Hoarding like a squirrel? When it comes to ammunition, the wise have plenty stored away

It's tough to compete with a squirrel bent on hoarding. January 2023 (Photo by Steve Meyer)

"Did you see that?" Christine asked as we passed a ratchet strap lying on the shoulder of the highway that must have come loose and fallen from someone's trailer.

"Yep," I replied, knowing where this was going.

"Are you sick?" she asked. "Since when do you pass up such a gem?"

"I have plenty of those."

"That's never stopped you before."

Since early in our relationship, Christine has considered me a hoarder. Nothing, in her mind, is beyond my willingness to scavenge things we come across in our travels. This opinion started on the Kenai River flats, where we would go after a flood tide that turned the flats into the ocean. When the tide recedes, there is an astonishing amount of trash stranded across this beloved chunk of real estate.

Amongst all the trash would be Kwikfish, the popular plug used for silver and Chinook salmon fishing on the Kenai River.

"What are you going to do with those," Christine asked as I stuffed them into jacket pockets.

We didn't fish the Kenai much at the time, and when we did, it was with a buddy, who always had rods set up with the gear he knew would catch fish.

"Someone might use them, or maybe someday we’ll fish the river more."

Ten years later, we had collected an enormous tub full of them, and Christine told me one day, "You just like having stuff, I think you are one of those hoarders."

"Cassidy is a hoarder," I replied. Cassidy being the squirrel who beat Festus, another squirrel, in a turf war over a covered deck shelf that once stored clay pigeons and has been remodeled by the two rodents to house their belongings.

"Yeah," she replied, "I think you have been competing with her."

In defense of myself, I assured Christine that hoarding was hanging on to stuff with little or no value accumulated into disarrayed piles of junk disrupting the normal function of the place where it is kept. Using the places where the "junk" I picked up is stored as an example, (everything has a place, the area is neat and easy to get around in) still didn't convince her.

Nor did my other defense of "well guys keep stuff because they are always fixing things, and we can use almost anything at any given time." One time I told her she would someday be happy that I "hoarded" stuff.

I cannot deny the satisfaction I felt when Christine asked if we would have enough waterfowl shotshells for duck season, and I opened a few of the large totes stacked in a corner, filled with steel and Bismuth shotshells accumulated over the past few years.

There are things that one simply cannot have enough of. Books, guns, cowboy boots, firewood, matches, good whiskey, dog treats, and of course, ammunition, to name a few of the most important.

Having lots of guns also means, if you are planning on shooting them much, lots of ammunition. If you aren't a hunter or a shooter, and maybe have a firearm for personal protection, you can get by with enough ammunition to allow for regular practice, say once a month you shoot 20 rounds. Keeping a couple years’ supply at 240 rounds a year is not a big deal.

Times have changed, ammunition is still scarce for many calibers, and the rise in prices has made stocking large amounts of ammo difficult, even if you can find what you want.

[Previously: Bare shelves, hoarding and price gouging: How a prolonged ammunition shortage is changing Alaska's gun culture]

Today, if you are a serious shooter or hunter, and you practice judiciously with the tools of the trade, be they shotgun, rifle or pistol, building a supply of ammunition that allows you to enter a store that sells it without breaking out in a sweat wondering if they have what you want, is difficult, if not impossible.

As a handloader since childhood, my ability to resupply ammunition has never felt threatened. Components were readily available and inexpensive, and building the cartridges enjoyable. For many years, while developing shooting skills, I shot 300-350 rounds a week with a pistol and rifle, which seems like a lot but isn't when compared with a professional shooter who might burn up 1,500 hundred rounds a week in pursuit of perfection.

Fortunately for Christine and me, I’ve "hoarded" enough of the components that are no longer readily available over the years, that we have no real fear of running out of ammunition for practice, and to hunt whatever we might choose if it involves a rifle or pistol. We also stocked up on .22 rimfire ammunition years ago, and don't worry much about that either.

Shotshells, not so much. I haven't gotten into the shotshell loading as much as rifle and pistol. I never shot trap or skeet more than a few rounds a year, and upland and waterfowl shotshells were always available. Until the past few years. I had a premonition about ammunition and thus, started stocking up with shotgun loads for hunting. But, with Christine getting back to trap shooting, I wish I had hoarded a lot more trap loads.

Over the course of a year, even a moderate amount of shooting will take 10-12 cases, or around 3,000 rounds, if you can find them.

I am not going around trying to buy every box of shells I can find. I am picking up ammunition we can use when I come across it. But, with that comes another issue.

The value and scarcity of ammunition have turned it into a commodity that, for some of us, makes it as valuable as gold or diamonds, and a lot more useful. Having thousands of rounds of ammunition in today's world demands storage that secures it. That is, a gun safe or equivalent. Our Christmas gift to our way of life this year.

Never been much on New Year's resolutions, but there is always something that provokes some thoughts to guide one forward around this time of year. So, my thoughts will drift to buying ammunition, and getting rid of those damn Kwikfish, which my premonitions tell me will never be used by us. And, hope to continue enjoying Cassidy as she delights us with how much she can pack into her tiny mouth and still run straight up a wall.