BROKEN ARROW

 

Lizard - Captain       Red Eye - Editor

 

THE NEWSLETTER BY AND FOR THE WIDOWMAKERS

"SECOND TO NONE"

 

"NO GRASS SHALL GROW WHERE LIZARD HAS TROD"

 

VOLUME TWO NUMBER 8 - DECEMBER 31, 1997

 

FROM THE LIZARD

 

Last Tuesday, Preacher and I headed to Friendship.  Our agenda was to stake out the foundation of the new blockhouse, get wood pieces of the “old cabin” to remember by, pick up some things that we needed from our cabins, and to talk with the new EVP.

 

We accomplished them all.  The blockhouse and cabin business took about 30 minutes.  The EVP took a little longer, about 2 hours.  John Miller, the new EVP, has my vote.  I talked to him on every subject, gave him a lot of information that he didn’t have, and we talked rendezvous.

 

John has no intent to eliminate the rendezvous.  If they disappear it will the buckskinner’s  doing, not his.  John might even show up at the Eastern next year.  Jim Fulmer invited him, and I think he will have a better understanding of where we are coming from.

 

The one thing that he is going to do is, pursue the blackpowder hunters.  I told John that we have been doing that for the last 15 years and lost over $100,000.00 doing so, but he said he was going to try and draw them into the association.  He also said that he wasn’t going to spend a lot of money to do it.  

 

This verifies what I have said before, we’re going to see a big change in Muzzle Blasts, and I don’t think this is a “grand idea”.  Everything we’ve tried, has failed on this subject, and as Bill Scurlock (editor of Muzzleloader Magazine) said to me on the phone, he wouldn’t in no way go after the Blackpowder hunters, because they’re not interested in what we do, and the hunters are a “different” group of people.  I agree!

 

Maybe John Miller has something different in mind to get them to come over to the NMLRA, but we Traditionalists are going to get “zapped” by this move, even if it is just through the maga­zine.

 

One good thing about talking to John, we are not going to get it as bad as Jim Fulmer and I thought we were, but then the mem­bership of the Board will have the final say.  Well all we can do is wait and see (I hate that) what comes down the path.

 

The NMLRA dues are going up to $35.00 pretty quick.  Most of the directors won’t get their head out of their ass and come up with ideas to bring money into the association, so the members get stuck paying the bills.  There are increases in Gate fees, Registration, Match Tickets and Camping.  What does a member get for joining the NMLRA?  Answer that one!  Oh well, so much for politics.

 

DUES DUE

 

Don’t forget to send your $10.00 dues in to Redeye.  Don’t dick around and keep putting it off either, we need the money for the Broken Arrow and those color pictures are expensive.  We have had a lot of good comments from other people who have seen the Broken Arrow.  If we don’t get the ten dollars you won’t get the Arrow.  I’m sorry about that, but it does cost to put it out.

 

Redeye and I don’t take a penny for putting it all together and getting it out to you guys.  It’s time consuming as hell, and especially for Redeye!  He does a hell of a job and only bitches about a few things like:  no warning that I am writing a new one; when he has finished what I sent him, I send him some more; and interpreting my handwriting and spelling.  I don’t know what his problem is.  C-sure is one of those things you have and then go to the hospital.

 

“and this too will pass”

Lizard

 

REDEYE’S CORNER

VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE

 

You should have the most recent copy Muzzle Blasts in your hands by now.  This months copy has the voting ticket for the new board.  There are 12 people running for 10 offices.  Some of them are friends of the Association and some are not.

 

I called Lizard and asked him for his opinion on the various folks running for office.  I don’t know these folks from Adam and I was afraid of voting for folks that will make things worse.  Lizard sent me a short letter that I am abbreviating even more.  Do what you want, but the association is in enough trouble that we could use some good people on the board.

