Going on my first dove shoot with Grandaddy, at age 8, in 1959. Had my .410 S x S and a stool. The sounds and the sight of those men taking doves at all angles overhead made a hunter out of me. I took my first dove that day, and never looked back.
Killing my first woodie in flooded timber with a buddy, at about age 13. No waders, no boat. standing on the bank. Watched him drift up against a property line webwire fence that spanned the flooded timber, and was half submerged in the middle where my duck was. I left my gun on the bank and proceeded to "walk" the fence out to get my duck, hoping to keep dry. When I got nearly to it my hunting buddy started shaking the fence posts as hard as he could, hoping I'd fall off into the cold water ............I did, followed by his uproarious laughter, and my threats to kill him when I got back to my gun. He just laughed all the harder. He went to prison 6 years later, and died very young.
Paddling back to the landing from Old River, across Herschman's Lake with my Grandaddy, after a day of fishing. It was early afternoon, and I was about 10, and tired out. As I paddled, in the front seat, and looked down into the lake a huge Alligator Gar slowly rose to just beneath the surface, matching the speed of the boat perfectly, and about two feet from it. He was enormous, the biggest I have ever seen in my life, close to 6 feet long. He stayed there for a few seconds until satisfied what we were, then drifted into the depths from which he came. It was like looking back into time and seeing a prehistoric creature drift into the present, then fade away into the past again.
So many wonderful memories of growing up in the country, on Grandaddy's farm, and in my Daddy's huge country store.
Thanks, for the memories Jon. SRH
