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
