doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Reflections of my past

I have been almost incredibly lucky, but growing up in a shooting/hunting environment wasn't part of it.

Age 23 was when i first was exposed to the shooting fraternity as a result of an evangelistic customer.

I am forever grateful, and have tried to pay it forward but with limited success.

Must have introduced a few dozen people to the sport, and had maybe 6 takers who ended up hooked like i was and bought their own equipment.

Fortunately, my brother is a recent convert. AND he lives close to a place with bunker trap!

A trip is planned for September.

Battle, the way I describe it is the males are just blacker and whiter in the heads. You train your eyes to pickup the darkest heads first. Most of the times they will be males. We never shot a covey out. If a covey got down to five or six birds we would give them a couple weeks rest. Sometimes they would merge with another small covey and be large enough to shoot again. Point is we wanted to leave enough birds behind so they could nest again next year. Our farm held ten to eleven coveys every year. And we could take off hunting in any direction for several miles and find birds. When I was 12 I could put you on more than forty coveys within a two mile radius of our farm and do it again at both my grand fathers farms which were several miles away. My uncle knew everybody in the county and I exect he knew where hundreds of coveys were in those days. Last time I checked there were four coveys in the same area and two of those coveys are hit or miss most years. Gone are the weed fields, the fallow fields, the hay fields, the hedge rows, the truck crops and the cover for birds. Plus nobody would reduce nest robbers like we did in those days. Feral cats, dogs, coons and foxes were given a very hard and short life.

Nine out of ten posters, on this board, are on the better side of 60. Time is limited and we should spread the joy to others, friend, family and strangers. Take an extra box of shells for your double, in case a fellow shows interest in your gun. Give him a box and shoot your gun with him. Shooting side by sides takes a bit of coaching at first, but different experiences are fun for new shooters. I have done this and seen that same fellow bring out a family double the next week to try. It helps a lot if you explain Wally World heavy loads are not the best choice for doubles. I do the same for pump guns, which are a fading glory these days.

I have never liked being photographed and have almost no pictures of my childhood or even the past fifty plus years. Those of you who post photos are blessed with things to share with family and friends going forwards. But I have memories and when quiet times occur in the blind I share them with family. Memories are what we will all be someday, so pass them on or they will be no more when we are no more.

I dragged my 90 year old father out Dove hunting and gave him a Fox 16 A grade to shoot. By 90, dad was down to one good eye, lost forty pounds from his peak and did not want to embarrass himself. So he sat there and watched the birds fly for about half an hour. Then got up and placed four cut weeds around his seat for distance markers. Sat back down and started shooting singles and a double. Most were one shot kills. In under a box he had his limit of 15 birds. Then he sat there and watched as my Lab, who is now departed the world, went out and retrieved every bird. The dog saved him walking, but I'd bet money he could find each bird himself without any problem. We always shot birds and retrieved them later. It made us mark them well and not sky bust. Both my middle son and youngest sons were with me that day and that is their lifetime memory of their grand father hunting. That was the last time my father held a gun. After that I could not get him to hunt or even shoot a round of Skeet. He was just done shooting and I think satisfied. I would be.

I still have two shells he had left over from that box and they are in a lock box, my after I am dead lock box, with a note to give one to each of my sons who were there that day. Black Remington Game shells, 16 ga, 7 1/2's, ounce, are nothing special but everything special at the same time. I'd like to know which of the boys decides he has to own the Fox. It sits on the rack behind me. There is going to be a lot of horse trading for guns after I am gone. Who gets which 42, who gets that Fox, who gets the Ruger 28, who gets the Ithaca 37 28, who gets my Model 12 28 ga., who gets my uncles .410 Crescent and so on. In that lock box is a index card for each gun I own, with basic stuff like when bought, cost, any special things I did with it, if I liked it a lot and why. One of my 3200's has a card for the last .410 100 straight I shot, because I do not think I will shoot anymore. Write it down if you have not told them about things. They want to know, or might one day.

While not ready to crawl out on a ice floe, I, too, have started the Last Unwind. My shooting partner and I have been tight lipped about where we find woodcock on public lands, and while we hoped to have more seasons, we realize that our run is closer to the ending than it is to the beginning. We have slowly introduced younger others to some of these spots and what to look for when chasing woodcock. Never the popular sport here it is in the NE, with the decline of wild quail on most places in their former domain, we started in earnest 15 years ago in specializing our efforts on them and have been well rewarded. I've introduced a handful of younger men on the where's and how's of wild turkey hunting in this area on public land. Our children have no interest in hunting, so I began last spring cutting loose the bulk of my guns either through sale or outright gifts. One of my late friend's sons has developed a love of turkey hunting as a result of sharing information and guns. While not the age of when the late King Brown re-dogged in his 80s when he got a lab pup, I picked up my third bird dog, a French Brittany puppy last spring. It will be a race to our statistically predicted mortalities and I have ambivalent feelings of whom I want to go first. Gil

when you strip away all the tinsel....about all we really have is our relationships and our stories - capitalize on those things - they are your ultimate treasures.

best regards,

tom