Category: Gun Info for Rookies
An 88-year-old retired NYPD cop living out his golden years in Ireland was busted in a dragnet worthy of a Hollywood movie — for keeping an old, decommissioned revolver in his home.
The daring morning police raid was the largest in recent memory in the tiny village of Swanlinbar, County Cavan, population 200, when up to 10 armed officers in six vehicles descended on the picture-postcard hamlet.
“I said to them, I wish it was f–king loaded because I would have blown every f–king one of you away,” Jude McGovern recalled to The Post. The firing pin was removed from the gun a long time ago, and it is no longer functional.
“Can you imagine?” the outraged octogenarian said. “About 10 of them forced in my front door around 9:30 in the morning when I was out of the house, and then I come back and find four of them going through my furniture looking for my gun.”
The April 9 seizure came after a local judge signed a warrant citing “unlawful possession of a firearm in suspicious circumstances” in the Main Street apartment where McGovern lives with his two Jack Russell terriers.
The feisty Irishman, who grew up in Swanlinbar, speculates that law enforcement learned about his relic of a firearm from social media, after a visitor to McGovern’s home a few years ago snapped a playful picture of the gun and posted it on Facebook.
Ireland’s police force, known as An GardaSíochána (Irish for “Guardians of the Peace”), told The Post it does not comment on named individuals, but did confirm it executed a search warrant.
“A suspected unlicensed firearm was seized and sent to the Ballistics Unit for analysis,” the statement said.
The former lawman — McGovern also served as a correction officer at Rikers Island — said Irish cops told him they would return his gun “when it was justified by a gunsmith that it is inoperable.”
McGovern insists he was cleared to purchase the firearm for personal protection when off duty during his law enforcement days in New York. He bought the Smith and Wesson five-shot revolver in Lower Manhattan in 1968. McGovern would carry it in a holster on his leg. Before he returned to the old sod in 1996, McGovern said he had the firearm decommissioned in New Jersey for $175.
Although McGovern never declared the gun on his return to Ireland, he did declare it and completed the paperwork at Newark Airport before his 1996 departure for Ireland.
He said the piece holds “sentimental value” to him.
McGovern says the dramatic dragnet shattered his nerves, and he’s had to take pills to calm down.
McGovern immigrated to the US in 1957, joining the same US Army division based in Fort Hood as Elvis Presley, although he never met the King. He said his military career took him to Germany and Greenland.
In 1965, McGovern and a partner, FDNY firefighter Jack Farley, opened The Moonshiner on 94th Street and Roosevelt Avenue near Shea Stadium, a pub popular with Mets players.
In 1968, McGovern joined the NYPD, and later switched to Corrections.
McGovern is now the talk of Swanlinbar, a village about 100 miles northwest of Dublin. But he says he’s no criminal.
“No common sense prevailed in this incident,” McGovern told The Post. “I enjoy my few rum and cokes at night but I didn’t drink during Lent. I am not interested in doing anything notorious at 88 years of age.”
Hunting with an outfitter or guide can be a great way to have the hunt of a lifetime. However, paying a guide or an outfitter does not guarantee success on a hunt. There are a few things you as the client should do that will both make your guide’s life easier and increase your odds of success.
Read on to learn how to make the most out of a guided hunt.
Read on to learn how to make the most out of a guided hunt.
Arrive in good shape
While some hunts are more physically demanding than others, physical fitness is still an essential part of how to be a good client on a guided hunt. Being able to actively partake on the hunt without undue difficulty will make it much easier on your guide. It will also make the hunt much more fun for you, since you’ll be able to enjoy the experience without gasping for air or being on the verge or collapsing from exhaustion.
You need to arrive in shape on Day 1. The hunt is not the time to get in shape. Talk to your outfitter prior to the hunt and find out what sort of fitness level is best for the hunt. Some outfitters, especially those guiding extremely physically demanding hunts, will be happy to provide you a workout plan to properly prepare you.
Regardless, show up in good physical condition and ready to go. You and your guide will both appreciate it on the hunt.
Be familiar with your weapon of choice
There are few things that will drive a hunting guide crazy faster than a hunter who shows up and can’t shoot. On a deer, elk or plains game hunt, that is a frustrating experience that can result in a missed shot or a wounded animal. On a dangerous game hunt, poor marksmanship can get someone killed. For this reason, many professional hunters rate marksmanship as the most important characteristic of a good client.
Prior to your hunt, get in touch with your outfitter and find out the most common shooting distances you’ll encounter on your hunt. Then, do a little research (or just ask your outfitter again), and pick out the best rifle and ammunition (or archery equipment) and properly zero them in accordance with the ranges that you are most likely to shoot at on your hunt.
Once that is complete, you need to practice. Get off the bench and practice shooting from field shooting positions. Then practice rapid follow-up shots. Then practice rapid reloads.
Remember, you are going to spend potentially thousands of dollars on a guided hunt, and it all comes down to you properly delivering a bullet or an arrow when the time comes. A little bit of time and money spent at the range is a good investment for the actual hunt and will likely pay large dividends down the road.
Tip well
Regardless of what you might think at first — especially considering how much some guided hunts cost — hunting guides are not wealthy individuals. Don’t get me wrong, there are some that do pretty well, but most don’t make much money. This is especially true when you consider the hours they have to put in, along with the fact that their work is primarily seasonal. Because of this, tips are important to hunting guides.
That being said, you should realize gratuity is always optional. Additionally, you should also base your tip on the quality of service you received on the hunt, not necessarily the end result of the hunt.
If your guide worked his or her tail off and really went above and beyond the call of duty on the hunt, yet you went home empty-handed or with a smaller-than-desired trophy, that guide should still receive a good tip. By the same token, a guide who provided poor service, had a bad attitude, showed little initiative, etc., should receive little or no gratuity.
The exact amount to tip your hunting guide is always a tricky subject. Some outfitters will provide you with a recommended amount to tip. However, in the absence of this, I recommend that you tip your guide 5-10 percent of the total hunt cost, depending on the level of service that you received. Additionally, don’t forget to tip any other camp staff who may also have been essential parts of the hunt, like a cook, skinner, packer, etc.
Have a good attitude
Perhaps the most important aspect of how to be a good client on a guided hunt is to have a good attitude. Things occasionally go wrong on hunts, even when you are using the best guide or outfitter.
Sometimes the weather is bad. Sometimes the animals just won’t seem to cooperate. Sometimes the craziest little thing that you wouldn’t think can possibly go wrong goes wrong.
When that happens, you’ve just got to roll with the punches. Good guides and outfitters will work hard to make sure you have a successful hunt, but that doesn’t mean they can work miracles. When things don’t go according to plan (and they often don’t), you’ve got to make sure that you still maintain a positive attitude.
Remember, you’re on a hunting trip because it is a fun activity and you enjoy it. Even a bad day hunting is better than a good day at the office, so make the most of it.
Having a good attitude not only makes you more fun to be around, but it is also infectious. Additionally, a nice person with a good attitude is the type of person that most guides and camp staff will go the extra mile for to make sure they have a special hunt.
It’s easy to forget that it is not as simple as just paying a lot of money to a guide or an outfitter in order to have a good hunt. You, as the hunter, have certain expectations you need to live up to in order to give yourself the best odds of success.
Following the advice presented in this article will go a long way toward setting you up for success. However, nothing in life is guaranteed, which is why having a good attitude is so important. As long as you’ve got a good attitude, you will have few bad hunts, regardless of what you end up shooting.
Were there any important tips on how to make the most out of a guided hunt that I missed?