Into The Future: Commentary

THE Loeda Lodge TRIALS

    One of the bad things about bird hunting is leaving a cripple in the field. Even with a good dog it can happen. A few days ago - in the waning moments of shooting light - I am almost certain I winged a hen on a long straight away shot. But Sneakers, who by then was showing fatigue from a full afternoon's hunt, couldn't find the bird. It's possible, of course, that I had missed. When darkness came upon us and I reluctantly had to call it a day. It is the most unsatisfactory way to leave the field.
    By the time we got back to town it was dark. Sneakers had curled up in the back seat, so I decided to stop at my favorite pub for an unwinding brew. Hopefully the place would be conducive to reflection and I'd be able to assuage my uncertainty about leaving the bird.
    Alas, instead I found myself listening to a full bore replay of one of my friend's latest sessions playing internet war games. Not exactly the sort of thing to salve my nagging conscience.

    "And I blasted him, Tom. Blew him to bits. Should've seen it!"
    "Yeah, guess so," I replied. "Did you find him?"
    "Waddaja mean, find him? He was vaporized!"
    "Lucky for you, not having to worry about any wounded. Look Sam, I gotta go. I'm beat. Keep up the good work." I settled up and made my way home. Sneakers stretched out on the kitchen floor and was asleep before I had my hunting boots off.
    I thought about the immense differences between what I experienced as a young man growing up in this small town and what today's young people do for entertainment. With no television, no computers, no internet, no malls, most of my fun was the home grown variety. And the highlight, the goal for most young men was getting a driving license. With it you were free to explore, chase girls and separate yourself from humdrum small town life. The very best thing was to have a car of your own, no matter what it might be.
    I remembered my all too frequent explorations of the back roads of this area, and especially the day I came across the most delightful place, complete with a spring fed pond full of legal size brook trout. I thought about the many times I drove the old car into that remote place in order to fish to my heart's content. I had no idea whose property it was, but whoever had it never seemed to be there. It appeared to be a secluded hunter's camp and it was situated in a hollow that ran clear up to the Jersey Shore Turnpike spine. Truly isolated, it was a dream place - quiet, way off the beaten path and hard to locate. As I lay in bed that night, my thoughts turned to making a return visit to Loeda Lodge. I would take the dogs. Yes, I would take the dogs to my old fishing place.
    The day dawned clear and warm, a perfect day for an early autumn excursion. I pushed back the sleep, quickly made breakfast and before long I had the old wagon on the road with the two dogs, Sneakers and Hank, aboard. When I turned into the old lane my progress was blocked by a very substantial locked gate! Ah hah!...a half-century had gone by so I was not that surprised. Apparently Loeda Lodge had new owners. I parked and let the dogs out.
    The dogs immediately assumed their hunting mode: Sneakers, the beagle/border mix and Hank, a 15" full-blooded beagle coursed ahead of me as I stepped around the gate and began the hike into the lodge. Before too long I saw the wrought iron gate that signals the lodge property. Many years ago someone had thought enough of this place to have a blacksmith work up an impressive arched entry with the name of the lodge welded in place.
    Soon I could see the acres of fields that made up the hollow, through which a small brook flowed. My two dogs, noses to the ground, worked the cover along the brook. Suddenly a bird, a pheasant, shot aloft. Then another. What was going on here. Somebody must have done a private stocking.
    As I rounded the final bend in the lane and the old camp came into view, I spotted several vehicles. And what looked like hunters, hunters, by the way, not too pleased with the work of my dogs. "What the hell" and "Where'd those dogs come from." were the printable oaths that carried across the way. I figured I'd better get my behind up their pronto before they decided that two less beagles wouldn't set the dog world back.
    As I approached them I noticed a couple of vans whose open doors revealed what looked like machine tools and test instruments - consoles with meters and digital displays, a portable generator, and some other fairly exotic looking paraphernalia. What was going on here, I muttered to myself.
    "Sorry about the dogs, " I said as I came up to the men. "I haven't been in here in many years and decided I'd give the dogs a pre-season run today. Didn't see any posted signs, so figured it would be OK."
    "Well, that clears up one thing, at least," replied a man who appeared to be the leader of the group. "George, didn't I tell you to hang the posted sign when you locked the gate? You were last in, weren't you?"
    "Sorry, Stan, guess I forgot," replied one of the gun-toting hunters. "Hey, Stan, maybe if this guy would hang around a bit, we could persuade him to let us use his dogs. Save us a lot of time and wear and tear if we don't have to hoof it all over this place to put up the birds."
    I turned to Stan. "How long ago did you say you used to come here?" he asked.
    "Well, at least a half century ago. There used to be a nice pond over there and it was full of brookies. I tried to buy this place many years ago, but it wasn't for sale," I replied. "May I ask who you are and did you plant the pheasant here?"
    "If you'd like to stick around for a while, I'll fill you in. We're doing a bit of field-testing here. OK? And yes, we did plant the birds, but they aren't your ordinary state birds. Nor is much else, for that matter."
    I'm already here and no place else to go and I'm damned curious as to what's going on, so I agree. Besides, the dogs are having a great time of it.
   Stan stuck out his hand and as we shook he began the explanation. "I'm president of a recreational outdoor products company. A few years ago we decided to investigate the possibility of making a laser ray insert for the typical shotgun to simulate the real thing. We were building on the technology we already use for the laser guns we produce for the military and weekend warrior market. The technology has advanced now to the point where we think we can market it to what we call "Shoot and Save", for the hunting fraternity and state game commissions. We bought this place to conduct field tests."
    "Shoot and Save? What about the birds? How in the hell would you know if you hit one. And don't laser guns send out a single beam. How do you simulate a shotgun?" I rattled off.
    "Here, let me show you. George, bring your gun over, would you." George ambles over and presents his ordinary Remington twelve gauge to me.

