WOW! Great thread! Brought back a flood of memories!
My first hunt was in 1975.....I was 14 (minimum age to hunt deer here in MI at that time) and a freshman in High School. I had been bugging my folks to let me have a .22; my dad didn't hunt, and my mom didn't want me to have one, saying there was no place in the 'city' (we lived in suburbia) to shoot it. I wanted a Remington Nylon 66, and I did EVERYTHING I could to prove to my parents that I was a responsible kid.....course, every now and then I would do something they disapproved of, and the scale would tip back to zero!
I worked at odd jobs and saved my money....I didn't want them to buy the rifle for me, I just wanted their permission to get it...I would buy it myself!
I took hunter safety that year (which was a bit of a surprise that they even let me take that), and then one day a couple weeks before season, my dad called me into the kitchen and asked me if I were to get a shotgun, what would I get...a single shot or a pump? I thought the question kind of odd, but I told him I would opt for the pump. The following weekend we went gun shopping at the local Kmart, and I came home with a deer license (cost me $7.50) and a Mossberg M500 pump shotgun. I didn't have enough cash for the pump, but my folks spotted me what I needed and I paid them back. I went on my first deer hunt a few weeks later, and while I didn't get a deer, I do remember the big doe that just materialized out of thin air while I sat on that stump....Oh, how I tried to put antlers on her. I watched her for a while and then she spooked and trotted off. Two members of our hunting party got deer that year; a three point and a five point.
Now, the kicker: What I
didn't know was that my dad had gone out and bought the .22 that I had wanted and was going to surprise me with it.....until he found out (from my grandfather) that .22 are illegal to hunt deer with in MI. So I ended up with that as a Christmas present that year!
Sadly; my dad passed away suddenly two years later.....but I will always remember getting those firearms as a 'right of passage". I still have both the Mossberg and the Nylon 66, although the Mossberg has been modified a bit (the original barrel length was 30" and full choked; I had it cut back to 27" and had a polychoke put on). Maybe I'll have to take that old Mossberg out and take it duck hunting this fall......it hasn't been on a hunting trip in a while.
I didn't bag my first deer until 10 years later; got a little 5 point with my Winchester .30/30.
Adam, it's too bad you don't still have that model 37; they are commanding some high prices for a single shot shotgun, and I would imagine that a 16 gauge chambering might be a bit rarer and worth a little more.
BTW: I almost died from a ruptured appendix in 1976; a friend gave me a Gun Digest from 1975 to while away the time while I was in the hospital...funny, but I was going through it a couple of weeks ago (it had an article on antelope hunting), and here are some of the prices listed in the back: Winchester M94 in .30/30--$122
Colt 1911 Gold Cup in .45ACP--$256
S&W M29--$235
Winchester M70--$235
Colt AR15 Sporter--$297
Remington 1100--$219
Ithica M37--$169.95
Adam, your Winchester M37 cost a whopping $59.95, and Gil, your Savage 94 cost $49.90!
My, how the times are a-changin'
