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FROM THE LIZARD

POLITICAL SHENANIGANS

Well we had a political emergency that our club could have helped in down at Friendship, but the directors got together and worked it out without our help. That’s a first! One thing they did do was to hire a new EVP, for a salary of $75,000.00.

DON’T HAVE TO BE A WEATHERMAN TO SEE WHICH WAY THE WIND IS BLOWING

With the winds of change blowing through my fax and telephone, it looks like the NMLRA will be changing into a hunting magazine, if the NMLRA is going to survive. That is going to leave the buckskinners and traditionalists in a world of shit. Chuck Hearn (executive board) told me on the phone that the Friendship Primitive area is “Sacred” and not to worry about that. I am worried about our national rendezvous and their future. It’s looking dim to me folks.

Jim Fulmer and I were talking and thinking maybe we can start our own Nationals. Jim and I will have a plan if the bottom falls out of the Association and the Primitive aspect is gone forever. I will keep you all informed.

MAX ARE YOU READY?

I am going down one day next week to Friendship and have a long talk with the new EVP. I am also going to talk to the Bill Scurlock (Editor of Muzzleloader Magazine) and see what help we can get from him. Bill is neat and has a lot more savvy than most of our board members. I hate to start over like we did in the late 60's and 70's, but I guess it would be another challenge, but as all of you know it’s just a piece of cake to me.

ANDY BAKER

Doc Andy Baker is presenting me with his “Bluejacket” trade gun at the Spring shoot. I don’t know why, Andy said he just wanted me to have it. He said to get some people together for a ceremony. (See? Another old tradition!) This gun will complete my collection of five of the old timers items. Hopefully now I can go ahead and get things ready for the museum.

THE FOUR TREE WOODS

4 Tree Woods+1 Lizard+1 Rustaway = 1 Buck

Some “son of a bitch” rich attorney out of Chicago bought the land I’ve been hunting on for years. I wasn’t even going to hunt this year, I was so pissed off, but a buddy of mine told me I could hunt his small woods and kill a nice deer.

I’m used to hunting with four of my buddies, using quads, radios, deer monitors and any other modern equipment that we can find. So I thought about it and said “Oh well, I’ll do it.”

I went out and put up my 18 foot stand on one of the four trees that made up this “deep woods” and hoped no one would see me in this barely wooded area. The next morning I climbed my tree and hoped my camouflage would hide me from anybody walking by, the Hell with the deer, this is embarrassing. About sunrise I was watching the cars and trucks going by me on the right and left, about three hundred yards away. When a train went zooming by at a 1,000 miles and hour just about 100 yards behind me.

Then I had a thought, “I’ll have to stay here until dark, because if someone sees me leaving this four tree woods in hunting gear they will call the nut wagon and they will come and lock me up, forever!”

About a half hour goes by and I see something walking straight for my oasis of trees. Too small for a cow, to big for a dog, it’s, it’s, it’s a seven point buck!! (I love my mini woods) I can’t believe this is happening, but it is. I ease back the hammer on Rustaway and lay her on the large tree limb in front of me. Mr. Buck came up and is panting, dropping his head, and trying to get his tongue back in his mouth. It is right in the middle of the “rut” and Mr. Buck has had an active night. I will bet that there’s a lot of does out there with a big smile on their faces.

I put my sights on his head. I’ll blow out his brain and drop him where he stands, and I won’t have to trail him. Oops, he took a step and now his head is behind tree #2. Oh well, a neck shot will do the same thing. KABOOM, Rustaway slams into my shoulder, and the ball pushed by 120 grains of 3F is on its way. A big cloud of smoke and all I can see for a split second is Mr. Bucks hoofs at the top of the smoke, pointing up. Boy, that must have hurt!!

When the smoke cleared, Mr. Buck was laid out, facing the way he came in. I didn’t only spin him over, but I spun him around. Oh well, I love these 18 yard shots. Well I gutted Mr. Buck, and got my truck, drove up to Mr. Buck and loaded him in. Let somebody see me now. I’m cool, I’m cool!

