As a young teen ,I wasn't really permitted by law to hunt not until I was 16,but the old single shot behind the porch door when I got home from school each day was too tempting -my older brother had always told me to never load the gun, just carry it cracked open with a shell in the chamber -so I did ...
My buddy Pete was over after to school to tag along for this "illegal grouse hunt " -doing bad stuff was cool !....the winding river behind the house was frozen solid ,but we had little snow and after a little walk as we rounded the corner, the exclamation of "Grouse !" rang out -it was standing about 10 feet from me ,I cocked the gun before I closed it holding both the trigger and the hammer ,closing the gun as I was bringing it up ,at about waist high I let go the hammer but in my excitement still holding the trigger ...it went off ,from the hip taking the head right off my first grouse ! my buddy thought I was a crackerjack ,I said there was nothing to it -it was the first grouse I ever shot and I can take you right to the very spot today.
Another time , my older brother would take me on the barrens with our old setter Ben,( not to be confused with my modern Ben ) lead shot was the norm and we could use it on anything that jumped up ...I would carry at least two full boxes of 12 gauge imperials ,and with my trusty H&R single I got the shit kicked out of me and couldn't hit the broad side of a barn ,most days running out of shells, it was pitiful -our favorite quarry were Ptarmigan and snipe ...this one lone snipe gets up over a point at least a gunshot away ,my brother yells " don't shoot!" ( because of course I was running low ) ..the bird keeps getting further and further ,im lining it up ...boom !! there was a moment of hesitation it fanned out flew straight up about 3 feet and dropped dead -one pellet in the back of its head .
There was also my first day in Arizona with Phil Carr,jump shooting ducks from puddles on the way to the mountains for mearns ,the first puddle held a few we thought ...it was actually hundreds ,when it settled down I had five ducks laying out there ...I only fired two shots !
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