I can’t remember the first person I heard use the term “Woods Bumming ” but I can tell you I have certainly done my fair share of it. I guess before we can discuss it we need to define it. My unofficial but good as any definition of woods’ bumming is simply making a trek for the simple purpose of enjoying nature and maybe including some impromptu target practice along the way. It can involve hunting squirrels with an accurate .22 for the pot or simply killing cans and rocks along the way. It might be in bear country in which your portable armory could be called upon to save your hash. Regardless, relaxing and fun fit in there somewhere. My first woods bumming experience was actually desert bumming. We were mule deer hunting on McGregor Range in southern New Mexico. After returning to camp in the evenings many of the men who were all in the army, stationed with my dad, would drag out their rifles and take pot shots at rocks 500 to 600 yards away and some were lucky enough to connect. I was 12 years old and had never pulled the trigger on anything more powerful than a BB gun. I was excluded from the rifle shooting but SGT Grandstaff, a friend of my dad’s, sensed that I was feeling left out. He hollered at my dad and said “Chief, is it ok to take Roy down the road to shoot my pistol?” He told him ”sure, just be careful.”We walked down the road away from camp and he pulled out a brand new Ruger Super Single Six. He explained we would shoot the long rifle cylinder first. It didn’t take me long to fall in love with the gun. After two cylinders full of ammo I was hitting cans regularly out to about 30 yards. I was hooked. I had no idea where that day in the desert would lead me. It lit the fire and my late uncle fanned the flames. He was a gun collector and avid hunter that traveled the world hunting.
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My love for shooting handguns blossomed and although time isn’t as plentiful as it once was I still enjoy a proper day of woods bumming. To truly enjoy woods bumming you must first learn to keep it simple. If you spend 2 hours building a remote shooting range to only use occasionally you have obviously created a fun venue but have actually missed the point of the exercise. On the other side of the coin, if you don’t have anything to shoot at you aren’t going to get much shooting in. Depending on how far you are from your woods’ bumming frontier there are steps to take to keep the whole event fun and relaxing. If you simply walk out your back door for a 20 to 30 minute exploration of the woods with only a cylinder or two of shooting with your pet .22 you have accomplished the simplest form of woods bumming and that is akin to taking a power nap. If on the other hand you like to make an hour or two trek and carry a snack and drink you have achieved the equivalent of a rainy Sunday afternoon nap. My favorite is a three or four hour outing with a backpack carrying sufficient sustenance to keep me fat and sassy. This is the equivalent of an African safari stalking the bushveld in search of a trophy kudu. Remember Walter Mitty? Sometimes we all need a little Walter in us. The tools of the trade are simple. Since you are reading this in Handgun Hunters Afield I assume you are a handgunner. There are no set rules for this activity, only suggestions which I can tell you from experience enhance this wonderful activity. As far as your side arm it is hard to beat an accurate .22 revolver such as a Single Six or a S&W K22. Truthfully something as simple as a Ruger Wrangler or a Heritage Rough Rider will do. A decent holster to make the trip comfortable is a welcome addition. An accurate .22 auto also fills the bill nicely. From that we move up in cartridge size. An accurate .38 Special or .357 loaded with soft kicking .38 Specials is a welcome alternative to the trip. Handloads with cast bullets are non abusive to the shooter, economical and and the extra pop from shooting them provide instant gratification. Have a nice accurate .32 revolver? It works just as well. My personal favorite for this type of adventure is a .44 Special Charter Target Bulldog with 240 grain cast bullets between 700 and 800 feet per second. The big fat bullets at these speeds will provide even more gratification when the bullets strike drink cans by tossing them into the air. It doesn’t have to be a revolver. Have a G23 Glock or a Colt Commander? Let them join the fun. Carrying your shooting gallery with you is also a good way to enhance this activity as long as you keep it simple. I have a nice little backpack that is unobtrusive and can carry a lot of stuff easily. If going on a woods safari I can carry sandwiches, a can or two of Vienna sausages, a couple of bottles of water or whatever you like to drink and most important, your shooting gallery. The first item we want to carry is a trash bag to clean up after our lunch and our shoot. One of the simplelist targets for these excursions is cardboard cutouts about 10” x 10” or paper plates. A few push pin tacks, clothes pins or such like to attach the targets to old dead logs or thumb size saplings and some bungee cords to hold up targets between trees by using the clothes pins work well. The stick on orange target dots can already be applied so your total set up time in the woods is about 5 minutes. A few plastic drink bottles with a 36” piece of string to hang from low branches is also a welcome addition to the fun. Wherever you set up just be sure you have a proper backstop for safety’s sake. As for ear protection, use what you are comfortable with. I keep extra plugs in my pack but it is a good way to carry ear muffs if that is your chosen way. A few common sense items like a first aid kit and some nice soft toilet paper would be welcome auditions to the pack. Whatever you carry and however you do it, just remember to keep it fun and simple. It is a great way to keep your skills set sharp between hunting seasons.Remember that there are kids and spouses that more than likely will want to tag along and although this is a great way to have some “Me Time” it is just as great a way to have “Us Time” too. Many kids like myself, were introduced to guns and the outdoors through just such activities as I have described here. There isn’t a better way to nurture a love for the things that we love, in our families, than to have them participate in our activities as well. Now that we have the general idea of what woods bumming is and how to go about it we need to know why we do it. First and foremost is that it is the purest form of an outdoors person’s rest and relaxation. Second, it is a confidence builder that is so important it can’t be overstated. When we shoot paper at the range to learn exactly how accurate we are with our chosen equipment it is very important. When we trek into the woods to just plink, the instant gratification of regularly connecting with targets and seeing them react is a confidence builder that will last all year and carry us into hunting season, knowing we can make the shot. Punching paper is good but rarely is it truly gratifying. Imagining a drink can over the heart of a deer as it approaches actually works. I have done it. Pull the sights up and line them up with the can and your brain processes the gratifying impact that you loved to see in the woods. The only thing left to do is grab your gun and pack and head out. You will never know until you try it.
