[Hoyt]

Don't remember the yr...mid 50's..but will never forget the first time I shot a 12ga. I was so young I sat between my Dad's legs and he held the gun. It was an old Remington hump back. I leaned my face down on the stock with my nose right behind the hump so I could aim good and squeezed the trigger. Cried like a baby..just about was one and my two older brothers had a good laugh.

I tagged along through the briars with my Dad for many miles quail hunting with my little unloaded Win. .22 before I got my first shotgun. A used Ithaca 16ga. double barrel and then a Win. model 12 16ga. 28" mod. that my Dad had cut off with an imp. cyl. Cutts Compensator installed for quail hunting.

I remember my Granddaddy had an old sawed off single shot 12ga. and when I was at his farm I used whatever shotgun I could find a few shells for..you could buy them at the little general store for a nickle a piece if you had the money. But that morning I didn't and a few 12ga shells were all that was around. So me and the old farm dog went to the branch with the sawed off shotgun to see if we could find a quail, dove, rabbit or squirrel or two.

Rex treed a big ole fox squirrel way up in the top of a Ga. pine. I knew that sawed off 12 kicked real bad and didn't really want to shot it standing under that pine shouldering it straight up, but the squirrel was so high up there it was my only chance of getting it.

I thought it over a while and came up with a good idea. I'd just hold the ole 12ga. straight out in front of me and point the barrel up at the fox squirrel. That way it wouldn't break my shoulder or back. I squeezed off the trigger and the butt came back down and hit my hip bone, hurt like the dickens and missed the squirrel.