 

Willy Boitnot and Dan Kindig have been on the board for a long time and they are tired of it.  They were not going to run this year, but apparently Marty the Pres. talked them into it.  Lizard thinks that if they don’t want the job then they shouldn’t be forced to take it.   Here is Lizard’s brief assess­ment of the various folks running for board members.  Vote how you want.

 

Willie Boitnot                   No

Mark Donaldson              ??

Ron Ehlert                       Yes

Tim Hamblen                  No-No-No

Judy Rahle                      ??

Dan Kindig                      No-No-No

Pat King                                             No

Randy Koerper                Yes

Andy Jason                      ??

Alton C. Powell               No

Alan K. Shrouds              ??

A. James Ulrich               Yes

 

Only about 1 percent of the Buckskinners that are members of the NMLRA vote in any election.  You have the power to swing elections just by surprising everyone and throwing in a vote.  If all 50 people in our club vote that might be the votes needed to swing an election.  If you know other NMLRA members that aren’t voting, get them to send in a ballot and maybe we can get the No-No-No’s out of the Board of Directors.

 

GOT E-MAIL??

 

Now that Lizard is getting all wired up and has joined the 20^th century, he would like any E-mail addresses or fax numbers where he can get hold of folks.  Lizard currently has three fax machines at home, one in the house, one in the workshop and one for show.  Believe me, he can flat swamp you with faxes now.  Anyway, send those addresses and fax numbers to me and I will get them to Lizard.  Also let us know if there is anything special that has to be done to get the fax to work.

 

THE TENNESSEE WHIP GOES HUNTING

 

The Whip sent me this article to print about his most recent hunt.  Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

 

My way of shooting deer is easier than Lizard’s.  I got up and really didn’t want to go deer hunting.  I was drinking coffee and said to myself “What the heck, I’ll just go to the range instead.”  

The range is about ½ mile from my house.  It is a flat field 100 yards wide and 250 yards long.  On the East side there is a strip of woods 50 yards wide running the length of the field, to the woods in the back.  At 6:30 A.M., I parked my car beside the shooting bench, got out and put my gun on the sand bags.

At 7:00 a doe walked out onto the 50 yard line, and you know the rest.  Good tender doe too!

Two days later, after I had her cut up and in the freezer, I went to my regular deer woods.  I drove my truck to the lake, unloaded my canoe and paddled across the lake about 250 yards.  I paddled 50 yards up a ditch that leads to a beaver slue, (swamp for you Yankees).   I pulled the canoe up next to an Oak tree on the bank and climbed up into my stand.  My Oak tree stand overlooks the two acre slue (swamp).  I can see about 100 yards in two directions.  About 7:15 a 7 point deer comes out, he was crossing the dam and at about 20 yards I let him have it through the lungs.  He turned and made it to the woods where he piled up.

I put the 7-pointer in the canoe and headed back to the truck.  He wasn’t real big, about 160 pounds on the hoof.  I noticed that he had a great big knot on his head.  I got to thinking about that knot and realized that I had shot this deer the year before.  You have heard of catch and release with fish?  Well, I had practiced a shoot and release, it happened this way.

I was in the oak stand and at 7:00 a doe and a year­ling came out and I let them pass.  They came back at 10:30.  The yearling had spikes about 2 inches long.  He was 25 to 30 yards away.  I was ready to go home, and said to myself, that it would be a real good shot if I put one down his ear canal.  So being the National Champion that I are, I took careful aim and pulled the trigger.  When the smoke cleared he was still standing there looking around.  The National Champion had missed!

I reached into my bag for one of my home made cane speed loaders that I had made up the year before.  When I had checked the year-old loads in the morning, I had noticed that the patch looked dry.  So I had poured oil on the patch, Bad Move.

So here I am up in the stand, I opened the top of the speed loader and poured out about 10 grains of powder, the rest was oil soaked.  I said “What the heck” and crammed the ball and the rest of the oil soaked powder down the barrel.  The deer was still standing there looking around.  I took a more careful aim and SWOOSH, it went off like a roman candle.  I could see the ball arc up and hit the deer right behind the ear.  He went stiff as a board and fell sideways with his feet straight out like in a cartoon.  I started laughing so hard that if I hadn’t put safety rails on the stand I would have fallen out of the tree.  A few moments later he got up and staggered off into the woods.

