a blast from the past of a day's venture in airgun hunting

my hunting partner and i went to one of our favorite hunting spots with our air rifles in search of small game.

now by saying small game, that's exactly what i mean...small...like in ground squirrels, rabbit and such. and...we sought the rattlesnake as well...we found out later, that they are a "no, no" so we no longer do that.

for those of you that are not familiar with air guns, i assure you, there are MANY air guns on the market that are HIGHLY capable of taking game cleanly, efficiently, humanely and easily.

in fact, if you're of the persuasion, you can get an air rifle that's capable of taking big game, like deer, and even American bison..but be prepared to open up the bank book; they're NOT cheap. in fact, many in that category reach into the four figures. but hey...quality normally demands payment does it not?

the area we used to frequent in search of game was not far south, off of a major southern California highway, and is an area that is VERY rich in history.

i found a US Geographical survey marker dated 1916, Pancho Villa raided not far from here during the Mexican revolution, we routinely found shards, many shards, of native American pottery and the native American matades abound in the area, indicating long time native American habitation; some are over 12" deep. it takes many years to get one that deep. in our minds eye, we could see native American women and girls grinding acorns and doing laundry along this,now, long dry, river bed.

we are also aware most native American activity came to a halt approximately 1900 in the area; the last known birth of a native American child in that area, was recorded then. then like many other tribes of native Americans, faded into oblivion and now exist only in the pages and archives of history. gone, but not forgotten.

we found fence posts and timbers with square nails in them...square nails were discontinued around 1920... we found barbed wire fence remnants embedded into old oak trees, some measuring 24-30" in diameter with the wire embedded half way in them. how long did it take that tree to grow around that wire? more than likely, fifty or more years as oak grows very slowly.

one particular oddity sticks out in my mind about the artifacts we witnessed there. we were seeking refuge from the mid-day heat in the overhang of an old oak tree where we planned to have our lunch and sit out the mid day heat then continue our hunt.

i chose to sit under a huge overhanging branch that nearly touched me on top of the head when i was sitting. i looked around at our surroundings out of curiosity and glanced up over my head at the overhanging branch to see what appeared to be the bottom of a bottle looking at me.

closer examination proved that's EXACTLY what it was. i reached up and grabbed the bottle in an effort to remove it from the knothole it had been pushed into and was unable to dislodge it; it was embedded all the way to it's shoulder and grown over by the old oak tree. the only way to extract the bottle would be to break it. we had NO intentions on breaking that bottle just to remove it! as far as i know, it's still in that tree. i have often thought about going back with my digital camera and photographing it, but i don't know if i could locate it again after all the years that have past since we first saw it. for that matter, it may not even be there any longer; it may have fallen to "progress"...someone probably put in a mobile home* there...(*that's my sardonic perspective about "progress" that i feel is destroying our nation)

that artifact has stirred the imagination on how that bottle got there on more than one occasion with my friend and i. the most popular version is that sometime in the distant past, probably around 1900, as that's when that area became active in the way of settlers, ranchers, travelers, etc... cowboys were camped there, riding fence, rounding up strays, just passing thru or whatever they were doing and after a nite of frivolity, thought that knothole would be a good place to deposit an empty whiskey bottle; a part of Americana now. a long gone cowboy having a "snoot full" and leaving his empty as a reminder of the long cold nites he endured to punch cows for a living and how hard life and times were then.



oddly enough, we have seen animal life ranging from the elusive mountain lion to the ever present mule deer all within sight of the major highway and a cafe (that no longer exists)

sadly, it's now a government facility that's surround by the area we once loved to hunt and wonder about, talk about the rich heritage that lies buried beneath the surface and how now it's been disregarded and disrespected by the spectacle that's now there. another example of today's society and it's governmental travesties that will no longer allow us access.

anyway...we took lots of game out of that area over the years and logged many adventures that are permanently emblazoned in our memories.

most of our adventures were with the bow in hand but there are some with firearms and airguns as well.