Wife's First Pheasant Hunt

[fabsroman]

Marshlander,

That wasn't my first hunt or my first pheasant hunt, that was the first hunt that I killed a pheasant.

I started hunting, if you can call it that, when I was abuot 6 years old. I went out with my dad and helped retrieve the birds, and at that age he let me pull the trigger on his 12 gauge Win 101. I had done this 100's of times in the backyard with a pellet gun where I got to aim and pull the trigger as he held the gun to his shoulder, but this time it was a shotgun. He told me that I could aim at any bird I wanted to, so I picked a buzzard about 2,000 yards away. It was the size of a speck. Being a marksman with the pellet gun in the backyard (i.e., I barely missed the can from 5 yards away), I couldn't understand why I missed that buzzard, especially when I was using a shotgun. My dad said sometimes it just happens. At the age of 7, I got to hunt on my own with a .410 single shot. I spent two years trying to get my first dove, I couldn't even get the on the wire with that gun. However, it finally happened. I finally got one just before it landed on the wire. My female cousin was with me that day, and both she and I were ecstatic. After that, I got a 20 gauge single shot and took it pheasant hunting that year. I know my dad passed up a couple of shots on pheasants that year, but he always told me that he just didn't have a clean shot. Used the 20 gauge for 2 seasons without killing much of anything. Then I graduated to the 12 gauge auto 5 for pheasant season and I killed those two pheasants. The next year, I got to use the Win 101 for doves and I was knocking them down pretty good. My dad was really surprised. He had bought me a BPS pump for my 8th birthday, but the gun just did not fit me for quite a while. He didn't want to cut down the original stock, so he tried to order a cheap stock to cut down for me to use for a year or two, but on three different occassions the company sent the wrong stock. I think it was because the gun was a brand new line for Browning.

Anyway, that is the beginning of my hunting career as best as I can recollect.

I truly love my dad. He drives me crazy sometimes nowadays, but I still love him to death. Hopefully, I will be as thoughtful with my kids.