First Shots...
...from a new gun are special, and should be taken only after great deliberation and planning. Because of the good will of a member, I was able to acquire a "bucket list gun" -- a straight-splinter, two trigger, Damascus barreled, high grade 16 gauge Parker; in this case a BHE. I waited almost a year to find the right time and place to blood this gun. On a damp and still December day, it seemed right to take the gun along for a wild Bob hunt on a favored farm. Aspen found a nice covey from which I was able to cleanly take a right-barrel bird. The covey was large enough to pursue singles, and we did so. Another point by Aspen and a second shot for the BHE.
Is there anything more satisfying to a hunter than the explosion of feathers from a centered bird, taken over the point of his own dog...and having only to clean the right barrel of your gun at day's end?
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“Every day I wonder how many things I am dead wrong about.”
― Jim Harrison
"'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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