Went hunting Saturday May 3rd, 2003 with my partners Richard, Boyd and Keith. We went back to the Union honey hole that we had found a year and a half ago. (see story in "Union Camp Finds")

We had pretty much pounded this place with other brand of machines, so we thought we would give our X5's a try.

At about 11am all I had was 7 minies, one carved minie and a few pieces of camp lead. I was hot and thirsty, so I headed back to our base area to get something to drink. After cooling off a bit I decided to hunt this area, which we had really pounded in the past. After a few minutes and about 50 feet from the base site, I had gotten a good solid signal next to a large Oak tree and under a maze of large roots. I started to leave it because I couldn't even get my shovel in the ground, but I thought, what the heck I have plenty of water and my dew rag close by. I moved out from the roots about a foot and a half, dug down and tunneled under the biggest root to no avail, just more roots. So I did more digging and chopping for about 30 minutes, I was wearing myself out. By this time everyone else was coming back to get something to drink, I felt like the Calvary had just arrived!

So I had gotten Rich's file and sharpened the blade on my shovel, (what a difference that made!). Meanwhile Boyd, Keith and Rich were chopping away at the roots to give me a break.
Finally we chopped through one end of the largest root, Boyd got a shovel under one side and sat on the handle and Keith had done the same for the other side. The root came up and I grabbed it and pulled it back with all that was left in me.

With that root out of the way, Boyd had started digging with a hand tool and finally reached the target. He yelled out, "IT'S A PLATE"... "I SEE THE PUPPY PAWS!!!"

He asked me if I wanted to dig it the rest of the way. I said, no, you're doing such a good job go ahead and make the recovery.

This plate was recovered with a joint effort of my hunting pals! Without them I don't think I could have done it by myself. (Not in one day anyway)

Hy

Hy holding a 24 pound C.S.A. cannonball.