    Stan unscrews a special ring and slips a long tube out of the barrel. "This is the laser unit. Notice that its back end is configured like a normal shotgun shell, complete with a percussion cap. Except it isn't, it's really an electrical contact so that when the trigger is pulled the firing pin completes the circuit and the laser is activated. What we really wanted to do was to enable the hunter to use his own favorite gun, the one he is accustomed to. The only modification he has to make to his own gun is to replace the butt plate with ours, which contains a digital readout to show the number of hits and a few other things. It can be programmed for full choke, modified or whatever and the shot load because we have been able to multiply the lasers to simulate the number of pellets of shot in the shell. So, in effect, the laser pattern very closely resembles the actual pattern of lead that occurs with a real gun. It can even be set to high brass or low brass shells, which either increases or decreases the range of the gun. We still have a few bugs to work out, and that's why we're here today."
    "What about cripples and "winged" birds," I ask. "Not everyone gets a clean hit every time."
    "That one was a bit tough to figure out. The chip inside the tube is programmable. The hunter can set it so that any number of laser rays bouncing back from the bird will register as a 'hit.' We recommend that a setting of 6 - for six lead shots - probably represents the typical winged situation. Further field testing may change that."
    "OK, the gun with the insert seems like it might work pretty well. But I'm still puzzled about the birds. How in the hell does the system record hits from ordinary foul?"
    "Ah, that's the magic of it," chimes in George. "Here's the deal. Actually some of the rationale for doing this came out of the problem most states have in raising enough pheasants to satisfy the demand. We designed and experimented and finally came up with a tiny microchip that we implant in the newly hatched pheasants on our own game farm. Somewhat similar to the sort of chip dog owners can have for their pets. What this means is that states that stock pheasants can reduce the numbers needed on selected Shoot and Save hunting grounds because the birds aren't killed. It's also, with the accessory equipment we provide, a way of keeping track of the birds after they are released. If a bird dies of natural causes - predators or cars - the chip continues to emit a special signal that tells the technician it is dead."
    "In fact," says Stan, "the technology is so good we can even determine if the birds have wandered off the S and S grounds...up to a distance of about a mile and a half."
    "Would you like to try it?" says George. "Here, take my gun, I could use a coffee break." And he put the insert back into place and handed me his gun. It hefted like any other ordinary shotgun.
    The five of us, Stan, myself, and three others in the party walked down to the dogs who by now had worked their way up the hollow. Sneakers was having no trouble with these birds. Soon he pushed one aloft. I swung on it, pulled the trigger, watched the spray of light beams, rubbed my eyes, thought I was going blind, smelled Hank's dog breath, knew I was down, down, not on the ground, but suffocating from a full beagle press, and then I woke up.
    Pushing Hank aside I sat up, rolled out of bed and on my way to the kitchen pondered the dream. From what subterranean resources of my poor addled mind did it spring. Must be all of that loose talk about computer war games. And a subconscious remorse for shooting innocent pheasants. Perhaps that, plus a familiarity with some of the young males who spend big bucks to dress up and shoot each other with harmless paint or laser guns, the children's "cops and robbers" of my era.
    Could it ever happen?   Would the animal rights people jump on the high tech S&S bandwagon? The technology may be here, the need may be pressing and even marketable, but would the ordinary hunter, steeped in the craft and lore of upland wing shooting, ever accept such a solution? Who knows. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but in this case necessity may have to take a back seat to the ingrained habits of tradition. At least for a few years. I certainly don't expect to see it in my lifetime. Unlike the Sam's of the soul-less internet battlefields, I'll take the uncertainty and nagging guilt of the hunting ground. It's part of the baggage of hunting and of life.

Copyright November 1, 2006 Thomas P. Dewey