Jul 25, 2025 5 min read

By Dave Bates

For the Observer-Reporter

Retirement is official. I am unleashing myself onto the sporting scene on a more full-time basis. Last Sunday afternoon, my wife, Kelly, and daughter, Emma, surprised me by inviting a myriad of friends, family and colleagues to celebrate my retirement from teaching school these past 35 years. It was truly a surprise that was overwhelming to say the least and I was moved in a way that I have not been in many years. Thanks to my girls for being so sneaky, right under my nose. And thanks to all those in attendance for making such a memorable day.

Visiting with old friends I hadn’t seen in years was fantastic but I kept hearing the same question over and over that I was not prepared to answer. “What are you going to do with all your free time?”

Being forewarned by retired friends that “free time” is a misnomer and that it is somehow cosmically eliminated or at best, reduced, I went home that night from the party on a mission. What will I do with all my “free time?” In the spirit of organizational list making I got to work. Here goes nothing:

Once I have completed the list of three dozen home-repair projects that I have neglected in the name of deer season, grouse season, trout season, etc., etc., I am going to get serious about undertaking some sporting interests that I have been putting off for years. Job one was purchasing a kayak from which to launch my out-of-doors onslaught. (That’s a kayak joke.) I accomplished this task the day after the party and I plan to spend some serious water time exploring areas I’ve not been to or not been to in a long while. Lakes, rivers, small tributaries barely navigable are all targeted. Fishing from this new platform is high on the list, as well.

Marksmanship training will be at the forefront as law enforcement qualification is on the horizon and come fall, combat pistol skills will need sharpening more than ever. Plans to tune up with the Ruger 10/22 rimfire rifle are almost ready to commence. It’s good preparation on a budget for scoring hits with the patrol rifle come qualification time. As a firearms instructor, I find myself teaching more than shooting and that is bad juju.

My new year’s grouse resolution has been to shoot more in advance of bird season. I can only blame so many misses on the sun in my eyes, catching the butt stock on my vest straps and my side by side being too heavy, too light, too old, too blah, blah, blah. I guess I should probably sit down and work on some better excuses for the fall, as well.

There’s an old .30-30′ that I’ve been sitting on for a while, aching for a set of aperture sights. XS sight company sent me a set last year but I waited too long to begin the sighting process prior to deer season and didn’t get it zeroed in time for doe. It has been on my list to take a deer with open sights before my vision completely fails. Just something about the old lever actions that strike a romantic chord with me. Harvesting one while spot and stalk hunting would make it all that much sweeter.

The bottoms of the 6×6 posts on my trusty shooting range bench are beginning to rot away after 14 years. Something needs to be done about this decay sooner than later. This could be the excuse I’ve been looking for to begin plans for a poured concrete top bench with concrete block legs. Let’s keep this one between us until I get the woodshop roof repairs underway. In addition, the whole affair could use a bit of leveling since my initial attempts at a shooting bench were not exactly my construction swan song.

Speaking of waterfowl, the duck blind could use some repairs. This could be the year that we don’t wait til opening morning to patch the holes in the sides as birds attempt to land in our spread during construction.

There’s trap and skeet to shoot and clay birds to be thrown from the hand trap behind the barn in advance of dove season, which will be here before we know it. A round or two of sporting clays probably wouldn’t hurt prior to pointing the truck north towards Wisconsin? Back to built-in excuses, I’ve been meaning to have Mario take three-quarters of an inch off the butt stock of the 28-gauge woodcock gun.

I’ve threatened to take up archery again after a 10-year child-rearing hiatus. I hear good things about the crossbow but my old long bow needs to have the cobwebs dusted off before I make up my mind.

This is the fall where Jay Donley makes a mushroom picker out of me. He’s been retired longer than me so he knows more about loafing and avoiding chores and napping. A guy gotta have heroes.

Dave Bates writes a weekly outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter. He can be reached at alphaomegashootingsolutions@gmail.com