We catch a whopper and learn to shoot.

Well, we have just had the best day yet. I was looking forward to learning to shoot. A friend in college said she could arrange for us to go to friends of hers, who could show us the basics of shooting if I was interested. I was very interested. Everyone seems to shoot here, most people have guns and there are a lot of places to shoot. This is probably my only chance to get my hands on a gun and have a go.
The weather continues to be ridiculously warm for the time of year and we set out with another friend to drive to a 'hobby farm', so called, just west of Jefferson City. A Hobby farm means there are no crops, no animals, except wild ones and it is kept purely for shooting and hunting and riding. What they shoot are rabbits, quail, turkeys, pigeons and deer.
Our hosts are David and Jennifer, who are charming. They live in a beautiful stone late 19th century house, stuffed full of early american furniture and antiques of all sorts. She is a collector and it's great because they use it all everyday. We sit on early 19th century hand painted chairs and eat off old china. They also have three very beautiful horses and hunting dogs. I get the impression they are not hard up!

The morning is set aside for us to have a go at shooting targets with a 22 rifle. There is one with a scope and one without and we try both. He has rigged up a bench so we can rest the gun on something and have a better chance at aiming.

We have to learn to load, prime and always put the safety catch on!

There are four of us shooting and we get quite competetive. I can see how this could be quite addictive.
We are not as silly as we look and hit consistently and near the centre of the target. We also have clay discs to hit and we do that too at 50 yards, then 100 yards. David is extremely patient, which helps.

We then try shooting standing up. I find with one hand, I can't keep the barrel steady enough, but have a go anyway.
 It was such fun and you got such a sense of achievement when you hit the target. Roland preferred the gun with the scope, but the more old fashioned wooden one, looked nicer and had a less sharp sound.
We never got round to the shotguns- maybe next time.
Feeling as if we had done rather well, or perhaps relieved that we hadn't been completely useless, we had lunch. Lunch turns out to be rather good. Jennifer bakes her own bread and it is delicious and David makes pies! Will it get any better! It turns out that when their four sons were younger, David was told if he wanted the marriage to last, he would have to take over the shopping and cooking. He did, and has been doing it ever since. Jennifer is obviously a good picker!

 It is then proposed that we might like to go out on the river with David to check his catfish lines which he put down yesterday. You are only allowed to leave them for a day and have to label your line.
The Missouri looks beautiful.

We drive the boat into the water and away we go.

David used to work for the Missouri Conservation and Development agency and knows the river pretty well. Looking at the way the water is racing past, this is not a river you would venture into without knowing what you're doing.
We all get a turn at driving the boat, even me with one hand. As you can see the watchful eye is on me!

It's great fun belting down the middle of the Missouri, going at full throttle.

You have to watch the depth monitor all the time, because it's very uneven. A lot of work has been done, building banks and underwater shelves to keep the current in the middle and to stop it ripping away at the banks. The banks are muddy clay and there are a lot of floating logs and wooden debris.

The first line is empty and we are told it is late in the year to be catching anything of any size. Then on the second line... look what we found. An absolute whopper! 39lbs to be precise, and he didn't like being caught.

Some of us got quite wet from the thrashing about.

This is David holding the fish.

Those with two hands also got their pictures with him, before he was weighed and put back.

Quite heavy I gather!! It was exciting being so near to such a big fish. Apparently one this big would be 25 years old. Catfish are very successful in the Missouri because they don't mind the muddiness. They are predatory and will eat other fish, including other catfish. Unfortunately some asian carp have found there way into the Missouri, and are doing well, although I can't see them outdoing these monsters.

The last line has a couple of what normally I would consider quite large fish on it, but they now looked so small. I could hold these, then they were put back to get bigger.

It has been a wonderful day, with lots of new experiences. The weather was perfect, our hosts couldn't have been nicer and we all left with silly grins on our faces because we'd had such a good time.

I'm not sure with one hand whether I'd ever be able to shoot a bird or a rabbit, but I think target shooting could be fun as a sport. It was nice to be with people who don't like hand guns but like rifles and hunting. A sensible distinction I feel. I think if you eat meat, you should be prepared to kill it. There is so much uncultivated land here, it makes sense to use land for hunting. I feel we have had a real taste of America and Missouri in particular. We were asked if we missed the UK and we had to say no, not so far!