unclemac
Gold Member
- Oct 12, 2011
- 7,025
- 6,924
- Primary Interest:
- Beach & Shallow Water Hunting
Well we went back to the beach for a long President’s day weekend since we had the time and we love being in the land of no phone, no mailbox, no internet and no TV. The weather was predicted to be one big blow after another and it did not disappoint. Every evening the sou-westerlies would rush in with gusts up to 60 and rain pouring down sideways like it wanted to break the windows. Late morning the weather would clear up and we would have a good six hours or so of blue sky and white clouds and sunshine…this went on for the four days we were down there and I must admit I loved every second of it. Now were I live when I’m not at the beach is in the middle of a thick woods with 100 year old Doug firs and them dang shallow rooted hemlocks (which I swear can fall over on a summer day in a dead calm if you lean too hard on one). So when the wind blows…I much prefer to be somewhere else…which usually means down to the beach… where you can stand out in the middle of a storm and stick up your middle finger and dare the wind to knock you down.
Anyhow…so after one particularly nasty night with the waves chopping up the beach like Paul Bunyan mowing down the forest…I decides to hit the beach with the pup and see what I could see. Now before I get to that just let me say that I love dogs but I have the same opinion of puppies that I have of teenagers…they should be locked up in a closet until such time as they can stop being dang fools (or stop chewing my shoes, rug, woodwork, couch etc.…I even had a pup once that dug a hole in my kitchen floor). So I put the leash on this misbegotten beagle (I wanted a boxer, she wanted a beagle…so we compromised, we got a beagle) and we went for a nice walk on the beach. In between her eating any nasty piece of flotsam she could sniff up and chasing the ducks and splashing in the tide pools (all the time me keeping an eye on the eagle circling overhead), I actually got her down to my bottle spot thinking well…after a weeks worth of angry waves…who know? Now she’s a jerking on the leash, liked to pull my arm out of the socket, and I am trying to focus on clay and sand. Out of the corner of my eye I think I see something and as I bend down to take a look I get kissed on the mouth by sloppiest, muddiest mutt who then proceeds to attack my boots like they was made of beef jerky. Well I calm her down and she heads off to bark at some shore birds and I go back to the sand. I can just see the corner of what looks to be a bottle, and of course I am thinking, “no doubt broke”. So I get down on my knee and pick up a stick to dig around and under my find…hot dam…a whole, unbroken beautiful “Dr. Wistars Balsam of Wild Cherry”…with the cork still in it. The dog comes back all excited like and pulls me over a few feet to… a “Davis Vegetable Pain Killer”. Now I’m getting excited too, these two bottles are only about five feet apart and I have never found more than one bottle at a time in my spot. Well the pup wasn’t done yet neither, she gets to barking and jerking me and we head on over another 20 feet to a log half buried in the sand…and half buried right with it is a “Ponds Extract”.
Three in one day at my spot which has now given me about 20 bottles all from the same era. Now the rest of you may have good bird dogs or trackers, but I got me a “bottle dog” so I guess I’ll just have to keep her.
Anyhow…so after one particularly nasty night with the waves chopping up the beach like Paul Bunyan mowing down the forest…I decides to hit the beach with the pup and see what I could see. Now before I get to that just let me say that I love dogs but I have the same opinion of puppies that I have of teenagers…they should be locked up in a closet until such time as they can stop being dang fools (or stop chewing my shoes, rug, woodwork, couch etc.…I even had a pup once that dug a hole in my kitchen floor). So I put the leash on this misbegotten beagle (I wanted a boxer, she wanted a beagle…so we compromised, we got a beagle) and we went for a nice walk on the beach. In between her eating any nasty piece of flotsam she could sniff up and chasing the ducks and splashing in the tide pools (all the time me keeping an eye on the eagle circling overhead), I actually got her down to my bottle spot thinking well…after a weeks worth of angry waves…who know? Now she’s a jerking on the leash, liked to pull my arm out of the socket, and I am trying to focus on clay and sand. Out of the corner of my eye I think I see something and as I bend down to take a look I get kissed on the mouth by sloppiest, muddiest mutt who then proceeds to attack my boots like they was made of beef jerky. Well I calm her down and she heads off to bark at some shore birds and I go back to the sand. I can just see the corner of what looks to be a bottle, and of course I am thinking, “no doubt broke”. So I get down on my knee and pick up a stick to dig around and under my find…hot dam…a whole, unbroken beautiful “Dr. Wistars Balsam of Wild Cherry”…with the cork still in it. The dog comes back all excited like and pulls me over a few feet to… a “Davis Vegetable Pain Killer”. Now I’m getting excited too, these two bottles are only about five feet apart and I have never found more than one bottle at a time in my spot. Well the pup wasn’t done yet neither, she gets to barking and jerking me and we head on over another 20 feet to a log half buried in the sand…and half buried right with it is a “Ponds Extract”.
Three in one day at my spot which has now given me about 20 bottles all from the same era. Now the rest of you may have good bird dogs or trackers, but I got me a “bottle dog” so I guess I’ll just have to keep her.