Well a seven point buck that dressed out at 165 pounds, in less then an hour and a half. This deer is small to what I am used to whacking, but he’ll do. I think I’ll leave my stand here for the rest of the season. One thing for sure, my woods can’t get too crowded.

FRED MARTIN UPDATE

I talked to “Fred Who?” a couple of days ago. Just before he slipped into a “black hole in outer space”. The last words he sputtered was his toes are bending up. He said his doctor said something about having to wear funny looking shoes. Oh Well.

TRAVELING TROPHIES

I am bringing back the traveling trophies that we used to give at out National Shoots. When you win a match you get the traveling trophy for one year then you bring it back for the next years winner.

It’s a tradition that we used to do. All our old traveling trophies are in the museum, at Friendship. I am building one for the Mountain Man Aggregate and the Smooth Bore Aggregate. The one for the mountain man is a hawk and long hunter knife crossed on an old barn board.

The trophy for the smooth bore is a gun stock war club. Both will have small brass plates to put the winners name and year on them.

If any member would like to help on these traveling trophies give me a call. In the past not all matches had a trophy. The matches that I have chosen to make trophies for are some of the old ones plus some new ones that are for the women and kids. When I started down there they only had 6 matches. They are as follows: Men and Women’s Valley Aggregate., Flintlock Seneca, Flintlock Pistol, Widow maker, Mountain Squaw, Jr. Mountain Man, and Kings Mountain. If you have any idea what to make let me know too. I am making some of the old ones, but we need some new ones too.

YO JERSEY, WAKE UP

Jersey, you can handle the Chief Range Officers Sign, it looks something like this.

HOT FLASHES

1) Digger is corresponding with a pretty lady in Albania, with E-mail. She wants to come to this country. This could get serious.

2) I will be moving to the city in the Spring. My mom gave me her house. Can’t turn it down, but I don’t know how long I can take city life.

3) Preacher is the new Chairman of the Primitive Committee at Friendship. Roger Tremmal is the new Primitive Chief Range Officer. Both good men for their jobs.

4) I had pictures taken (professionally) of our hawk and the NMLRA hawks for the cover of Muzzle Blasts. Should appear in the Spring or Summer issue with history and traditions of Primitive at Friendship.

PICTURE BOOK TIME

We have an opportunity for a picture book of all the Widowmakers. I know this is a last minute deal, but the person that is helping me on this just arrived in town, and will only be in town for 4 or 5 weeks, then she is leaving.

You got 30 days to get these pictures to me. Our foreign members got a little more grace period, but get them as soon as possible.

I need two pictures and the negatives. One is to be a close up head and shoulders shot and the other is to be full body. Use the entire length of your film. This means to turn the camera 1/4 turn before taking a picture. When you shoot the full body shot, fill the frame.

Dress in your primitive clothes, wear a long shirt, your hunters frock and your pouches, haversacks, etc. and holding your rifle or smoothbore. If you have a club hat, wear it. If not wear what you got. If your wear a knife wear it, but don’t load up like a Christmas tree with a lot of shit.

I know it is cold, but don’t wear a capote or heavy coat. You can “hold the cold” long enough to take two pictures. Take the pictures outdoors, make sure there is no modern shit in the background. (Gramps, you can take your pictures inside)

I will also need your address, occupation, age, how long in buckskinning and your phone number. This is a one time deal, so if you don’t get in the Widow maker’s book then it is too bad. I’ll put the whole thing together and then I’ll get some pictures of the books and send them to you. Anybody who wants a copy will be able to buy one.

Let’s do this!! It will be neat as hell!! We need one hundred percent of the members to make this work out right.

Send your pictures to Lizard, 3124 Voorhees St., Danville, IL 61832.