That is how we shoot and release in Tennessee.

 

OLD TIME STUFF

 

Lizard sent me a copy of an article from one of the 1980 “The Buckskin Report” written by Larry Baird.  It makes still good reading.

 

LIZARD’S RANGERS’ MOBILE RENDEZVOUS AND

TRADING SESSION

 

It all started when Max Egolf, “The Midnight Rev­eler,” came down to Danville to complete a trade with James “Lizard Tongue” Bryan involving, among other things, a 650 Yamaha for a kevlar canoe and other considerations.  Well, Lizard and I had planned on going to West Virginia to pick up Lizard’s plunder from the NMLRA Eastern Rendezvous at Ed Rayl’s, the 1980 Booshway.  By the time I arrived at Liz­ard’s, Max had had enough trade whiskey to have agreed to go along.  A couple of calls to his wife and another to his foreman left him with no excuse but to go with us.  Then a quick call to Sam “Play It Again” Clevenger for Andy Baker’s phone number in case we decided to stop in Cincinnati, brought a return call from Sam asking to come along.

So the Rangers were on the road.  We picked up Sam in Brazil and changed to his better outfitted van.  We made Xenia, Ohio late in the evening, crashed at my lady Lori’s mother’s home, left her there to visit and took off early for West Virginia.  Then the trading began.

Lizard started off by offering, sight unseen, the scrim­shawed powder horn that was among the plunder waiting at Ed Rayl’s.  After many miles of offers, praising of the yet unseen horn, and haggling, Max stuck his neck out and offered a capote for it.  With the dam broken, Lizard swapped his Whitney capote and a .54 caliber rifle barrel to Sam for an original Sioux head­dress, which Lizard wanted, in order to tempt Charlie Hanson in Chadron Nebraska, out of a Hudson’s bay knife.  By this time Max knew he probably was hurting (read that bleeding) from the first trade, so Lizard offered to trade back the capote minus the trade silver that was on it, for the horn.  Compassionate sort, that Lizard.  We urged Max to cut his losses, but he preferred to wait and see.

Miles later, still ribbing Max, we arrived at Ed Rayl’s.  We met his lovely wife, examined a couple of original fowlers that were his pride and joy, and picked up Lizard’s plunder, including a fine custom built Beck-style rifle.  Ed also had a pouch that Sam had won, and we took a rifle stock blank for Hershel House, as we plan to get down to Morgantown later in the winter.

Back on the road after a call to Doc Baker, and it was off to Cincinnati.  The next six hours were a riot.  What transpired would have done justice to any rendezvous.  Reaching deep into his heart, Lizard let Max off the hook, as the powder horn he had won was nice but quit plain and had been sadly misrepresented by the Lizard and others.  Lizard traded a small trade gun pouch with two horns and a hand made shirt for the powder horn.  (The shirt was among the prizes, but wouldn’t fit the Lizard’s enlarged frame anyway).  Trading about this time became so serious that Lizard lost track of what state he was traveling through, and everyone was getting a headache from thinking up various and sundry trades.

Lizard agreed to make a special $150 tacked trade gun pouch for Sam in return for a knife and fork set, sinew, an eagle­head primer, and a copy of an 18^th century knapping hammer.  Max admired a steel pipe tomahawk head that was among Liz­ard’s plunder, and eventually got it when the Lizard agreed to make an original coconut canteen to sweeten the deal for the hawk’s head to get a set of leather saddle bags.  Max had a set of goat horns and a blue fox skin that he continually tried to unload.  But Sam undercut Max by offering a pair of wild goat horns to Lizard, which he took in return for obtaining some scrimshaw work on an antler button.  By this time I was catching a lot of grief because I had failed to make a trade.  Can I help it if I thought that my trade goods were more valuable than theirs?

