Fieldsports Britain - Shot Show 2012 kit and sport in the Louisiana swamps

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Welcome to Fieldsports Britain, in the second of two programmes to come to you from the
USA. Donít worry - next week we are back in jolly old Britain.
Coming up:
We take an in-depth look at shooting kit you won't have seen in your wildest dreams or
your worst nightmares.
We are visiting a gun shop that's slightly different to the ones we get in the UK.
First, we are back in Sportsman's paradise Louisiana, after duck, coyote and hogzilla.
Americans enjoy hunting both of their hog varieties. There are the wild boar, known
as the ridgeback, and the wild pigs, domesticated breeds, gone feral. The wild boar grow to
around 300lb and have a reputation for being aggressive. The feral pigs are much, much
bigger.
Later on we will be going out for some feral hogs, weíve got some property on Bayou Portage
been rife with them lately and weíll see if we can see a few of those and try and call
in a couple of coyotes.
We need to walk through the swamp to a high seat next to a wallow. First, I'm given my
cowboy-style rifle. It's a lever-action Marlin 30-30, one of the guns that won the West.
Pretty standard American lever action, loads in here, lever here so, just cowboy style,
to load it lever out, lever in itís loaded. Hammerís back ok. Itís ready to go, pop
that back itís the safety.
John's is less cowboy, more militia. It's a modern version of the SKS, a forerunner
to Mikhail Kalashnikov's AK47: ideal for pigs, especially decadent American capitalist running-dog
scum pigs.
Semi auto absolutely, fully autos, I donít like Swiss pigs.
With a slightly sicky feeling that keilers are hiding behind every tree, we head off.
John says that the pigs are not scared by the torch beam - they can even be attracted
by it - though their senses of smell and hearing are excellent.
Youíll find a lot of times tracks along side these sluice where they have come into wallow,
or water and often times if you check the clarity of the water you can tell how lately
they have been in. If it is very, very cloudy they have been in wallowing cooling down from
the hot sun recently. This water looks fairly clear.
So thatís why we are whispering?
Yes, so Iím imagining they havenít been through here for a bit so weíll check another
couple of wallows and try and spot some tracks off them.
A few hundred yards in and if we get the unmistakable whiff of pig pee. John has been putting some
old burger buns down and we can see they have been to this boggy Burger King. Suddenly,
there's a lot of noise and something is coming towards us, fast.
Itís moving really fast to be an armadillo.
Both of us chamber around and raise our rifles. I feel a wave of immense relief tinged with
disappointment when an armadillo breaks cover.
So we just gave up on the hamburger stall for the pigs that are out here and then John
slammed off the light and we could hear rustling in the bushes and your heart starts racing
and thank goodness itís an armadillo. I really thought we would be in touch with a pig there
but quite relieved weíre not.
Pah - armadillo shmarmadillo - good job there isn't anything really terrifying out there.....?
Now, America has a new and dangerous quarry species that's emerged this year: the zombie.
Of course, they don't exist, or do they?
It all starts right here in the swamps of Louisiana. Last year, a local hunter claimed
he found his trailcam smashed. He retrieved the card from it and found this picture. Fake
or not, it has helped fuel a craze. For zombie target shooting. It's not just one company
riding this bandwagon - there are loads offering cartridges, knives, chainsaws - chainsaws?????
Even brand giant Hornady has brought out a zombie bullet. The clue is it has a green
tip. These targets with the weeping jammy goo are selling like hot cakes, and are coming
in all shapes and politically incorrect sizes.
Itís a 5 billion dollar industry between video games and movies, tv shows, you know
there is a new movie coming out with Brad Pitt and itís just a growing industry and
we are just getting a lot of great feed back, because zombies are such a huge thing you
know theyíve got zombie ammunition, zombie fire arms throughout the whole show thereís
countless products, people weíre working with want a program with us because if you
have the zombie gun you need some zombies to shoot
Also protecting the American public from zombie attack are a range of special shotgun cartridges
being advertised in this film. They come in a variety of gauges, .410, 20-bore but they
are blanks and intended, say the manufacturers, for recreational use. Hmmm... whatever that
means.
This round produces a tremendous amount of noise a huge muzzle flash, theatrical almost
in its effect and again itís recreational itís not for accuracy where you are putting
holes in a target, itís just for having fun with fire arms, if you do it safely.
So, what if you accidentally mix these cartridges with real cartridges?
Not recommended by any, this is real bullets, real ammunition, itís a real threat and it
is not intended to shoot at people. If you are going to shoot at a zombie target or something
along those lines fine, but all rules of fire arm safety apply. If youíve got a real gun
itís a real threat so you have to treat it accordingly. So itís not a recreational force
on force type of paint ball load not by any means.
