Shooting sports, duck and moose hunting

In a recent column, I talked about putting a different dot sight on my Glock 10mm handgun and mounting the old sight off the Glock on my Remington shotgun. Much to my surprise, I finally accomplished both sight changes. The mounting plate for the new green dot sight for the handgun arrived at the gun shop and the gunsmith mounted and bore sighted the sight in a couple of minutes.

My next stop after picking up the handgun was at Diamond D Leather in Wasilla, where I purchased their Denali nylon chest holster with the optics cutout for carrying the Glock while doing stuff outdoors. I’m pleased with the set-up, and I think it will do everything I plan to use it for. I had hoped to get to the shooting range with it before now for final sight-in, but sometimes things get a little busier than we want. I hope to shoot it before week’s end.

For the shotgun, I mentioned than I needed to figure out how to mount the red dot sight on the gun. After thinking about it a bit, I remembered I had bought a scope mount for it a few years ago when I had the shotgun set up to shoot slugs. I put the scope mount back on the receiver and mounted the red dot sight. Much to my chagrin, I found the sight was high enough that I lost a good check weld to the stock when mounting the gun. I thought I’d have to put a cheek pad on the stock to correct the problem.

Then I remembered that, when I bought the scope mount for the shotgun, I‘d also purchased a matching thumbhole stock and forearm, specifically to raise my line of sight on the gun to use the scope. I found that stock and put it on the shotgun – problem solved! Now, when I mount the shotgun, I’m looking directly through the red dot sight. I also need to shoot this gun to get the red dot pointing at the center of the shot pattern. We’ll see if this set up will help my wing shooting – I hope so!

Besides the gun projects, I also finally got out for a couple of hours of fishing. I went up to Susitna Landing to try my luck bank fishing. I had one good bump but nothing else. I watched another guy upriver from my spot hook and land two smaller silvers. The group he was fishing with didn’t get any other action while I was there. From what I’ve read in Fish and Game news releases and what Andy Couch has been reporting in his columns, it would appear to be another below average silver return in this area.

I’ve been thinking about refocusing my fishing efforts toward lake fishing with the salmon runs going the way they are. Trout, landlocked salmon, and pike would be my main species of interest. Once I’m all healed up from surgery (by next spring), I’m looking to get heavily into surf fishing down on the Kenai Peninsula along with the lake stuff. I’m also looking forward to doing more ice fishing as well.

Shifting gears here, the general moose season opened this past Monday and will run through Sept. 25. I hope to get out and do some hunting for that too, but again, I need to go shooting to make sure my rifles are properly sighted in. The upland bird hunting season is currently open, and I would like to try out some older shotguns I have purchased over the past few years. I’ve got four bolt-action, Mossberg shotguns in 12, 16, and 20 gauge along with a 410 too. These guns haven’t been made in decades and, don’t ask me why, just fascinate me. A bolt-action shotgun doesn’t seem to be the fastest repeating action around, but for grouse and the occasional snowshoe hare, it should work fine.

The waterfowl season opens Sept. 1, and I have already purchased my federal duck stamp. Since I’m at that age (geezer status) where I don’t need the state stamp, I’m good to go when I can get out. Since I plan to use the shotgun with the red dot sight, I checked it to be sure I had the magazine properly plugged. I’ve got a good supply of steel shot and some bismuth shot which I plan to use if I get any shots at birds. This could be a fun fall season after all!