Hunting from Horseback

Kris and I went to see a demonstration of the Maine Chapter of Cowboy Mounted Shooters over at a local stable awhile back. It was pretty interesting. They dress in period garb and use six-shooters to break balloons as they gallop through a course. Fastest time and most balloons broken wins the contest. It is fun to watch and, since they use blanks, it is a much safer spectator sport than you might have imagined. The muzzle blast will break a balloon at ten feet or so if the shooter is on target. Blazing Guns and thundering hooves, what could be better?
You can see it online if you google cowboy mounted shooting.

We went to see how their horses reacted to gunfire directly overhead. Since they were putting on a demonstration, we saw first hand what happens when a rider shoots off of their horse for the first time. Surprisingly, not much. Forty five calibur pistols make a pretty good blast and caused a little nervousness but not enough to cause a rodeo. Kris and I have wanted to bird hunt from horseback since we got the horses. This was very encouraging.

Actually hunting from horseback is going to be a little more complicated. To start with, you are not shooting blanks. You could shoot a) yourself b) each other or c) your horse. There is the remote possibility that you might actually shoot a bird, maybe even the partridge you were aiming at and not an unlucky chickadee who is the first victim of a ride by shooting in a hundred years.

Then you have the problem of gun selection. Are you going to use a shotgun or a pistol. Cradling a loaded shotgun while you ride a long seems awkward at best and might be a bit risky if you are riding beside each other. They make a single shot pistol that shoots 410 shells. You could keep the pistol holstered until you actually saw a bird and the perhaps you could clear leather before you got excited and pulled the trigger shooting both yourself and your horse all at once.

I can see some challenges before we get our first bird. I believe we can greatly increase our odds and safety for both horse and rider by using a traditional solution to shooting off of a horse. We could employ the technique favored by villains in almost every western-- we could "dry gulch em." Shoot em on the ground before they have a chance. Partridge in the air take more evasive action than Tom Cruise in Top Gun. On the ground however, they sometimes are incredibly dumb and will stand in the middle of the road while you get out of the truck and load your gun. (I personally have only heard of people doing this. I always flush the birds to give them a chance no matter how many miles I've walked and how many birds I have missed that day. Really.)

We have already started training the horses in a round about way. I use the Nail gun inside the barn frequently since there is still a fair amount of construction going on here. Both will come up and be a nuisance while you are using it. If you are up in the loft and they are down in their stalls, they usually just ignore it and keep napping. Horses just get used to whatever you are doing as long as it doesn't hurt them. So, next we will set up and shoot skeet in the paddock and eventually take them out in the field and shoot skeet and then finally, shoot off their backs. Assuming this works we will try hunting from horseback next fall. I have the feeling this is going to be real interesting. Yeeeee Haaaaa! or maybe --- WHOOOOOOA--hard say.