MORTAR BOARD INFORMATION

Last year at the Eastern Rendezvous, Digger and I went and bought a mortar from the Green Heads. The carriage that it sits on is of 2 X 4's and looks like shit. I need some pictures of any mortars that anybody has or knows where I get some. My next project is building a carriage for this thing and I want it to look right. I guess you could call it a carriage! It’s the wooden platform that the mortar sits in.

DEGREE WORK

Well how did everyone do in the Degrees of Shooting? The Whip got to four, I got to three. I’ll ace it in Early Spring, hopefully before the Whip.

TRAVELING TROPHY PHOTOS

These are the traveling trophies that I am working on, they are not done yet as you can see. The knife is made from a corn knife and an ugly piece of ebony. The war club is hard as hell hickory. I am serious, if anybody can help on making these up let me know (quickly). One of the old trophies was a four and a half foot beaded wampum belt. It was 4 inches wide and had designs in it. Cheap glass beads were used in it, but it takes a long time to make it. Anybody interested? We can present all of the these at the Spring shoot at the Primitive Camp meeting. Any help will be appreciated. If you have an idea for one of the matches give me a call.

Well, I got nothing more at this time. I’ll turn it over to

Redeye from here. He has something from Lt. Mork, from New Zealand. Have a Merry Christmas and a drunken New Year. I detest holidays, but that’s another story.

REDEYE’S AND LT. MORK’S CORNER

All this talk about trekking caused me to ask the most knowledgeable fellow that I know on the subject. Mr. Maurice Taylor, Esq. (known as Lt. Mork to Lizard) lives in New Zealand when he isn’t going off around the world buying and selling antiquities and his own gun smithing productions. He is a good shooter and his eye is sharpened with having to feed himself for weeks at a time when camping out in the mountains of New Zealand.

Maurice has tramped through and camped in more countries and continents than most of us are ever even likely to read about. At my urging, he was good enough to submit a short missive on the way he “treks”. Here goes.

Lt. Mork’s Trekking Handbook-A Semi-Primitive Trip:

It being my habit to “go walkabout in the local Nelson Ranges periodically, I was away when Redeye’s letter came. As the letter was discussing Trekking kit, versus Woods Walk kit versus Real Woods Walking, I thought I might have a few observations that would be of interest. I will presume to pen a short piece on this trip as it was at least partly primitive.

I had bought suffice of a heavy wool plaid at the Eastern to form a “Great Kilt” 4-1/2 yard X 60 inches, musing that this may answer for attire and blanket in one. To further round out the effect I carried a light dirk with small by (sic.) knife, a large 18^th Century shirt and a top of velvety stuff that would do as a doublet, a stag horn flask and canvas shooting pouch complimenting my English Lock with a dog of archaic 17^th century style (essentially still a flintlock, though a Scottish snaphaunce is under construction). Another canvas haversack holding the dogs bowl, water, day graze, his lead and sundry meat bags, string etc. Banjo Beagle Esq. being my usual assistant.

Well my small pack is tolerably primitive, a substitute I propose to make up from the pile of U.S. domestic mail sacks that books arrive in. But it goes modern from here. A polyethylene lean-to and ground sheet with a fragment of the blue sleeping rolls provide tentage. Light duck oiled may be as light, but not as cheaply got and I’ve none anyway. But the tin billies one in the other are quite plausible.

For provisions I rely mostly on rice and barley. I carry a good grade of Muesli and raisins and dates with wheaten bread rolls (reckoning 2 a day). The only tins I have are sardines, the pull top Brunswick sort (at least as period as pop tarts). The packet of noodles if bulky are handy. I also take flour, Mars Bars, Barley sugars, potatoes and onion, cheese (If you look like Ben Gunn you are expected to carry cheese) and the usual vinegar, oxos, tea, honey and cooking oil in small gin bottles. You can never carry all you want to have or eat. I usually work on rice base evening meal with enough left over to provide breakfast for us both (Banjo is always keen to “help” me with anything edible). Then midday it’s ‘day graze’ a mix of the muesli, raisins, dates, roll and tin of fish, the odd barley sugar as I go perhaps 6 a day. You can never rely on shooting meat or fish, eels etc, but mostly I do get a few goats or a deer or pig maybe then its tucker galore.

