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Originally Posted by Bruce Hering
I should mention that growing up (1950's-early 1960's) in very most NE NJ when grouse were still present and only a drive to the "Traditional Drowned Grounds" area of NY, I do remember many of my fathers bird dog Grouse/Woodcock buddies shooting 16g sxs guns.
It now seems to me, as others have said, the 16 was really the gun/gauge of choice for our feathered friends. I sure do wish I could go back to that era and pay more attention to the guns that were used. Oh man.... to go back......
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Bruce, the Drowned Grounds was a hunting area for the sporting writer, Frank Forrester (Herbert). He writes of his hunts there in the early and mid-19th Century. Now that would really be going back(!) The changes to that area have been tremendous, and not good for hunting (or wildlife). My brother-in-law now lives in Northern New Jersey and on our occasional visits, I am reminded why I don't want to live in the most heavily populated state. It's neat that you have your memories of hunting the area before the intense development. I grew up in the Williamsburg-Jamestown-Yorktown area of Virginia, and we used to hunt in the woods that are now Busch Gardens. I cannot bear to go back and see what has happened.
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"Doubtless the good Lord could have made a better game bird than bobwhite, and better country to hunt him in...but equally doubtless, he never did." -- Guy de la Valdene (from A Handful of Feathers )
"'I promise you,' he said, 'on my word of honor, I won't die on the opening of the bird season.'" -- Robert Ruark (from The Old Man and the Boy)
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