Oh my God. The question remains: why are American shooters so keen on shooting zombies? Is it
because they are human-like targets but don't come with the shame and guilt people feel
when they shoot more 'human' human targets?
Some people might say that the reason we chose a zombie is because you are supposed to shoot
zombies. If zombies are coming after you, you have got to destroy the attackers or the
attack line so that is kind of what we wanted to do. You are not shooting a human target
you are shooting a dead target.
So, here you are: zombie targets - coming to a graveyard near you.
Now, it's over to David who is already within sound of the peal of English church bells,
happily back on the Fieldsports Channel news stump.
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This is Fieldsports Britain News.
The RSPB in Scotland is stepping up its campaign against shooters. It used a £200,000 government
grant to buy a large area of saltmarsh and floodplain in Wigtown Bay in 2010. It now
wants to ban shooting along 75 per cent of that coastline. Local wildfowlers point out
that the RSPB is using "public money to take away public rights".
Former head of the UK Field Army, Lieutenant General Sir Barney White-Spunner is to take
control the Countryside Alliance. He takes on the job on 9 February and will be based
in the Allianceís London headquarters. Kate Hoey MP will remain Chairman of the Board
of the Countryside Alliance.
The Government is being forced to relax gun laws for the London 2012 Olympics. UK border
officials reveal that 390 Olympic shooters will bring in 780 firearms. When they arrive
at London's Heathrow airport, firearms will be collected and transported by approved handlers
to vehicles driven by London 2012 organisers, which will transport them to the Royal Artillery
Barracks in Woolwich for the Games.
Farmers who sign up to the pilot badger culls will remain anonymous, says the National Beef
Association. This follows threats of violence against farmers in previous badger cull sites.
The NBA is confident the two pilot areas in Gloucestershire and Somerset will achieve
their objective of proving that shooting is a safe, humane and effective way to cull badgers,
enabling the policy to be rolled out further in 2013.
And finally, an Alaskan fishing charter boat has made an unusual catch - and the photographs
are now doing the rounds on the internet. The boatís captain Tom Satre saw these four
young black-tailed bucks swimming out of their depth, trying to cross a channel. He hauled
them aboard, took them ashore and set them free.
You are now up date with Fieldsports Britain news. Stalking the stories fishing for facts.
Now, to be a shot show star, you have to be a colossal personality. One man dominates
the world of coyote calling, which is a lot like our fox calling, and he's a really big
noise.
This is a company that specialises in enticing your quarry to come and have a closer look.
Some of the products are so intriguing they have the same effect on people. We get the
boss to tell us about his latest gyrating fluffy squeaking creations.
This is called the striket.
[Laughter]
This tail, my batteries are out, but this thing never makes the same movement twice
in a row. So imagine youíre a farmer and you step outside and you see your cat out
there and your catís out there digging in a hole or digging in a bush, and as that cat
listens to the mouse, or the rat, or the squirrel, or the chipmonk that heís after or whatever
that tail is communicating stuff, when that cat smells that rat he gets excited and when
the mouse doesnít move his tail stops and then it goes like that. So the cat is communicating
whether he knows it or not and everything is looking at him to what he is doing and
that is what that tail does. So when the fox comes up on that decoy that tail is doing
all kinds of movement and heís thinking alright give me a cat.
Itís a great idea but isnít there something inherently dodgy about using cats to attract
coyotes and foxes.
Theyíre doing it right now, the other day I was at home and I live in the suburbs and
I let my little toy poodle out of the toy poodle train like a lamb, I love her to death,
sheís 13 years old and I took her out there and I was standing and there was a coyote
standing 75 yards from me watching us, if I hadnít been standing there it would have
got my little poodle and gone.
Are you going to do a poodle decoy next year?
I might and I am going to tell you what, I am going to shoot them more than once, Iím
not having anyone touching my little girl her name is Annibell.
Watch out for the UK foxing version - a vibrating baby in a buggy?
The Shot Show is not all about looking at stuff in booths in a big tin shed. We also
get to go out into the Nevada desert and try it out.
Just got out here to the peace and quiet of the desert, not, everyone is having a lovely
time firing guns at targets. Iíve picked up these for my air rifle. Donít you just
love America.
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And of
course I get to shoot those pesky zombies and hopefully this piece of hardware will
stop them undead in their tracks.
The gun I am using to shoot it is not actually an automatic rifle. It's a semi-auto. The
stock is loaded on a spring and the recoil of the rifle brings the trigger bouncing off
your finger, which makes it behave like, well, an automatic - a machine gun.
