doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Where did all the passion come from??

We had a camp on Oneida Lake in Upstate New York. That really got me into fishing and the outdoors.

At about 13, I was in a grocery store with my parents and on the newstand was an issue of Outdoor Life. The cover had a big buck being pursued by a hunter wearing the old time red wool coat. I begged my Mom to buy it and she did. Inside were stories about duck and turkey hunting, and a great story about trapping. That was it.

I saved my paper route money and Dad signed the paper work for a used, Ithaca Model 37 16 gauge, which I still own today.

At 15, I got to spend the summer in Wyoming, and my cousin's husband was a real gun guy. I got to shoot revolvers, big game rifles, stuff that most boys from Upstate New York don't get to shoot.

At 16, my church youth advisor let me shoot his muzzleloader.

Later, I went in the Navy and was stationed in Maine. My Chief collected Parkers and raised English Setters. Just added fuel to the fire. He helped me get my first Parker, a 20 gauge Trojan which sadly I traded away for something else.

I married a Brit from Northern England and 20 years later she has become my best field partner. She shares my love of gun dogs and likes to tag along but doesn't shoot much.

Now, nearing 47 I have come full circle. I still hunt occasionally with that old Ithaca, if nothing else to remind me of a simpler time. I am also really into antique and muzzleloading guns. Have gotten to the point where I really don't care if I shoot anything, just like seeing the dogs work and being outside. I have three sons, two like to skeet shoot and the youngest likes to hunt. None show an interest in gunsmithing but thats okay. If I'm lucky, one day I will have a Grandson to pass it on down to.

Kind regards,

I remember as a kid getting my hands on Outdoor Life magazines. Somehow, I became addicted to reading Jack O'Connor and in fact, subscribed to it until Jack died.

I remember looking thru various catalogues and thinking I would never have enough money to buy a Model 21. I dedicated my 20's and 30's to hunting bucks.I had several rifles, but ended up shooting a 270 for deer. A friend introduced me to pheasant hunting and I acquired a 16 ga. Model 12. That was the beginning of this sickness most of us are afflicted with. I hunted deer for the challenge and hunt birds because of the dog and many good friends. And no, my parents nor grandparents did not hunt.

I do have the 21 today along with a bunch of other shotguns. I don't think we could have collections of guns like we have if we lived in another country. I am thankful

Lenard

My Dad was not a hunter, nor fisherman, either. However, I had the shooting bug from virtually day one. Don't really know where it came from, but I just loved the outdoors, shooting and fishing! Started at early age with a succession of Daisy BB guns - all lever actions. Like others, the songbirds suffered sorely. I do regret that, though. I did have a wonderful uncle, my Dad's brother Mike that "took pity" on me and gave me a new Ithaca Model 37 16 gauge for my sixteenth birthday. I still have her in the cabinet. I had a few .22's and single shot shotguns, two of which I still own, but the Mod 37 was my pride and joy! Uncle Mike and I were kindred spirits but unfortunately we never hunted nor shot together as I was in Virginia and he in New York. He did, however, take me trout fishing and taught me how to fish with a fly. My maternal grandfather was a hound man that had various types of 'coon hounds and some great beagles for cottontails. I shot my first feathered game with him one afternoon out scouting rabbit country. I was carrying an old Steven's .410 single shot and a crow came a bit too close to us. Both my grandfather and I were surprised when the crow fell to my shot! I was hooked! Shotguns were it after that. (This was somewhere around age 12 or so.) I went rabbit hunting once with my grandfather - a day that I still remember well. I chased the Appalachian Ruffed Grouse around the woods and every now and again actually bagged one. I went to college and hunted on weekends. Everyone else was in the stadium watching the Va Tech Hokies' football and I was out in the woods with my shotgun. After college I was drafted into the service, and went into flight school with the Air Force. Found myself flying AC-130 gunships over the Ho Chi Minh Trail. I was an infrared sensor operator shooting cannon at the targets of opportunity. I really enjoyed those missions - I went into the Intel shop hours early to study the latest intelligence reports for target study and we went after 'em with gusto. I traded 40 mm cannon rounds with the anti aircraft guns a few times which was a real exciting thing. The adrenalin really rushes when someone is trying to shoot you as you are trying to shoot them. I won. While serving my tour in Southeast Asia I got the urge to get a double barrel shotgun when I got back....kindof a gift to myself, I suppose. My gunshop owner friend, Mr. Toxvard, had a beautiful little Beretta BL-3 all waiting for me and I have cherished her for the last 34 years. She has had a bit of bluing worn off but otherwise is in great shape and I really enjoy carrying her. However, a few years ago I got the side by side bug. I now have a few nice side by sides in the cabinet - but am still awaiting the arrival of my RBL from Galazan! I am a very fortunate guy in that I have had some great times and some great friends, too, to share them with. I have hunted virtually all feathered game in the States over the years, but not all. There is a Himalayan grouse (Himalayan Snowcock?)of some sort in the mountains of Nevada that I haven't hunted yet...maybe someday? I have some nice guns and fly rods and sports cars, too, so really cannot complain too much. Wish I had the deniro to get into Ken's LeFever project gun....that really interests me a lot! However, I doubt I will as the daughter is getting married and I had a real big shock when we started pricing the wedding! So, anyway, that is about it for now.

My first "gun" was a match gun my brother taught me to make with a paperclip and tinfoil, man we had fun with that..then came the daisy..then my dad took me when i was 9 to buy my first shotgun for dove season, and i immediatly took to a stevens 20ga sxs, been hooked on those ever since (sxs, not stevens!!) My dad thought i was crazy i did not go for a pump or auto!!