Our terrain is quite steep and often dense bush so the ridges spurs and creek beds are the easiest passage. Though these have a propensity to develop gorges, falls, razorbacks, bluffs or such dense growth as to be practically impenetrable. But at least there’s no snakes, nor ivy and 40 below is not allowed. This Antipodean land is quite unlike North America (If you ever admit to watching Zena and Hercules on the TV you get some idea of what it looks like).

The ranges run sharply up from sea level to 6,000 or 7,000 feet, creating a range of climates. In Nelson we’re temperate, it gets hotter up North and our cold comes from the South. Different it may be, but much the same skills apply. A tinder box still works and improvisation will still make a bower and bed for the night. I prefer a lean-to tarp type camp with fire in front and bed of such vegetation as may offer.

The open tussock tops allow views often over 50 miles in normal clear light, but below the trees, a compass and a good feel for the land are needed to navigate. The basic rule is to go up via the spurs and down via the streams. Though the actual bed may itself be impracticable and much sidling recoursed to. (Incidentally I thought the term sidling of 20^th Century usage, but I found it in accounts of 1860's. It means to travers a slope horizontally more or less as topography dictates.) Anyway, I ramble.

I got into a little mob of goats and slew a she goat, but the wild pig escaped us, though we saw a mob close on, but the thick brush denied us a shot. My assistant Mr. Banjo Beagle (every person an Esquire) is like the famed “Gee Bung Polo Club: possessed of mighty little science, but a mighty lot of dash”. He is keen to chase after any scent or frightened creature, but not quite always aware that it is the ½ inch lead balls from my gun that are most useful in acquiring meat. But he is all heart and would follow me to the moon if I asked it of him. Well that’s something and nothing, but a bit of an article and the price is right.

Maurice stated in a part of his letter that was not meant to be part of this article some interesting bits of insight.

It is the paradox of these trips, you can never carry all you could use, but too light is unwise in the mountains, yet every ounce gets to you. More or less I strive for the impossible.

I’ve seen the creeks rise 5 feet overnight. I have had days when I’ve been so soaked that I hadn’t even a dry stitch to wipe the pan out. This sort of stuff is what tests a rig out fully, as does camping on a ridge in a horizontal rainstorm. This is the scary stuff you have to survive or suffer exposure.

Well with all the writing that Lizard and Maurice have done there is very little for me to say. I do want to remind every one that your $10 dues for next year is due as of January 1.

Also thanks to all of you that donated money to pay for the hawk. We finally repaid almost all of the money to our anonymous benefactor.

One thing that I would like to bring up is that my citizen shooting club, The Conner Prairie Rifles, is having their 15^th annual gun show on February 28 and March 1. This year it is in the brand new Noblesville IN 4H building at the county fairgrounds. The new building allows us to have 170 tables instead of the 78 we used to have. Those of you who have been at previous ones know that there is no junk or modern stuff at our shows. Everything is supposed to be pre-1898.

We got several noted gun makers and knife makers and lots of dealers that specialize in the early periods Rev War, F&I and Longhunter. Just got one reservation that will have 25,000 flints on hand.

Admission will be $3.00 per adult. Come dressed in period gear, see your friends and make plans for the coming year of rendezvousing. Come shake the winter blues and look at lots of well made rifles and pistols and clothing and accouterments.

If any of you have something that you would like to include in the newsletter send it to me. I always appreciate any help. We would particularly like articles about subjects pertinent to shooting and hunting, although talking brass jag articles will be considered.

Well that is about all I have to say, and I need to get this thing printed and mailed before Lizard sends me another page worth of stuff to stick in at the last minute.