Our Home Secretary is going to hate you
[Laughter]
No, theyíll let us.
As well as the super modern, there is the hilariously old-fashioned.
So itís not all about hunting. What does this do?
This is a reproduction of the 1877 Colt Bull Dog Gatling gun. Itís a reproduction, but
is very, very accurate. All the parts in here could be put in an original gun and still
be used.
And what would you use this for?
Originally the US Military had them, this particular model went out west during the
plains Indian wars.
This model?
This model, yes.
Can I have a go?
Sure, itís loaded with 20 rounds, crank it clockwise and you can fire all 20.
That gun was bold and brassy. And so are the natives.
My 4 year old grandson says Pop, he says do you know you canít have a gun in London?
I say yes, he says can you believe it you canít have a pistol in London. Can you believe
that and heís 4.
Fantastic.
Welcome to America, heís fantastic heís going to be a footie player like crazy, heís
a charger. God bless you guys.
Way out here in the desert, it's not just guns, guns, guns. Here is some other stuff.
Stuff! Geddit?
Itís just so imaginative, this is Safari Club Internationalís mobile exhibition to
take round blind kids so that they can touch and feel big game.
These UTVs are more Daisy Duke than Boss Hogg, with a choice of power supplies and kinder
to the environment.
You donít have exhausts so you donít have smelly emissions that the game can smell that
can scare them off and you donít have the sound of a gas engine. So you can really sneak
into your deer blond, your duck blond or whatever game you are hunting that particular day,
get right up to where you are going to hunt in an electric vehicle whereas in a gas vehicle
the noise and the emissions will really scare the game off.
Now Georgia, are those boys actually buying electric vehicles.
They are in large numbers in fact the 4x4 electric segment is really one of the fastest
growing segments in 4 wheel drive UTVís.
Let's eat desert dirt. I said: "Let's eat dirt"...
I am going as fast as I can.
This overtaking manoeuvre was slightly hampered by the fact that I still had the handbrake
on.
All this innovation that is yet to make it to Europe - it is good to find products we
have had for a year.
We actually had the Duralyt before you.
Well thatís a bit unusual.
Itís very unusual indeed.
Whatís it like representing a European company over here. Is it easy do people like homemade
stuff?
Zeiss has been part of my life for the past 21 years, I have been with 3 different divisions
so Iím pretty used to representing Zeiss.
And Americans like it they recognise quality, they see the point.
Zeiss reputation, our brand is very strong over here and they know it is synonymous with
quality.
Another major launch we had in Europe first is the Browning B725. It is called the 'Citori'
here in the USA, a name designed to get it in the next series of the Sopranos. You may
have seen it on our programme two weeks ago. But those Yankees are quick to catch up and
there is time to use this new gun in a high stakes clay competition.
Iíve won a prize for hitting a clay. Iím in the wild west and I am in tweed.
This will hold for a little bit longer so this will be better for cardboard and all
that fun stuff and this will be better for day to day use.
Weíve got a news reader on our channel called David, I think he is going to like this one,
thatís absolutely perfect, for David donít you think?
All this hunting and shooting kit would be pointless without hunters and shooters to
use it. Itís next stop after the Shot Show and on its way to the field is in the great
American gun shop.
At 150,000 sq feet this place is three times the space of an out of town British supermarket.
Weíre back in Las Vegas and this shop is humungo fantasmagorically enormous itís a
Bass Pro one of three big chains which dominates hunting and shooting shopping
Opinion is divided on whether Cabelas, Gander Mountain or Bass Pro is the best shop. They
are certainly popular. The Cabelas in both Kansas and Minnesota rank amongst the top
tourist destinations in both those states and they are twice as big as the one in Las
Vegas. Bass Proís shop in Missouri is a third of a million square feet, that is the same
size of 6 football pitches or the whole of the Grand Bizaar in Istanbul.
British gun shops are traditionally poky little things stuck down back streets, but this is
America.
I am off to see a gun shop owner who I met hunting driven wild sheep in Germany. He runs
a gun shop which is small compared to Bass Pro, but offers a warmer and more friendly
service and it is still twice the size of any UK gun shop.
Nice to see you.
Nice to see you again. So you call this a bit of a tiddler.
Itís a fair size, fair size for round here. Weíre pretty big here, but there are bigger
stores.
Can you show me around.
Yes, sure, come on.
Louisiana is hurricane country and when hurricane Katrina hit nearby New Orleans it caused both
spectacular devastation and billions of dollars of damage. It was however, a bonanza for Jim.
So Jim, Hurricane Katrina was a relatively exciting time for you here in Louisiana?
