In 357 mag, I could use a Lee C358-180-RF bullet from a mold I got in a group buy on the Castboolits forum. I've bought some great molds through the Group Buys! They then order the mold in quantity and get a big discount. Guys there toss around design ideas until they decide on one. Look on the Castboolits forum at for the Group Buy Topic. I needed a lightweight 10" octagon barrel in 357 mag or 44 mag. My T-C Contender might work, I thought, but not with the big ol' Super 14 barrel which came on it. Besides, a thicket pistol should have no sparkly shine, and I couldn't see taking sandpaper to the Ruger. My Ruger Super Blackhawk was too heavy, and if I placed it across my belly in a position where I could grab it fast, when I got on hands and knees and started crawling it turned and fell and hit the floor. My thoughts turned to a proper thicket pistol. Then came another realizationol' Mossy Horns probably hung out in that thicket during daylight hours. I needed a pistol I could strap across my belly while I crawled on hands and knees. I'd have to drag a rifle or strap it across my back where it would snag again and again. I got on my hands and knees and, dragging my rifle, crawled along the tunnel until I reached an area where the thicket wasn't so thick.įrom that day, I often thought about crawling back down the same tunnel and sitting beneath the same oak and watching down the tunnels. It probably extended all over the 120 acre thicket.įinally rested and refreshed, I looked around and saw a tunnel headed in the direction from which I came. Realization cameeither purposely or by accident, the deer had made themselves a road system from giant oak to giant oak.
Around me beneath my oak I could see deer tracks, and I could see deer tracks on the floor of the nearest tunnel. Some of the tunnels headed in the direction of other giant oaks. Then I noticed something unusual about the thicket around me, something which had been invisible while I was standing.įrom my low position, I could see tunnels leading through the thicket and extending out from the oak like spokes of a wagon wheel. I rested and snacked and refreshed myself with water from my canteen. I'm sure I breathed a sigh of relief, and I probably made a vow to stay out of thickets. The bleeding finally stopped without me having to use the coagulant powder. So I rested against the oak, lowering my heart rate, and I daubed the little wounds with tissue. Since then, my backpack has contained a first aid kit with a bottle of coagulant powder. On another trip through the deep woods I scratched my hand on a blackberry briar and almost bled to death. I should have turned around when the walking became difficult, but noooooooo, I kept going!
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I'm a free bleeder because of heart medication, and I was worried about the blood oozing down my hands and arms from several little scratches and tiny stab wounds. I sat on the ground and leaned back against the trunk of the oak. Then I stepped into a clearing beneath a giant oak. All thoughts of hunting left me as I struggled with thorns and briars. I got turned around and found myself in the thicket. That seemingly trivial fact gave me welcome relief one morning several deer seasons ago. I suspect she came across a sleeping boar hog, but you never knowbears and panthers like deep woods, too. She got at my side and refused to leave me. She suddenly came streaking toward me like a greyhound with its tail tucked between its legs. About an hour later and a half mile along the tramway, Suzy barked twice off in the thicket. Past the sunlit area in the right background nothing on two legs can walk without great difficulty. The circa 1900 tramway marks the northern edge of the big thicket. The oak alone gets the moisture and nutrients from a circle around it the size of its canopy. Due to the acidic soil, almost no brush or grass grows beneath an oak, especially an ancient oak. Oak trees possess an unusual survival mechanismthe leaves and bark contain tannic acid. That fact sounds strange unless you understand the Darwinian mechanism at work. But directly beneath the oaks, the ground is clear of underbrush.
There's one every 75 yards or so scattered across the acreage and surrounded by an impenetrable morass of thorn bushes and briar vines. Now those mostly hollow oaks are forest giants, larger in diameter than the average dining table and with gnarly limbs the size of logs. They clearcut it years ago, but they left the cull oaks standing. On the back side of the deep woods where I deer hunt there's a 120 acre thicket a man can't walk through. Contender 357 Mini-Max Thicket Pistol Contender 357 Mini-Max Thicket Pistol
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