I am now 60. Took a 20 year break from shooting and hunting, mostly because of having young children. I started hunting when i was a teenager. Mostly grouse and woodcock,and pheasants. Started with pumps,moved to autos. First 2 barrel was a Browning Superlight citori. Sometime in my youth I got magazines like Gray's Sporting Journal,with their stories on New England grouse hunting and read books,particularly by George Bird Evans. I realized to be an upland hunter you had to hunt with the proper gun and that's a sxs. First one I bought was propably ,hmm,I really can't remember. Was there something like an American Arms Derby? Half the time it misfired.Nextand last at the time was was a Bernadelli. WhenI look at old pictures it was a rather plain gun, but I sure could hit pheasants with it. I didn't know anything about lop, and drops at the time. It was just an off the shelf gun. Besides having young children there were other reasons I stopped hunting. Sold the gun and concentrated my free time on fishing. I had always had labs,my father had labs ,my grandfather had labs. My last one that was a pheasant machine passed about the same time. My youngest daughter begged me to get another one but I was done at that time. There were moments that I missed the field and particularly the dog work ,the best part of hunting imo. My daughter said that as soon as she graduated from school the first thing she was doing was getting a puppy. Well she did. All it took was to take the pup for a few runs and it raised a lot of long gone emotions and memories. I had never thought I would hunt again but now I'm back. The only gun I'd get would be a sxs. nothing else was of interest. I started searching the internet and holy shit,was there a lot out there. The wonders of technology. It's been an eye opener and educational since I really didn't know a lot about old sxs's. Now I've got 2 16ga. Parkers,a 16ga. Pape and a 12ga. Francotte. And am searching for a light English 12ga for my next one. After 20 years I can't hit a damn thing but it doesn't matter. The joys of being out in the field with my daughter lab is more than enough.
