Looks like I just built my last gun.

[Mike Brooks]

In Davenport anyway! Just got the word, our house is sold and we're moving to New Liberty Iowa! Been working on this deal since last February. All of you that have guns on order please be patient, I'll be pretty busy with a move and new shop set up.

[Blackpowder Barbie]

Bet there will be a bunch of happy chickens running around the new yard!

[TPH]

Congratulations Mike! Sounds like time for a chicken Bar-B-Q. 

[sz]

What.........is there not enough corn where you live now, so you have to move to Iowa?

Maybe the deer and bird hunting will be better there.
Congratulations Mike.

[BILL OKLAHOMA CITY]

Congratulations 

[Dr. Tim-Boone]

I wouldn't be so sure Mike...  ...  I just looked on Google Earth and you can't get there from here.... ..and there is nothing there!! .....Well barely.  Will you live in the village or on one of the surrounding farms??   Sure looks flat..... Will that river to your NE stay away??

[Mike Brooks]

The City has moved in around us the past few years and we're headed back to peace and quite out in corn field county. About 8 miles south of New liberty, nothing but gravel roads and corn out there. Kind of like that old movie "Children of the Corn".

[BILL OKLAHOMA CITY]

The City has moved in around us the past few years and we're headed back to peace and quite out in corn field county. About 8 miles south of New liberty, nothing but gravel roads and corn out there. Kind of like that old movie "Children of the Corn".

...or SIGNS.

[Ky-Flinter]

or "Field of Dreams".  Good for you, Mike.

-Ron

[Cory Joe Stewart]

If you build them (the guns) they will come.

Coryjoe

[Dave B]

Mike,
You have moved to a quieter (not so many drop ins) more productive location.  I would liken it to Delta Junction AK where Judson Brennan hangs his hat.  You wouldnt get as many visitors there I expect. Congrats on the new digs but I don't envy the packin up and movin program at all. 

[Bill of the 45th]

So are you going to join the Amana Colony.  I could see your next guns with a lot of germanic chip carving, and hex signs.

Bill

[Artificer]

Great quail and pheasant country to try out those fowlers ! 

[Mike Brooks]

Great quail and pheasant country to try out those fowlers ! 

Too many coyotes and fox for that... I plan on making quite a dent in their population!
Used to have alot of birds in this area, until the farmers took out all their fences and the predators got thick. We do have lots of turkeys and deer.

[KLMoors]

Congrats Mike! Do you need any help moving? Oh....wait......I just checked my daytimer and I'm busy for the next....... couple of centuries. Sorry

[oldiemkr]

Good Luck Mike.

Its funny how things move in around you over the years.

I bought a cabin in the woods in Indiana years ago. All I wanted was a place at the end of a gravel road where I could hunt a bit and do some shootin.

Fast forward and now we have a Gov't funded water line, blacktop roads and other improvements {?}. Across the road is now a $300,000 six bedroom lodge that is full of different folks every week. Multitutes of 4 wheelers, off road vehicles,plastic guns etc. And no one knows or cares about property lines. Ahh progress.

[Long John]

Mike,

Congratulations and best wishes on your new life.  I've been trying to find a place in Penn's Woods for 2.5 years now and have had 3 deals fall through because of the gas mania.  But I know that it will be worth it once I find my place.

Best Regards,

JMC

[James Rogers]

I know you will be burning a lot more powder there won't you?
Good luck on your move. I know it's been a long time coming.

[Mike Brooks]

I know you will be burning a lot more powder there won't you?
Good luck on your move. I know it's been a long time coming.

Powder burning. YOU BET! Back to being able to shoot out the window again, just like the good ol days. I think I'll have close to a 200 yard range to play on right in my back yard!
 Closing on the 30th and have two weeks there after to move all our "junk". I'll be out there this week end to start "varmint proofing" the barn. Probably haul a truck load of gunstocks out there in the same trip.

[Artificer]

Great quail and pheasant country to try out those fowlers ! 

Too many coyotes and fox for that... I plan on making quite a dent in their population!
Used to have alot of birds in this area, until the farmers took out all their fences and the predators got thick. We do have lots of turkeys and deer.

That amazes me, Mike.  I was born and raised one county down in Muscatine. till I left for the Marine Corps in 1971.  GREAT pheasant and quail hunting, but back then there was only a lottery for deer drawn on the whole state.   Coyotes were pretty unusual then as well.

[Tim Crosby]

Powder burning. YOU BET! Back to being able to shoot out the window again, just like the good ol days. I think I'll have close to a 200 yard range to play on right in my back yard!
 

 Funny how some folks would not understand how important that is. Congratulations, I do not envy you the move, I'm still looking for stuff after three years.

 Tim C.

[Mike Brooks]

Yep, things have changed alot in the past 40 years here. I remember hunting deer in the 80's and not seeing one in 5 days. Now it takes about two hours of hunting to put one in the freezer. In the 80's turkeys didn't exist, now they are almost at pest level. I had never seen a coyote in my youth, but they are a common sight now even in day light hours. And the hawks! Good grief, they sky is filled with them.
 For good bird hunting I go to south central Iowa. I have shot a few pheasants around here, but it's alot of work as they are few and far between.

[Dphariss]

Great quail and pheasant country to try out those fowlers ! 

Too many coyotes and fox for that... I plan on making quite a dent in their population!
Used to have alot of birds in this area, until the farmers took out all their fences and the predators got thick. We do have lots of turkeys and deer.

Much better than where you are now. I grew up about 25 miles east of Waterloo but I don't miss it much. I miss the squirrels and the Mississippi River, the rest of the "experience" I can live without.

Coyotes and Fox...
This what happens when trappers are looked on as some sort of disgusting sub-species, the regulations get written or influenced by anti-trapper types so its near impossible to catch anything and fur prices bottom out because fur in out of fashion.
Skunks are really bad for birds to.
Rabies outbreaks will be next if they don't have them already. Mange.
If fox and Coyotes were 50-100 bucks a pop the population would not be so high and in catching these the skunks would be thinned as well. I knew a guy in NE Iowa back about 1967 who caught 1000 fox one fall in about 40-45 days IIRC, at 10 bucks each. But he worked at it pretty hard.

Dan

[Osprey]

Congrats on the move!  May be heading out that way myself next year, putting my place here up for sale in April, when it sells I'm heading somewhere west and Iowa is at the top of the list.   Looking hard at Allamakee Co in NE corner of the state or SE around Davis, Appanoose, Van Buren area.  Can't wait to get out of Maryland and live somewhere you never hear the words Coastal Flood Watch.   

[Curt Larsen]

Osprey, it's a good time to get out of Dorchester County and move to Iowa.  A major share of Dorchester County will be intertidal by 2050 given the historic rate of sea level rise on the Chesapeake.  Of course if you're a duck or goose hunter those marshes are the place to be.  Check out my research on Blackwater on the internet.  Google my name and Blackwater or sea level.  Something should come up.  Just came back from Iowa after visiting Bookie and some relatives in Iowa.  It is not as flat as some might think.  Pretty nice county.

Curt