This morning I was a guest on my friend George Cera's radio show ('Let's Talk Wildlife,' on 107.5 FM in central Florida) and a caller asked about what weapons I had come to favor for hunting nutria. I get a lot of questions about my gear in general so I thought it would be fun to outline what I bring when I hit the road.First of all, I don't have a truck or an SUV. I drive a little Ford ZX2 coupe that has plenty of engine but gets great gas mileage. This car doesn't have a whole lot of room and that means that I have to make some tough decisions about what comes and what stays.
When I travel to work on Eating Aliens I always have a specific species that I'm after but I also want to be prepared to take advantage of any other opportunities that might come alone. Anything from one pound iguanas to three hundred pound wild boar could be on the menu, depending on whom I happen to meet and what species they can direct me to.
I've settled out to three long guns and one pistol that always come with me (unless I'm visiting a state or country with gun laws that prevent me).
First, my Marlin 925 bolt action .22 rifle. I carry an extra magazine for it. The Marlin sports a 32mm Pine Ridge scope by Cabela's on quick detaching rings by Burris. The QD rings are essential, in my opinion. I spend a lot of time hunting in some very awkward places at strange hours, often under a deadline. That .22 gets used so much for small game that I cannot risk having it out of commission even for a few hours if the scope takes a hard knock. Just a few days ago I was sitting on a riverbank in Port Vincent, Louisiana hunting nutria close to dusk. Rain began to fall and between the fog on the scope lenses and the low light, I could not make anything out through the crosshairs. It took me less than a minute to pull off the scope and keep hunting with open sights. The following day, the ability to switch to those open sights allowed me to pot a couple of fast-swimming nutria from an airboat. I doubt that I could have made snap shots like those if I'd had to find the targets in a magnified scope.
At some point I will probably upgrade to a stainless and synthetic version of the same rifle. Meanwhile the blued steel and laminated wood of my 925 seem to be accepting the constant abuse of the elements with dignity.
A Mossberg 500 pump action 12 gauge shotgun also lives in the trunk when I'm on the road. There are other brands and action types that are better at specific tasks. My side-by-side 20 gauge Stevens would make a dandy gun for European pigeons, for example. But I don't know if I'm going to be hunting pigeons one day and maybe muscovy ducks the next. I need one gun that does it all reasonably well and that is the Mossberg 500 in 12 gauge. I bring both lead and steel shot (use lead if you're going to use shotguns for nutria, by the way) in the car with me in several different sizes.
Among the things that I like about the 500 is the fact that its not an expensive gun. I can abuse it all I want and its not a big deal. I have literally used this gun as a barge pole at a moment of need and the action cycled just fine afterward. I have pounded stakes into the ground with it. It just won't quit.
The third long gun that comes on the road with me every time is my Remington model 700 XCR, chambered in .30-'06. Yes, there are better tailored deer cartridges. There are lighter, faster varmint cartridges out there. There are bigger cartridges that will put a bigger hole in a feral pig. But if you need one gun that can handle anything in North America (which I do), the .30-'06 is the way to go. I strongly prefer a stainless steel and corrosion resistant finish, because I've had some bad experiences with Remington's blued steel rusting up quickly in rough weather. The lower-priced Model 700s have really suffered in quality over the last ten years or so, but the higher-priced versions such as the XCR remain solid guns.
My 700 wears a Leupold VX-II scope mounted on Leupold rings and a two piece Leupold base. The only thing I don't like about it is the lack of back-up iron sights, which is also the reason why it doesn't have QD rings. The barrel has been cut down and re-crowned to 19 inches, which is unusual for a .30-'06. I like it set up this way because when the gun is slung over my shoulder the barrel doesn't protrude above my head. That helps a lot when I'm moving a long way through thick brush to get to a hunting area. Given the efficiency of modern smokeless powders, the loss of velocity doesn't amount to much more than 75 feet per second, if that.
The .22, 12 gauge and .30'-06 ammunition all offer the advantage of being ubiquitous. If I need to pick up ammo on the road, I can find what I need at any store that sells ammunition. While I'm a big fan of cartridges like the 8mm Mauser, 7mm-08 and .303 British and I hunt with them at home, I won't often take those guns on the road for fear of not being able to find ammunition on the shelf quickly if I need it.
Another gun that usually makes the cut and comes along with me is my Ruger Mk III Hunter. This is a .22 semi-automatic target pistol with a long, fluted bull barrel. The stainless steel finish is nice in bad weather. Sometimes when I'm hunting small game in an out-of-the-way area I like to bring the Ruger for the sake of having less weight and encumbrance as I hike in and out. I'll put a pair of collapsible safari sticks in my pack and use the pistol exactly as I would a rifle. This little pistol of mine has taken everything from squirrels to nutria to turkeys (any firearm is legal for turkey hunting in Virginia).
In my next post I'll outline some of the things other than firearms that always come with me on an expedition.
[Photo copyright 2011 by Jackson Landers. All rights reserved.]
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