My Dad and I used to hunt and fish together a lot. A lot of non-success as measured by kills, but a lot of fun. My Dad was a real handyman. We built rods, some of which i still use. He also built rifles. One was a .243, that he stocked, blued, scoped, and then reloaded the shells. I inherited all of them.

This year I had the chance to go on a depredation hunt. I used the .243, which was the first time I had hunted with it in 30 years. The long and the sort of it is that using the gun he made, the cartridge he loaded, I tagged one. While i am not able to share this with him it was really meaningful to use tools he made.