Things to remember

Earl Denison made Reelfoot Lake Duck Calls. I have one. Back when I had no money, every now and then I would treat myself to a little something special.  The call actually doesn't sound so great as far as I am concerned, so maybe just a little piece of history.

Glynn Scobey hand painted art on his calls, Kevin's first call. Another collector piece that doesn't sound so great to me.  Typical.

Chick Majors Dixie Mallard Call, Mike's first call.  He had the pet Mallard hen named Susie that started all the Mississippi Flyway hunters calling Mallard hens "Susies".  This call is fantastic. Very small hole through the barrel makes it the easiest blowing call I have ever used.  A great call all around.  One out of 3, as far as calls from famous carvers.

Victor Glodo was a duck call maker.  George Herter sort of stole the man's name and marketed the "Vit Glodo" duck call. George Herter pretty much copied every good hunting/fishing product and marketed them under slightly different names. Don't know how he didn't get hammered for patent infringement. When the Styrofoam body Model 63 Herter's decoys first came out, they had heads that were left over from the Model 51 decoys.  I have a pair of the 51/63 Canvasbacks.  Our duck boat for 43 years was the 16' Herters Model Yukon. Their decoys revolutionized modern duck hunting.  Wish I had kept a few more of them as keepsakes, at least I have a pair of Model 63 Canvasbacks that were from the first dozen I ever purchased myself.  I have given some to my sons. Even though they haven't ever hunted over them, they are nice family collectables.

Victor Animal Trap Company made great paper mache decoys.  Or at least the best I ever hunted over. Ariduk, made by General Fiber, were very good as well.

Marbles  Corporation used the logo "Life in the Open". Their most famous products were knives, axes, compasses and peep sights.  Out of production for a half century or more, those products are still highly sought after.  Not only as collectables, but as working tools. Glad I was able to replace the one I lost 50 years ago.

MEC 250 from Mayville Engineering Company was our first shotgun shell reloading press.  Surprisingly enough, my Father let me do some experimenting around with different charge bars for our old MEC.  Using some crude methods, I was able to come up with some really good hunting loads. Then a quirk of fate pushed us to the best load I ever hunted with. I started with an old charge bar that Dad didn't use anymore. Measured the amount of shot and powder that it dropped and patterned the shells. Then I used a rat tail file to open up the bar and weighed exactly how much I filed away, then back to the patterning board.  When I finally got to the point where the pattern was blown apart by too big of a powder charge, I went back to another old bar and filed it out just slightly less. So I was very close to the maximum load. Didn't even blow a gun up or anything :-) The charge bar I worked on so much would throw 1 5/16 oz of number 4's or 1 7/16 oz of 6's.  Those loads worked very well, until the only shot we could find one season was #5's. We ran that through the bar,  and got 1 3/8 oz. Sitting on top of a AA Red wad and 29 grains of  Herco, in a AA hull, the world famous Herco 5's were born. A perfect pattern through a Remington Full choked barrel and chronographed at 1300 FPS. That was all we shot on ducks for close to 30 years.

Fred Kimble was a Mississippi River market hunter. Invented the modern clay target, called them Peoria Blackbirds. His favorite duck load was "St Louis 3's".  Given credit for inventing shotgun chokes.

Captain Bogardus ran an ad in the Chicago Tribune, challenging anyone in the world to compete with him as the best wingshot in the world.   They shot glass balls and flyers.

Gooseville Gunning Club, at  Hatteras Village, was founded by Van Campen Heiler.

A century ago, Blue geese only existed in the Mississippi and Atlantic Flyway.  Snow geese were only in the Pacific flyway. Go figure.

John Olin experimented with and seemingly perfected 3" Magnum shells.  He had Ansley Fox make a "Super Fox" for Nash Buckingham, a friend and noted duck shot. The Super Fox was overbored and choked by a famous barrel maker named Bert Becker. Olin used feedback from Buckingham to perfect his 3" shells. Bo Whoop was the nickname for the first Super Fox, because other hunters claimed the gun made a strange sound when fired. The gun was lost and Fox built Bo Whoop 2 to replace it.  Bo Whoop was found 75 years later and both are in the DU Museum.

Shang Wheeler was a CT market hunter and decoy maker.

Olly - Frederick Oliver Robinson,  Lord Ripon, Gamehog of Dallowgill.  According to his journals he killed 550,000 game birds in his life. Once killed 28 Pheasants in 60 seconds.  On driven shoots he had multiple loaders because he shot so fast.

Old paper shotgun shells were frequently marked on the shell and on the box with the letter "C"  or letter "L".  Many times the letter was in a small circle appearing immediately after the shot size. Heard a lot of self proclaimed experts say that it stood for either Copper shot or Lead shot.  Wrongo!  Just the opposite.  C stood for "chilled" shot which was made in shot towers in the winter months and dropped into cold water to harden the lead.  L stood for "luballoy", which was copper coated lead shot.

Dram = 27.344 grains avoirdupois.  People used to refer to shotgun shell loads as 2 3/4, 3, 4, etc, dram equivalent loads.   But it doesn't match the actual weight of the powder charge.  It means the amount of modern, smokeless powder required to produce the same velocity and gas pressure as a given weight in drams of black powder.   Since nobody these days ever uses the expression,  except the rules committees for Trap, Skeet, and Flyers competition I guess it is OBE.  That's alright, because I know.