Greetings from Staffordshire County Showground, Stafford, England, United Kingdom, which currently is the site of a deerstalking trade convention appropriately named The Stalking Show. After returning to Cambridge, New York last Saturday, April 4th to tidy-up my affairs, I departed from Boston-Logan Thursday evening for this two-day event – Saturday and Sunday, April 11th and 12th. While I’m here to talk business and attend a range of workshops and seminars, my primary objective is to investigate what the market currently offers regarding telescopic sights, as I will be purchasing one to put on my new Sig-Sauer Cross Fury, chambered in 6.8 x 51mm Hybrid/.277 Sig Fury, once I return to the United States.
This will be a short visit, though. For I’m heading home on Monday, April 13th. Consequently, there’ll be no deerstalking or fly-fishing in Blighty this time. And that’s okay, because I’ve things waiting for me both in New York and in Maryland, which means that I’ll be driving back and forth more than normal until the third week of May when I’ll remain in the former to start my summer season.
The reality is that I travel a lot – mostly either to catch and/or shoot something or to help a client catch and/or shoot something – and I confess that it’s a bit wearing. For example, all the driving between New York and Maryland, and between Cambridge and wherever I am in the Adirondacks, and over in the UK, has given me a case of sciatica. Then there’s the planes and trains and waking-up in the middle of the night not knowing where I am. Yet, traveling the way I do works for me even if, alongside other features of my life, it marks me as a certain type of guy.
Case in Point
Back in July 2024, a fellow angler and I got to talking about our livelihoods as we returned to our vehicles for lunch. After stating that I had been a chemistry professor for the lion’s share of my working life, I then delineated my current vocation as owner-operator of Voyageurs Fieldsport and how I bounce between a number of states and frequently across the Atlantic. Then I proceeded to relate how I work about 80-hours a week from Memorial Day to Labor Day. That’s when he shook his head and laughed and went on his way. But not for long, because 2-minutes later he walked over and proclaimed, “You’re single!”
Yep. I am.
My status, though, makes me something of a curiosity. For it’s been coming-up quite frequently, whether I’m in New York or Maryland or Vermont or Virginia, and enough to finally warrant writing about it. Guys have inquired if I’m going to make a play, as they’re intrigued by why I haven’t at all done so over the years. This includes even my priest. Yet, they leave it at that and I’m on my own. The gals, however, are a different matter. Not only do they persist, they also work together – like a pack of wolves! So as it often happens, ‘Sally’ or ‘Trisha’ attempts to introduce me to her friend.
Now, these guys and gals are behaving rationally, and they’re only looking out for me. They mean well. Therefore, this is a good problem to have. Yet, if life is to be played as a card game, then it’s solitaire for me. The fact is that the only way the job gets done in some lines of work is to be totally unencumbered. Saint Paul, the Apostle certainly knew that. Moreover, the angler who put the pieces together in 2024 obviously knew it, too.
I’m invoking Saint Paul for my priest’s benefit, of course. Although others might gain something from it just as much. Either way, I turned 58-ans earlier this week and I’m too well-traveled and have met too many people, etc., to be second-guessed. That’s right. I know my mind. There’s nothing here that can unlock the heart of this itinerant deerstalker and fly-angler.
Off to work, Steve!
So in the final analysis, I’m a boring guy – but one with a job to do here, there, and everywhere. And on that note, I take leave to continue investigating what the market offers regarding telescopic sights. What I want is a premium lunette de tir – the best of the best. After all, it’s just me and Ivey, and she’s only a bird dog, which means there’s room in the budget to splurge.
