[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I've tried to be careful about not injecting Florida info into this thread even if it was about the same period. It was just that the lights thing is a big deal locally. go into the woods off-season with lights and a firearm and you'll hit civil forfeiture on all of those and quite possibly your vehicle too. It is poaching thing as you appear to grasp.

Yep. Even if the hunting party does not have much fear of Maine Game Wardens, the State Police or the Aroostook County Sheriff's Office, when they use artificial lights for coyotes, they take care to carry firearms that are clearly distinct from their usual deer rifles.

They also notify the local Game Wardens and the Sheriff about their hunting party every year and have had their equipment checked for legality before using it. Granted, the presence of perennial local power broker and veteran politician Speaker of the House John L. Martin, 'the Earl of Eagle Lake', the first two times they did this, in 1979-1980, probably didn't hurt their relations with the Maine Game Wardens.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I've also been careful about 2016 info but I have sort of watched or at least been in the same room while it was on of a cable TV program called _North Woods Law_

http://www.animalplanet.com/tv-shows/north-woods-law/

....and in one episode the wardens investigated whether r not a woman had taken a shot at a coyote without license and on a Sunday. Both acts would have been illegal i.e. you need a license to hunt coyotes and you can't do it on Sunday at all. I was boggled at needing a license to shoot coyotes.

As far as everyone knows, my hunters all have licences for anything they might like to hunt. Many of them are among the most active amateur hunters in Aroostook County, entering the elk lottery every year, buying as many licences for buck as possible, etc.

There might, however, be a less-prominent Canadian guest who cannot qualify for a gun licence back home and who has not applied for a hunting licence in Maine. Whether that guest actually hunts illegally with loaner guns or is there just for the camraderie and drinking, however, is anyone's guess. And the PCs have gathered rumours that the hunters might shoot after midnight on Saturday sometimes.

Even if true, it doesn't really make the local representative of the County Sheriff's Office corrupt, just because he hasn't busted several of the most important local men for these once-a-year possible violations. For one thing, the cabin is really hard to get to and there are no neighbours to bother in any way. For another, it's not as if they are poaching deer. At worst, they are shooting a pest at a wrong time.

And lastly, realistically, what kind of cop or game warden arrests several friends of the State Attorney General and the Speaker of the House in the State House of Representatives for such a minor thing? Especially as both these eminent men have been invited to Allen's hunting parties in the past.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Moving on, my Father's deer gun was a .270. Apparently a Ruger semi-auto and I think the scope was a Leupold. This would be for the American Eastern White Tail which is small-ish but probably close enough to the Red Deer in Campaigns.

Sounds good. One of Clayborn Allen's early favourite deer rifles was a Winchester Model 54 Sporter rifle in .270 Winchester that he very occasionally got to borrow from his father and inherited after him in 1962. No scope, though.

One of the rifles bought to loan to VIPs whom the Allens invite for hunting trips during deer season is a 1976-vintage Remington 700 BDL in .270 Winchester, however. I imagine it might have a Leupold Vari-X II 3x-9x40mm scope.

When my game is set, however, the deer season has ended and the annual December hunting party for close friends (or long-time associates, at least) is upon the Allens. They usually don't take any deer rifles to the cabin for that, apart from the ones owned by Dr. Harvey Allen that reside permanently in his vacation cabin. Those will be locked up during the hunting party, though.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

However, Maine definitely has moose and might still have brown bears only a little smaller than you seen in Alaska. The bear would have been rare and may have been gone by 88. What my Father took to Alaska on a hunting trip was a Remington 799 in what may have been .300 win mag (he's 79 nw and getting technical details out of him is worse than pulling teeth). Clayton almost certainly has some sort of moose gun.

Clayborn really likes the Weatherby Mark V rifle in .270 Weatherby Magnum (Fine (Reliable) and customised to be Fine (Accurate)); w/mounted Bushnell Scopechief IV 3x-9x38mm (w/Command Post) [+1 to +3 Acc, -1 darkness penalty, $750, 1.2 lbs.] he bought in 1968.

He does also have a 1973-vintage Weatherby Mark V rifle in .300 Weatherby Magnum, a more respectable caliber for moose and bear, but he prefers the lighter gun and generally keeps the .300 cal as a loaner for VIP guests. The heavier gun was ordered with a Weatherby Premier Wide Angle 3x-9x40mm scope[+1 to +3 Acc, -1 darkness penalty, $750, 1.5 lbs.] from the maker.

Again, though, these guns, nice as they are, will stay in Clayborn Allen's house when he goes to his brother's cabin for the predator hunting party. Unless, of course, he or another member of his party has some reason to want more serious firepower along...

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

What you seem to want to call a "predator gun" might be a "varmint rifle" to most American hunters. My Father used a .243 for that I think.

Granted, many varmints are predators, but the stereotypical varmint gun in the US is meant for daylight use in the West, often with a bipod, and thus requires flat-shooting performance and accuracy out to very long range. And typically, varmint shooting is not done to harvest fur, so exploding the varmints is fine and often seen as good fun.

By 'predator gun', I mean a gun for foxes/bobcats and coyotes* that will not damage their fur too much. In Maine woods the shooting will also be at closer range than is typical out West and if night hunting, the range will rarely exceed 70 yards. This means that .223 Remington might be too much gun, let alone the higher powered varmint rounds popular nowadays.

It seems that the .17 Remington, .22 WMR and .22 Hornet were good rounds available in the 1980s for the kind of thing that I'm considering. The .22 LR is actually a decent round for it, though it suffers somewhat if it is meant to do double duty as a coyote gun and/or used for daylight shots at 70+ yards. The .223 Remington, .220 Swift, .22-250 and .243 Winchester might also do for the purpose, if there are reduced power, fur-friendly loads commercially available in the 1980s.

*For best fur-friendly results at the lower size range, use two different guns for these.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

In 88 I think he was driving a Chevy Silverado (regular cab, long bed 350 V8) with 4WD but I don't believe you had to get out to shift into 4wd. He'd just been priced out of the Blazer market. He'd used to sleep in the back of the blazers on hunting trips but he was past that age-wise in 88.

Cool, those are good suggestions.