"Bob La Londe" wrote in message
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"Bob La Londe" wrote in message
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More than a couple years ago (25? 30?), when I was getting into hunting
I made my own game bag for birds. I took some left over medium weight
canvas and made a simple deep bag with a shoulder strap. That's still
pretty easy as long as the wife doesn't catch me messing with one of her
fancy sewing machines. I think I sewed the original by hand.

I used the metal closer out of an old fishing bag in the top. It was
wonderful. If one of the birds I dropped in the bag started flapping
again it couldn't get away. When I opened the bag the spring/mechanism
would hold the bag open, and when I closed it the thing would be held
closed. It really was the best possible game bag for small migratory and
upland bird hunting. And even as bad as I shoot it would hold all my
empty shells so I didn't have to stuff them in my pockets.

My son expressed an interest in doing some bird hunting last year. I
wasn't sure if it would stick since he only dropped one bird and he lost
it in heavy brush, but he again expressed an interest this year. We have
been out three days, and we shot limits on two of them. (When I broke
down and headed out to my old stomping grounds on the second day.)

Now I am thinking about that old game bag of mine. I had stored it with
lots of other stuff from that time in my life in an old metal storage
shed at my dad's house. A metal storage shed that has long since blown
away. So I am looking at making a couple game bags like that one. I
considered buying a couple of those fishing bags and cannibalizing the
spring mechanism out of them, but they are all plastic now, and they
don't have that nice crisp snap to hold open and snap to hold closed like
the metal ones.

Any suggestions for an alternative?

I've got some 0.080" stainless spring wire, and I am sure if I coil a
couple springs in it that it would make an adequate closer, but if it
gets over stressed on opening it will quit being a good closer. Also,
there are times when you WANT your game bag to stay open and it
definitely won't do that just made up as a simple mechanism.

P.S. Before anybody suggests it, I have had a couple hunting vest and I
just do not like them. In rough country birds can fall out and a stunned
one that comes back to life can be a real adventure in and of itself.

I had a fishing creel with that kind of mechanism. I got it 51 years ago and
just tossed it around 2006. g

I never cut through the fabric to see how the spring worked, but it can't be
too difficult to replicate, if you get to look at one closely.

--
Ed Huntress