This year will be my 52nd season actually hunting, 54th if you count the two I trailed my dad around before I could buy a license and shoot game. Took my first pheasant with my father's Stevens Springfield 16 gauge sxs that first year. Still have both the gun and a sharp, clear memory of an experience that gave me lasting interests in both hunting birds and sxs shotguns.

I sure miss hunting with my father and just plain miss him. He'll have been gone 7 years later this month.