“One’s real life is so often the like that one does not lead.” - Oscar Wilde
I have this thing for a 32 caliber muzzle loader. This odd need has an insidious way of surfacing every year about the time squirrel season opens. I used to hunt squirrels with a rifle but now I use a pistol and over the last 10 or so years I have decided that even that is too easy. Not that I am an especially good handgun shot but it seems to me that squirrel hunting in East Tennessee should be a traditional kind of thing so I have decided that it is time to add a small bore black powder rifle to the arsenal.
I’m not even sure why squirrel hunting should be traditional after all of these years. Maybe it’s the cleaning of the squirrels that brings me to this stage in my squirrel hunting life. Cleaning squirrels after hunting them with a single shot antique would probably be easier because you, more than likely would, in the long run, shoot less squirrels.
Finding a 32 caliber muzzle loader is an easy thing if you have better than $300.00 in your pocket. Those persistent and nuisance hunting and fishing catalogs seem to have an occasional model or two that would do the trick, but spending that kind of money just to satisfy some strange feeling about tradition seems a little odd in itself. Justifying that kind of money on a single shot rifle, for the purpose of squirrel and dumplings, seems, even to me, to be an extreme case of justification.
When faced with this type of financial dilemma I have a tendency to frequent pawn shops. A good pawn shop seems to help tremendously with the necessary justification process when looking for a good deal on any expensive gun or bow.
The trouble with this gun search is that most guys don’t seem to want to pawn their best squirrel rifles. Pawn shops around here are rife with 45 and 50 and 54 caliber muzzle loaders, but no 32s. Shops are full of these big bore guns, but looking for a used 32 is a never ending trek. This search for a 32 has me continually combing pawn shops. Most proprietors just look at you like you are nuts when you ask for a 32 or 36 cal squirrel gun. It appears that no matter how down and out a squirrel hunter gets, he never pawns his best squirrel shooting muzzle loader.
Just the other day I was intent on cruising a North Chattanooga Pawn shop in the hopes of finding a 32. The door was locked at 3:00 in the afternoon. Business must be good with today’s stock market and economy. Across the street was a fly rod shop, and so with time to kill time, and try to get my mind off of the expensive gun problem, I wandered into the fly shop. I never should have done this! I should have known better, but I just couldn’t stop myself in time.
The first thing I noticed was that the fly shop was filled with some sort of alluring odor. It was some sweet musky kind of smell that I seemed to remember from my youth when youth was filled with young women that swam in perfume and cologne. The store appeared empty but the soft, powerful fragrance hovered over the store like an September morning’s fog on a pre-dawn wood duck hunt.
I drifted toward the 3 weight fly rods in a mild, trance like state and suddenly the maiden appeared. She floated across the floor in a graceful and fluid motion much like a predator eases up on her prey, and when she smiled her soft smile and spoke she spoke with the melodious tone of an angel. Closing the distance quickly she stalked me, her musk scented aura enveloped me and cradled me in a sense of ease and comfort.
I had the feeling that a three legged Wildebeest must get when it spots a big cat in the tall grass on the African plain. Instantly large beads of moisture popped out of my bald spots. She was asking me if she could help and I was struggling with a response as I forced my eyes to break contact with the pools of brown eyed darkness that were swimming under her soft, dark eyebrows, silhouetted by her perfectly shaped nose and soft cheeks.
This was spiraling out of control with each heart beat. I mumbled something about needing a new fly rod as I drank in her form. She had on a black tank top and tight jeans and her toenails were painted red. Her body was alive with athleticism and speed and she was the very personification of a fly rod sales killing machine.
I had entered new and dangerous water here. I had never been approached by this type of salesperson before when pretending to buy a fine fly rod. This was a new challenge for me and I wasn’t sure I was up to it.
Good by 32 caliber squirrel rifles!
She circled me twice in a slow, lazy dance of willpower and began to gently place overly expensive fly rods in my hands, all the while asking me where I fished. I rattled off some remote rivers to test her and she had obviously fished them all, as she spit out names of pools that were dead on as my favorite holes and my best kept secrets. This was alarming to say the least! The enchantress, this siren in denim, not only looked and smelled stunning but she traveled the same waters that I had, and her knowledge of good fishing was impressively extensive. I was in deep trouble here and I knew it, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.
She said the rods were on sale and it was the best deal she had seen since she left her boyfriend. I was suddenly getting disoriented. My vivid fantasy life was beginning to kick in as I imagined her casting a small olive dun in a pool, high on Gee Creek. I could she her smiling in the dappled sun with laurel and rhododendron blooms in her dark hair. I imagined her tiring of the heat of the day and then before we knew it we were skinny dipping in the cold pool like a couple of otters.
A fly fishing fantasy of epic proportions was unfolding on me like a tidal wave. I was being washed to sea with a smile on my face.
I dropped the rod in her hand and she looked deeply into my eyes. She asked if I was OK as I snapped out of my dream state. I hoped she had not seen my fantasy but I wasn’t quite sure. She had read me like a book so far. This was getting way out of hand by the minute. I had to disengage.
She shifted gears on me and started talking about fly fishing for bass and how she had out fished her old boyfriend the night before, which had contributed to a rather protracted argument, and ultimately, to their break-up. This was probably one of her better casts.
She had managed to drop a large offering right in front of my face and I felt like some big old fish that was about to take the bait. I could see myself floundering at her feet as she sunk the gaff into my lip and put me on her stringer. Beads of sweat poured from my forehead. The next move was clearly mine. The anticipation and the vivid fantasy life was as intense as anything I had experienced in a fly shop, in a while.
I sounded like a big Brown in a long slow pool, hiding on the bottom, not really sure if this morsel was a delectable thing or if something was clearly