1980s American Cars, Guns, Gadgets and Consumer Goods [Atmosphere, look, minutiae]

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Icelander

In modern day Maine, there is a season during which night hunts of coyotes are legal. In the absence of better data, I (perhaps foolishly) assumed that this had been so a generation ago as well.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.