Have y'all ever been in a situation where you wish you brought/had "more gun" ?
In 2003 I went to Canada for moose. Since it was probably going to be a once in a lifetime event for me due to costs, I went with the flintlock. Might as well make a memory instead of getting home and saying, "I wish I had taken the flinter instead of the .308 with the heavy bullet, hand loads."
So there I was in an area covered with moose tracks, but the weather was warm, so..., it was likely a cow or two, and most likely night time movement as the guide told me and the rest of the hunting party that moose don't get into a rutting frame of mind until the weather cools off, and it was unseasonably warm. So I found a nice rock outcrop where I could sit inside some brush, just a few feet above the ground in a natural blind, and thus I could look out over the top of the ground cover and see pretty well across an open area. IF a moose crossed the area, I'd have a good sight picture, and with a .54 caliber at under 100 yards, could take a bull moose if he was nice enough to present the right spot. The small evergreens sprouting up here and there made excellent range markers too, so that I'd not look at the moose (much bigger than a whitetail) and think he was much closer than he actually was.
As I sat I noticed after several hours, around sunset, something was to the North of me, and the sun would be in whatever it was eyes. I could see brush moving around, but not the animal.
Out stepped a large black bear.
Wow, how cool is that? I thought,
A bear not in a zoo or wandering around the neighborhood having strayed from the national park. And it was very cool, until the bear began to saunter in my general direction and a pair of cubs following her as she moved.
A sow bear and two cubs was cool, but coming my direction was not cool at all. I have huge respect for shebears with cubs, and I'd read that they often
assume that humans close to the cubs are a threat, and react in an unneighborly manner. It was rather swampy near by as well, so my route "out" of where I was sitting was the path she was taking toward me, at the time.
The the little voice inside my head then said,
"Dude, you have only one shot, and if she gets too close you may have to shoot her, and if the shot doesn't stop her, you're bear food, and if it does, you've killed the cubs too..., and you're the visitor, not them." So "pucker factor" was starting to increase in a big way, I didn't want to shoot any bears, and a "warning shot" was pretty much my only shot if she and the cubs didn't scamper off, and then I thought,
"Gee I wish I had the .308 with the heavy hand loads instead of a single shot flintlock, right now."
At fifty yards I decided it would be best if she saw me from a "distance" rather than hope she would wander past me as she came close and maybe caught my scent. So I stood up and waved, and yelled, "Good evening!". She stopped, took a hard look at me, turned and collected the cubs and thankfully made a hasty departure at a rapid pace into the brush. WHEW...
So YES there has been a time when I wished I had a different gun, if not "more" gun...
LD