Trey Veston
Member
Yesterday, I went out into the Idaho mountains to do some huckleberry picking with my great dane/lab mix.
The area is fairly remote with the nearest town of 1200 about 15 miles away. Cell service is spotty. Emergency response would be around an hour.
Lots of black bears and wolves in the area. Grizzly country is another 50 miles or so to the East. This time of year, these large huckleberry patches are magnets for bears.
Years ago when I was a young kid, I was picking huckleberries while my dad was cutting firewood nearby. A bear came into the patch, got between me and where my dad was sawing, and started following me with my pail of berries. I tried to stay calm and kept moving away from the bear, but he kept coming. I eventually ended up running full speed down the mountain to a creek, falling over, losing all the berries, and had to back track a mile or so back up to where my dad was. The bear lost interest once I dropped the bucket of berries, duh...
But, it was a pretty terrifying experience for a kid, and I've been armed in the woods ever since.
When I was getting ready to leave for yesterday's excursion, I grabbed my go-to woods gun; a Glock G29 Gen 4 in 10mm. It has a KKM 4.5" barrel, Dawson fiber optic sights, and an X-Grip adapter so I can run a G20 15-round magazine with my custom reloads which feature my own 200gr hard cast bullets.
Besides the abundance of predators in the woods, there is also the increasingly common incidents involving two-legged threats that are often either drunk or high.
I've had more sketchy encounters with people in the woods than I have in the small towns around here.
Yesterday, as I was working a berry patch, I thought I heard a bear moving through the brush within 100yds away. I double-checked my Glock and verified that a round was chambered and my shirt wasn't obstructing my draw.
It occurred to me that I was more likely to have to use my weapon out here than I was in town.
Yet I haven't actually practiced drawing and firing my G29 like I have my CCW pistol, which is a S&W M&P40c.
Point of the thread really isn't to debate what you carry in the woods, or caliber, or whatever, but to see if others regularly train with their woods carry guns like they do/should with their CCW weapons.
And the obligatory pics of the beautiful Idaho backcountry and my ugly Glock...
The area is fairly remote with the nearest town of 1200 about 15 miles away. Cell service is spotty. Emergency response would be around an hour.
Lots of black bears and wolves in the area. Grizzly country is another 50 miles or so to the East. This time of year, these large huckleberry patches are magnets for bears.
Years ago when I was a young kid, I was picking huckleberries while my dad was cutting firewood nearby. A bear came into the patch, got between me and where my dad was sawing, and started following me with my pail of berries. I tried to stay calm and kept moving away from the bear, but he kept coming. I eventually ended up running full speed down the mountain to a creek, falling over, losing all the berries, and had to back track a mile or so back up to where my dad was. The bear lost interest once I dropped the bucket of berries, duh...
But, it was a pretty terrifying experience for a kid, and I've been armed in the woods ever since.
When I was getting ready to leave for yesterday's excursion, I grabbed my go-to woods gun; a Glock G29 Gen 4 in 10mm. It has a KKM 4.5" barrel, Dawson fiber optic sights, and an X-Grip adapter so I can run a G20 15-round magazine with my custom reloads which feature my own 200gr hard cast bullets.
Besides the abundance of predators in the woods, there is also the increasingly common incidents involving two-legged threats that are often either drunk or high.
I've had more sketchy encounters with people in the woods than I have in the small towns around here.
Yesterday, as I was working a berry patch, I thought I heard a bear moving through the brush within 100yds away. I double-checked my Glock and verified that a round was chambered and my shirt wasn't obstructing my draw.
It occurred to me that I was more likely to have to use my weapon out here than I was in town.
Yet I haven't actually practiced drawing and firing my G29 like I have my CCW pistol, which is a S&W M&P40c.
Point of the thread really isn't to debate what you carry in the woods, or caliber, or whatever, but to see if others regularly train with their woods carry guns like they do/should with their CCW weapons.
And the obligatory pics of the beautiful Idaho backcountry and my ugly Glock...