Old Hidden Gun Club

[Teegate]

We are always looking to find hidden gems in the pines, and today we went looking for one. I had noticed what appeared to be a gun club deep in the woods but I always throught it was on private property. Yesterday, while looking the aerials over again I went to the state tax website and discovered the area is owned by the town. So there was nothing I could do to not go there and check it out. I just had to.

It was an eerie damp morning as we arrived and received our first view of the place while standing in the overgrown driveway.

Looks like they had water and some sort of drain.

We were talking about who may have built it as we circled the building, and then Jessica started pointing to the chimney.

We had our answer. It appears to be P. M. B. and W. S. A. as well as W. J. F. 8/22/48

Heading back to the car I was about 20 feet from the road when I got caught in a snare and almost hit the ground. I removed it until I realized it was tagged. As Ben can tell you from experience, it is illegal to remove or damage them so I replaced it with Jessica telling me I should have left it alone in the first place. It appeared old to me and had been there a long time but I could be wrong. Anyway, it was marked with the initials JEG and numbered 800 084 576.



Sorry for the poor quality. My phone would not focus.

 

[Teegate]

The gun club appears fully intact in the 1956 aerials; however, by 1963 the roof is gone. And just before writing this post I was looking the aerials over again and realized we missed something. That means a return visit soon is a must.

 

[Oriental]

Very cool! Many hunting clubs seem to have been built in the 1940s. Not exactly sure why deer clubs reached their height of popularity then. Would you be be willing to say in which township the club was located? Not looking for the specific spot. Also, do you know the name of that gunning club?

 

[c1nj]

Perhaps a victim of the forest fires of 1963?

 

[Teegate]

Maybe after fighting in a war many of the men became interested in guns, and that was their way of continuing to use them.

I do not know the name of the club. The property was certainly private back then so it may have just been the landowner. I really don't know but wish I did.

Yes, c1nj, that may be true. I see changes in the area but I am not sure if it is fire or just a different time of year.

 

[manumuskin]

I have only ran into snares a few times in the woods and only distyrbed one of those.I had Sophie with me when she was a pup and she ran off the old logging road I was on and up a well used deer trail.I called her repeatedly which usually brought her right back but she did not come.I went up the trail about fifty feet aroud a laurekl clump and there she was caught by the neck and wimpering.I sent that piece of crap sailing. I kind of lost my cool at that instant.If I had not of noticed where she left the trail It could have taken me some time to find her,she never was a barker so that didn;t occur to her.

 

[bobpbx]

Myself and several of my botany buddies were right next to Warren Grove bombing range and found 4 or 5 snares in the pygmy pines. One of the dogs with us almost walked into one. We walked out to the road and a guy pulled up with his girl in a pickup. We mentioned seeing them and he became hot-headed because they were his; angrily threatening to call the game warden if we had touched them and suggesting what the fine might be. We ignored him seeing that he was all worked up about it.

 

[RednekF350]

Cool find Guy and Jess !

The trap tag looks new. They're copper and weather pretty slowly. The cable looks pretty fresh too. I usually boil mine in baking soda first so they dull up a little. Depending on the background woods colors, I'll dip them in Speed Dip to darken them.

One clue as to the builders of the gun club would be that the guys who built the club were not masons. The left wall in your third photo shows that they didn't fully grasp the technique of a running bond in masonry block construction.

 

[Teegate]

And just before writing this post I was looking the aerials over again and realized we missed something. That means a return visit soon is a must.

So we revisited the gun club today and found the outhouse ruins that we missed the last time. I noticed them on the aerials after posting about them. This is all that is left.

 

[manumuskin]

Did it still stink?

 

[Teegate]

No.

 

[manumuskin]

Must have Febreezed it.Sissies

 

[bobpbx]

You crack me up Al.

 

[1Jerseydevil]

Probably an excellent place to plant tomatoes.

 

[Teegate]

If you think about it that piece of wood may be from that structure. So if the place was destroyed in 1963 the wood could be from that era. I run into tree stands out there all the time and the wood looks the same and I always think the stand may be from.... let's says the 1990s. Well, the tree stands could be much much older.

 

[RednekF350]

I was in a local gun club in the 80's and 90's and we had a porta-pot with the bottom of the holding tank cut out. The perimeter rested on block and it sat over a hole in the ground. We kept a sealed metal trash can outside of it filled with pulverized lime and a hand scoop. "Take a poop, use the scoop !" was our motto.

 

[old jersey girl]

I was in a local gun club in the 80's and 90's and we had a porta-pot with the bottom of the holding tank cut out. The perimeter rested on block and it sat over a hole in the ground. We kept a sealed metal trash can outside of it filled with pulverized lime and a hand scoop. "Take a poop, use the scoop !" was our motto.

And, unlike cans and plastic bags, fully biodegradable.

 

[Ben Ruset]

The snare I found way back when had been baited, which was illegal. It almost killed my dog at the time.

I've seen several ruins with pipes in the ground like that - I think they're for underground fuel storage. Most likely heating oil.