Finally, I stepped in.  Sam had an original beaded sash and set of elk antlers that I could use, and after offering an L&R lock kit, choice of North Star triggers, and a pistol barrel once used by Slim Pickens the sash and antlers were mine.

That pistol barrel made the loop.  Lizard traded a beaver pelt for the barrel (Slim is one of his heroes).  But Max ended up with it when he offered a beaver top hat for the barrel and Liz­ard’s Ranger Hat.  Then came the big trade of the day.

Max wanted Lizard’s .44 Special, but the only big buck item he had to trade was his Allis Chalmers WC tractor, which would require more boot.  Lizard threw in another fine custom-made tacked trade gun pouch, but couldn’t clinch the deal until he offered Max his Friendship special.  Max had failed to take the Special before, but he didn’t hesitate this time.  He grabbed it.  At the Spring shoot he was to be the guest of Lizard and Boomslang: all of his want, food, lodging, camping and shooting fees, would be taken care of.

Now what was Lizard going to do with a tractor?  You gues­sed it - I traded a PPKS for the tractor.  It seems Lizard had to give up his .44 anyway for his security job.  The hospital wanted smaller slugs bouncing down the hall­ways and at nurses and patients.

In the last hour of the drive to Cincinnati, it was time to unwind from the intensity of the trading session and get ready to barge in on Andy Baker.  After only two U-turns, we landed for whiskey, pizza, tall tales, and a place to crash.  Max played repairman for Marilyn, Doc’s wife, Sam and Lizard called their wives - what did free trappers do when they left their wives in St. Louis - and we all checked out Doc’s goodies.  It was a great visit, but try as we might, we couldn’t trade Doc out of “Ol’ Critter Gitter,” a Blue­jacket Sanders’ trade gun that Lizard admired.  To give you a idea of how far we were into the spirit of the trip - the Super Bowl fol-der-al was completely forgotten.

Monday morning it was on to Dayton and Curly Gostom­ski’s North Star Machine and Tool Shop.  Curly was in fine form, showing off his new 24 gauge trade gun bar­rels, new Barret trade gun lock, new trigger, and sideplate.  Sam got a fine deal on blanket gun parts, Lizard bought a 24 gauge assembled but not finished tradegun, and I bought Curley’s 6 ga. double barreled market gun, when he slipped and named a price on it.  Curley showed us a few original trade guns he had been working with, including another Barnett that he had just picked up, but he wouldn’t be talked out of any of them.

Then it was back to Xenia to pick up Lori, have a quick lunch, including her famous potato salad, and after a short delay, we were off to Rushville, Indiana, to visit Allan Coon.  Following the hog smell we found Allan, his boys, and a couple of neighbors, in the newly completed “Coon’s Lair.”  Allan greeted us with a shotgun, but quickly backed off to the Bulldog.  John Jackson, “The White Buffalo,” from Sam’s stomping grounds, was also at the “Lair,” hav­ing come to Conners­ville on bank business.  The next few hours saw the demise of Coon’s food, plus a quick trip to the local watering hole aptly named “The Watering Hole.”

The locals didn’t quite know what to think about the group - Max in handcuffs (Lizard conveniently forgot where the key was), and Lizard in cutoff sweatshirt, empty jackass rig, badges, rolled up pants, cutoff engineer’s boots, and a Charleville belt pistol.  A one-beer stop turned into a couple and the evening was topped off with Lizard posed on a chop­per with Sandy a local cutie.

After all the excitement of the previous two days, the rest of the trip home was tame, but Lizard did trade for a brass balance scale from Sam in return for a new custom made sheath for Sam’s new knife.  The scale should prove useful in future trips to weigh trades on.  We had tried to trade Max out of a certain rifle by a famous gun maker both days with out any success, but I may have him on the hook anyway, as I agreed to refinish the rifle for nothing, or for whatever Max feels would be appropriate.