only the XTR and a line of Steiners are assembled in Greely). A bit long winded, but now we are off......BTW, just read currently 110 deer have been checked in in IN Attachments
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