Guess I fit right in with the old timers as well, being born in 1947 in Auburn, NY. It was a small town of about 25K people and you could be in the country to hunt very quickly.

Father was primarily a duck, goose and pheasant hunter and sometimes deer. My father could only afford a Model 12 Winchester (his only shotgun) while my uncle with whom he hunted had several auto Brownings which he always anally kept polished. I remember one day out hunting when my father discarded a little bit of the coffee from his cup and it hit the buttstock of my uncle's Browning by mistake. It got within fractions of a fistfight between the two of them.

I always loved guns, both owning and shooting them, but while I liked hunting, the early morning hours, the rain, and the snow more often resulted in either my not getting out of bed at 5 AM or if I did, and saw the cold rain, turning right back around and going back to bed.

As a result of not getting a lot of shotgun experience in, and since my father didn't do any clays, I never became a good wingshot, although I do well with rifle and handgun, both shooting them and hunting with them.

I am now trying to learn to shoot some clays now at 61 from my youngest brother (46), who is the avid sportsman my father was. I'm just an old dog trying to learn some final new tricks.