Why Am I Telling This Story?
I'm sure that every hunter has accidents and learns from them. I learned, or had a lesson confirmed, that I hope will make clear that some of the rules around hunting and gun-handling are in place for good reasons and not just hypothetical ones.
Where We Were
Holly and I were lucky to get a draw for Little Dry Creek, presumably one of the best duck hunting locations in the northern Sacramento Valley. It's a lovely place with ponds, tules, and TREES! The other refuge that I've been to is Delevan and there are no trees in Delevan. But LDC reminds me of the lovely slough that my friend Dana has taken me. Lots of tall trees, shrubs, and grass.
We settled ourselves in our blinds and we discussed our shooting paths and limits. Holly will swing to this point, I will swing to that. Holly suggested that if she moved out of the way that I might swing a little farther since the range that I marked out seemed a little narrow, but I insisted that I was not comfortable shooting too close to her direction. And while she thought I was being too cautious, she respected my concern. Then we set to wait for birds.
The hunt itself was not memorable... compared to what happened next. Holly managed to get her first Wood Duck, a lovely little critter, but my experience was truly dramatic.
What We Were Doing
It was finally around 11 am and I needed to get home so that I could get home so that Derek and I could leave by a reasonable time for a weekend in Napa Valley. We had plenty of time so we weren't in any kind of hurry. We were at our regular pace. We were packing up our stuff, had gathered up and netted all the decoys. Nothing left to do but unload the guns and go.
Loaded guns. Consider this foreshadowing.
Holly and I were standing at opposite ends of the blind, about three feet apart at the most. We were facing in opposite directions, Holly facing east, I facing west. We are proper gun handlers because we follow rules about hunting and killing and guns to the letter (see Holly's link to the hunt linked above), so Holly's muzzle was facing east, mine was facing west while we were loading the shells from the guns.
Side note
One of the first times I was at the range with Holly, I accidentally pointed my loaded gun way too close to where people were standing and Holly quickly grabbed the barrel of my gun and firmly but gently reminded me that I must be very, very careful anytime that I had a gun in my hands, loaded or not, but even more careful and aware when it was loaded, trigger lock on or not. I remembered that as a pivotal moment. I'm glad I did. To this day, I make sure constantly that my muzzle is pointed away from people. To be honest, I even feel slightly sick when I load the empty gun in my car to travel because no matter where I point it, it will be pointing at either me, my passenger, or at a driver of another car. I know, I know, a little excessive, but something I think about.
Back to My Story
So, Holly and I were unloading our guns. The shell wouldn't pop out of mine, so I rotated my gun a little to release the action and let the shell fall out...
BANG!
I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. But my gun fired. It went off on its own.
I looked at Holly, she wasn't writhing on the ground. I looked at my feet, they were still there. I couldn't hear anything because the blast was so loud. There was a giant divot in the cement floor of the blind and a part of my gun case was ripped. My ears were still ringing.
I had made sure the trigger lock was on. I wasn't wearing gloves. But somehow when I turned the gun to its side or when I was fiddling with the action, I must have released the trigger lock and somehow fired the gun.
I was frozen. I was afraid to make another movement. Holly gingerly took the gun from me and proceeded to take out the remaining shells.
Everything from that moment on, til now, still feels like slow motion. I think I'm still in shock.
The Lesson Learned
Guns are dangerous. Yes, I know this keenly. I've killed something, so I know its danger. This is a part of hunting that concerns me.
People make mistakes. We don't always do what we intend to do and sometimes we do what we would never intend to do. Accidents happen.
Therefore, people and guns can be a dangerous combination, so we must be very careful.
Okay, I know these things and I practice these things. But I've had that lesson reconfirmed in a very real way.
If I had been slightly more confident or slightly less careful, I might have injured Holly or myself. In fact, I might have killed her or myself. But because I make sure that I practice good and cautious gun safety, it allowed for the accidents to happen without more damage than a golf-ball sized divot in cement.
What Derek Suggested
Once we got back to my house in Sacramento, Derek came out and we told him the story. He looked at me puzzled and asked, why did I bother to unload the gun at all. Why didn't I just fire off the gun to empty it? At first, it seemed to me that it was just a "guy" thing to do, to just shoot a gun at nothing at all. And then, it occurs to me that it's not a bad idea after all. Instead of taking the shells out when I'm done, I'm now considering just firing the gun until it's empty so I don't have to unload the gun again and risk this happening. Other than wasting a few dollars for no good reason, I don't see why this is a bad idea. I would appreciate any thoughts about this.
I'm Going to Say It Again
So, I'm happy I didn't kill anything yesterday. Especially Holly. As Holly put it, Hank would have been pretty mad at me if I had.
