McVanBuck Guns, Grizzlies, And Scares

Peter N. Mast is an excellent story-teller. His McVanBuck stories (which are based on real experiences) will entertain the sportsman, hunter, farmer, and all who love adventures. Many have enjoyed Peter's first book in the series McVanBuck Call of the Lighter; and, as was stated on more than one occasion, "He's like a Canadian Patrick F. McManus."

The McVanBuck family are up to it again, with their old unbreakable mindset of "do it first - it's faster than thinking." Some of you may find some wisdom to be had in this second book of the McVanBuck series, if you can stop laughing long enough to see it.

As for the outdoors men and the hunter, you will learn to be lucky in the backwoods to avoid being accidentally shot and luckier still, by voiding being mauled by the hands of an enraged grizzly bear. What to do when the enraged bear gets so close that you can smell their breath? You drop your rifle from your shoulder to your hip, and then like a skilled gun slinger, you try a cocky hip-shot to stop the bear from mauling you to death. But, of course, you have never practiced the hip-shot, neither have you ever attempted it before...

Excerpt 1:

{... The enraged grizzly bear came at us fast and smooth. It came straight towards us through the fall tall grass, being so low to the ground, as it cut its own path through the grass as it ran at us. My rifle went to my shoulder, as I tried to get it spotted into the scope of my gun. But I could not see clearly, for the bear was only a blur. The scope was set on high-power to see at a far distance, and it was too close to see it clearly. At that moment, a chilling thought hit me, sending a shiver up my spine. I had forgotten to put a bullet into the chamber of my rifle, and I had a very angry grizzly bear now charging me, at a full, enraged run...}

Excerpt 2:

{...To our disappointment, nobody came out... not one single hornet.

Perhaps the whole hornet family had been eradicated, or maybe they had simply abandoned their home and the hornets had gone somewhere else.

With confusion, Calvin then put his eye right up to the knothole to look into the darkness to make certain that no one was home and announced, "Nope, I can't see any hornets in there... it's black in there... wait! I see something..."

Then came that surprising, "YE-OUCH! He got me!" as a lone hornet had found an easy target staring right through his front door at him.

This lone hornet must have overslept when his family packed their luggage and left to find a safer location to live.

As Calvin tried to stretch open his eyelid that was slowly clamping his eye shut, a few uncontrolled tears trickled down his face... these were not crying tears though, but were army, tough guy, hornet-sting type of tears...}

Excerpt 3:

{...The prairie gophers were not normally eaten, for they were classified as nuisance vermin. But some of my kin have been known to eat them, from time to time. This mostly occurred when an individual took the quote, "What you shoot, is what you eat," out of context and to the extremes of a hard-core hunt.

The extreme hard-core hunter would have small game animals on their menu, like gophers, magpies, and the occasional house mouse, from the mouse trap in the corner.

As for the extreme, hard-core trapper, they would not just eat the small game they caught, but they would also skin them out. They would then, on occasion, fiddle excessively with the pelts, while entertaining young children with their mouse finger puppets.

My Uncle Casper would say, "Look, children! I've got a puppet on each of my fingers. One to come after each of you, squeak-ety-squeak, squeak-ety-squeak, the mice are coming for you, hahaha!"...}