Stever,
My dad served in 67 and 68 green beret, he has told me several times about calling in some ac-130 gunships over targets they scouted, wonder if you flew one of those! He spoke highly of you guys, and coming from him thats a big compliment..if so my thanks!

My father had a single firearm a double barreled LC Smith, which he kept locked up. I can't remember one time he went hunting, but when the discussion around the dinner table turned to hunting, my Uncle would come down for Thanksgiving ever year bringing my Grandmother down for Dinner because my Mother was the greatest cook this side of Heaven, my Dad always seemed to know alot about the subject. My Uncle was a deer hunter, deer season starts in Pennsylvania the Monday after Thanksgiving. When I started hunting my Dad broke out that LC Smith and I started hunting with it. When he passed my older brother got it, but I got the Ithaca NID from my Uncle when he got too sick to hunt.
I figure if the double barrel was good enough for my Dad and my Uncle then its good enough for me.
All the best

My Dad isn't much of a hunter, but Grandpa literally made him hunt. Grandpa said he was quitting hunting about when I was born, and had his shotgun registered in Dad's name. Then Grandpa discovered he still jelt the old urge, but it would'he been illegal for him to go hunt with the gun not registered in his name, so he made Dad go hunting, tagged along, and when they were in the blind Grandpa would tear the gun out of Dad's hands and shoot, shoot, shoot... Then Dad got a car (a BIG deal in the '70s USSR)and started taking Mom and me along, to sit at the camp and "enjoy Mother Nature". So my earliest memories are of playing with the ducks Grandpa shot - and I wanted to hunt ever since I remember myself.

A while later the right barrel of that 12 ga side-by-side blew up, but the left one could still shoot. So Dad let me hunt with it even though I wasn't old enough in the eyes of the law - with the instructions to dump it when things get hot... nobody really cared what was legal and what was not in 1991... Anyway, since Grandpa was the best hunter and shot I knew, it was natural to assume the gun he shot was the best choice - so when I was after my first own gun I bought a 12 ga sbs, the same model, only a higher grade. Still got that gun, and Dad still has Grabdpa's.

My Dad was never a hunter, but my uncle was in the woods all the time. My first gun was an Ithaca M66, a little lever-action single shot 20 gauge. After toting that around in the woods and convincing my parents it was not enough gun for deer, I convinced them to let me get a rifle. Not knowing what to get I wrote Jim Carmichel at Outdoor Life about what I should get. He suggested a Remington bolt-action in .243. My uncle sniffed and said get a .270, so that's what I did. I worked all summer to earn the money and got a Savage 110 in .270. That gun is long gone, and now I shoot mostly sxs. Of my three boys, the middle can't get enough of it (clays, pistol, small game), and the oldest likes girls and surfing better, but he's the best shot. The youngest, who is 8, is just starting. I can't get out of the habit of smelling the burnt powder from spend hulls. They smell better in the Fall.

Got my start when I was five, or six shooting cherries out in the backyard with an old Daisey lever action BB gun. The gun had a simulated wood plastic stock and looked just like a Winchester '94. My friend and I didn't have BBs, so we loaded poderosa pine needles in barrel. I'm still amazed that it worked. I graduated to other pellet and BB guns and began to hunt on an undeveloped spot of the local Lutheran Church. The "Oaks" as it was called was covered with scrub oak and had a brook running through it. Many a songbird made their last stand there. It was my oasis in the city of Ogden. It is fair to say that if the Oaks was not there, I would not be into huning and guns.

Any interest my Dad may have developed in hunting was quelched big-time when his wild younger brother took him rabbit hunting and blew away a bunny at point-blank range with a 12-ga. to impress him. But much to their credit, neither he or my Mom ever forbade my brothers and me to own guns, shoot, or hunt. In fact, my Dad bought our first shotgun, a Stevens 16 bore single shot, in the very store I wound up working in part time years later.

Started simple and self-taught, joined NRA and took every hunter safety and shooting instructor course they had and by early college taught shooting to the kids at a riding dude ranch in WVa. Any spare hours I had I disappeared into the woods or marsh to learn what I could about the Great Wide Open. Never cared for small game but became obsessed with bird hunting; pheasants at first, then waterfowl. I remember slogging through the brushy bottom covers in north central MD in thigh-deep snow, no dogs, on bitter cold days after cockbirds with the single-shot 16. Rare was the day we came home empty handed,

The first extra cash I had I bought my first SxS, a 20-ga. Fulton. I treated it like my fist Purdey, and couldn't have been more proud of it. Years later, when a hammer broke and I had one made and replaced, only to have it break a few weeks later, I took the plunge and saved every penny to order out my first Browning Superposed 20. I remember my gunning buddies giving me hell for taking a "collector's gun" into the woods.

For my waterfowl hunting, I shot my first Parker, a Del Grego restored 1 1/2 frame 12 ga. VHE. With it I made probably my finest shot ever with a shotgun up to that time, dropping a pair of highballing Greenwing teal with a perfect high overhead left and right. Just like in the books, both birds falling dead in the air and hitting the ground almost in unison Later when I almost lost the Parker overboard in a duck marsh, I went out the next day and bought a Remington 870 12 ga. 3" Magnum. With it I've killed hundreds of ducks and geese over the years and still keep it as a backup / guest gun.

College, military, marriage, raising children and caring for aging parents all intervened, but somehow I always found time for the marshes and woodlands. I still try to hunt as much as I can and cherish it more now than when I had almost unlimited time to do it. There are only two things I'd change if I was told I could start over: I'd get into hunting dogs from day one, and I'd i'd have taken more people with me who'd never had the opportunity to go. That way, we'd have more stories of "the olden days." KBM