Oh indeed, indeed, lots of unrest and very, very busy for us, it was very crazy time.
When you say very crazy time, what was the shop like.
Before you could buy your fire arm and leave it was about anything from 6 to 8 hours for
3 days.
Six-to-eight hour queue for three days?
Exactly.
How many guns did you sell in that time?
Hundreds and hundreds literally we had one person doing nothing but calling in background
checks, we had distributors coming in with literally truck loads of ammunition.
And why did everyone want these guns?
It was a time of unrest, people were fearful and looking for security, also a lot of military
police fire department lost a lot their guns under water so not only do you have civilians
coming in, but you also have your local police departments things like that buying guns,
ammunition, holsters, cleaning supplies, just everything went under water so quickly.
So youíve also got some fun stuff here havenít you?
Oh yes we have got something really unique which I am sure a lot of people would like
to see. Itís a .410 revolver.
So can we have a look? So Jim what precisely is that?
Basically these are two Taurus .410 revolvers and this one right here will shoot the .410
and the .45 long colt and what is very popular here is for a snake gun for fish farmers and
things like that deer hunters during the summer to maintain their land, they like this to
despatch snakes.
Snakes, what sort of snakes do you get here?
Letís say it is a big water moccasin.
Big water moccasin, I hate those.
And you want two hands on this one.
Yeah, that almost came out of your hand.
Iíve managed to hit snakes in a kind of 4 foot radius.
Well thatís it, you didnít miss and you put some right in the X ring.
Yeah, look at that, 4 in the middle, 4 pellets in the middle and quite a lot on the outside
as well.
Well, itís a big snake.
Well yes, exactly disguised as a man.
Of course all the staff hunt.
I dove hunt, squirrel hunt, deer hunt, coyote sometimes, Iíve hog hunted, I think that
is about it.
Thatís pretty well more animals than we have in the UK.
Yeah, thatís just about everything.
Did you grow up doing this?
Ever since I was about ten.
And is this normal for a Louisiana girl?
Itís somewhat normal.
Have you ever shot a gator?
No I have not, I have caught one though.
Caught one with your bare hands?
I was fishing one day and I was reeling in my spinner bate and it snapped my line and
I reeled it in and I caught it. It was about 5 foot long.
Fantastic.
Self defence is a major theme of American gunshops. In the UK, we have all but forgotten
about sidearms following the restrictions which came in 15 years ago. Jim gives me a
refresher course.
Watch that thumb - donít want to get it cut.
Nine, eight, those must be mine there.
Not too bad.
Not too bad. I mean itís down.
Itís the first time in a long time.
Exactly, 15 years, exactly, heís crawling away. I think it was rather a rabbit target,
but still.
With the London Olympics coming up and Britain in with a chance for shooting medals, with
handgun crime rising massively in the wake of the handgun laws, surely now is the time
for the British government to start relaxing restrictions on handgun ownership in the UK.
We were in Louisiana last week. I was out after whitetail deer. Ian Harford of Team
Wild was flying across the swamp looking for giant rats racing across the swamp. You can
see more from Team Wild by clicking on the roary thing just there.
There - it roared.
So, you buy your gun and your four-pocket pants in your favourite Realtree camo and
you head out to hunt duck. John takes us to see a typical duck 'blind' in Louisiana's
Lake Martin.
Are those decoys?
Yeah, itís a pretty nice spread. They will leave them out here for the duration of the
season, if you leave them out too long the local ducks know what they are and will kind
of avoid them like the plague, so really what you are trying to get out of a blind like
that is just the migratory ducks, the fly bys that arenít too familiar with the area.
Entering the hide is not as easy as it looks.
There we go.
Once installed, we are not expecting to see anything but there are some mallard circulating.
Donít want anybody hunting out of your blinds you know.
Very, very protective of the ducks round here everyone is.
Hang on a sec, of the duck hunting.
Yes, the duck hunting, yes absolutely, exactly unprotective of the ducks.
John distributes the Primos duck calls and we set to waiting. The shot, when it happens,
is a trifle ambitious, so no duck in the bag there.
Most locals don't bother going duck hunting until the last half hour of daylight. The
real action is wood duck shooting. For that, we head into the woods, looking out for bears
and, of course, zombies.
The bends in the sluice like these are really good places to hunt wood ducks, because if
you notice we have got a lot of oak around and the fallen acorns will gather in the bends
and sort of pile up and they will come in and feed a bit.
Whatís a bind.
Bend, bend ah turn.
Bend!
[Laughter]
Bend.
Do speak English man!
Every day, the local game department sets a curfew on duck shooting, moving it by two
minutes a day. Today it's 5.43pm.
We are, of course, using steel shot to shoot duck here. So how enthusiastic are American
duck shooters about steel? Because in the UK, most people hate it. And they hate being
bossed into using it.
Do American hunters resent having to use steel?
Not at all, not at all, I think everybody recognised in those areas and particularly
the wetlands that were affecting our waterfowl, I mean I think anybody would be willing to
do whatever they need to to save our waterfowl species and that was certainly something that
needed to be done.
Jens you are younger than James, you are a younger generation do you agree with him on
that?
I would agree that we need to be using steel shots to conserve our wetlands, but it doesnít
kill as well as lead so itís a little bit harder to kill the birds dead, itís more
clean shooting with lead, but absolutely 100 percent agree with James, we need to do it
to conserve our wetlands.
The view from US cartridge manufacturers is the same.
We have been pretty comfortable with it lately, the last several decades it makes sense we
need to shoot steel or non tox alternatives like tungsten and Blackcloud really helps
out the steel market and that is one of things we really went out after, you know steel you
can only drive it so fast and thatís how you make steel more lethal you put more energy
behind it by making it go faster. Well now Blackcloud with a cutting edge on it actually
hits and cuts and tears, so we see this kind of steel more lethal and compares itself more
to a Tungsten type product.
We meet some of the Brits at the Shot Show, among them cartridge company Lyalvale Express.
And the steel debate is not the level playing field we thought - there's more than one way
to put steel up your barrel.
The problem we have in Europe isnít producing steel shot, itís producing the lethality
in game loads that we need. Competition loads are widely used now because they are bit cheaper
than lead, but in hunting loads we canít produce them above a momentum which is laid
down by CIP and really they need to be faster and the momentum rule needs to be taken off
to make them suitable for hunting.
Back in Louisiana, it's 5.43pm and we get a no-show from the wood duck. We can hear
them all around us but they do not come. Perhaps they are extra wary because of the sheer number
of people who go shooting in the USA.
Now some really serious hardware not exactly hunting and sports shooting, Barrett has a
new sniper rifle.
I designed a .50 calibre rifle when I was 27 years old, there was nothing else like
it out there, I hit the ground running with it from a gravel floor garage until itís
adopted by over 60 something different governments, so whenever you think of Barrett you think
of high efficiency, big calibres, low recall, bad arse get the job done. Hope I can say
that! But it gets the job done and out there it is becoming known as highly accurate. The
.50 calibre is never the most accurate round in the world, but the .338ís and the .30
calibres weíre into now with the 98B and the Nred weíre shooting 5 bullets all in
the same hole at 100 metres. So itís totally changing the way people look at that bad,
weíre still that bad arse company, but weíre also the most accurate company.
Back to Louisiana and we're still reaching for the pork crackling. America has big pigs.
Really big pigs. And not all of them are called Bubba. Here is one shot with a handgun by
an 11-year-old lad in Alabama. A US record, it weighed more than 1,000lb. I am six feet
four inches and can be easily impressed by a 5lb armadillo. Imagine how the kid felt.
John and I stalk through the swamp, which has a gumbo-like consistency. Gumbo is a local
stew that tastes exactly like it sounds. Soon we reach an old duck hide, or 'blind' in American.
So weíve got a good 150 yards of visibility to take a shot on them and as soon as we see
them break those bushes weíll hold off, give them a little time to get as close in front
of us as we can, just stay trained on them the whole time, keep our scopes on them and
as soon as they get close enough and weíre comfortable taking that shot weíll put lights
on them and fire away and see what weíve got.
We sit and wait, and we wait, then John reckons its time to go and see the boar face to face
After the little scare earlier on, the approaching armadillo, John thinks itís a good idea that
we go after them on foot. Brilliant.
Another wild pig hamburger joint, but this one looks undisturbed. John reckons we will
have to put tonight down as unlucky.
So we got to the end point, feeling a bit defeated by duck, bit beaten by boar, they
havenít touched the bate, but you cannot beat the excitement of stalking up on something
that could easily be stalking up on you. Itís not a lion or a tiger, itís a pig, but itís
a great big thing in a very dark wood and itís absolutely brilliant.
Above all, this part of the United States is truly gorgeous. For more on hunting with
John, visit www.doublegunguide.com or the landowner's website www.bayoutechehuntingpreserve.com
Well we're back next week and if you are watching this on Youtube please donít forget to hit
the subscribe button which is somewhere on the outside of the screen there or go to our
website www.fieldsportschannel.tv scroll down to the bottom where you will find the constant
contact box, stick your email address in there and we can constantly contact you, or click
to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter. This has been Fieldsports Britain from America
yippee-cai-ay!
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