Eventually my time to go hunting for the first time came.My father took me out in the woods a few blocks from our house and showed me how to load and fire both the twenty-two and the four-ten.We shot at some empty beer bottles that we'd set up on the banks of a small creek,and after just a few tries,I turned out to be a decent shot.On the way home,he gave me a stern lecture on firearm safety,and I am glad that he did..He told me to be certain to always have the safety on any time I wasn't actually shooting at something,and to never point a gun at anything I didn't intend to shoot.And never,he said,store or transport a loaded gun,which was great advice given the condition of many of our roads.At home,he showed me another shotgun.One with the end of the barrel all broken to pieces and a big split running half way up to the trigger guard."Never,he said,fire a gun into the ground.The guy who owned this gun stuck it about four inches into the mud and fired.He lost half of his foot.I believed it.That gun made quite an impression.
At last the day came to get out into the woods with the guns.It was a fine,but cool day in mid November,clear,with little wind.A perfect day for hunting.My father took the twenty-two,and gave me the four-ten.The idea was to bag some rabbits and some partridge,so we would not need anything larger.The four-ten,my father said was "guaranteed to piss off a chickadee if you shot it from twenty feet away." But,as light a gun as it was,you really only needed a pellet or two to find the mark to kill a rabbit or a bird.
On the way out into the woods,my father explained that he had a rule about hunting.That was,that you had to eat whatever it was you shot.The point behind that rule was that He knew about young boys on their first hunting trip.Left to their own devices,we would end up shooting at everything that moved,something that he didn't want me to do.He understood youthful exuberance,but he was of a mindset that rejected the idea of killing for it's own sake.
We tramped through the woods for what seemed like half the day,looking for something acceptable to shoot.Once we saw a partridge,and I tried to shoot it,but by the time I got the safety off and the gun up and sighted,it was long gone.They don't fly really well,but once they get out of range,they are capable of staying there even though you can still see them.I would just have to be quicker the next time.
Really,I suppose we were not accomplished hunters.My father didn't hunt often and it was my first hunting trip.Likely we made enough noise to scare off every animal in the whole county long before we could get close enough to shoot.By afternoon I would even have settled for shooting at more beer bottles.I just wanted to shoot something.Anything!
It was right about that time that we were walking through a meadow with a grove of maples on our right..Something moved in one of the trees,about twenty feet away and twelve feet up.I was very quick this time.I aimed without thinking anything about roast partridge or delicious rabbit stew,and I pulled the trigger.And then,just about the time that the lead was coming out of the end of the gun,I remembered the rule.Shoot it,eat it.The "it"in question turned out to be a woodpecker,and it amazed me how much I was able to think about in the time it took the lead to get from my gun to that woodpecker."Oh crap'it's a woodpecker.I'm going to have to eat it ,and woodpeckers can't be all that good to eat,with all the wood that they eat.Well,maybe with enough onions...and some hot sauce...anyway,it's just a small bird,only two or three bites at most,but it's going to be really tough.Crap,I wish I hadn't shot it.But maybe I'll get lucky and blow it all to pieces so I won't be able to eat it."When the lead arrived,it didn't blow the bird to pieces.Not at all.Four -tens are not anything like twelve gauges.There was a big explosion of feathers as the shot stripped that bird half naked and left him squawking at me as he flew off.In his language I'm sure he called me everything but a Republican(luck for him,if he'd called me that I'd have shot him again). Guaranteed to piss off a chickadee at twenty feet.I guess that applies to woodpeckers as well.
At last the day came to get out into the woods with the guns.It was a fine,but cool day in mid November,clear,with little wind.A perfect day for hunting.My father took the twenty-two,and gave me the four-ten.The idea was to bag some rabbits and some partridge,so we would not need anything larger.The four-ten,my father said was "guaranteed to piss off a chickadee if you shot it from twenty feet away." But,as light a gun as it was,you really only needed a pellet or two to find the mark to kill a rabbit or a bird.
On the way out into the woods,my father explained that he had a rule about hunting.That was,that you had to eat whatever it was you shot.The point behind that rule was that He knew about young boys on their first hunting trip.Left to their own devices,we would end up shooting at everything that moved,something that he didn't want me to do.He understood youthful exuberance,but he was of a mindset that rejected the idea of killing for it's own sake.
We tramped through the woods for what seemed like half the day,looking for something acceptable to shoot.Once we saw a partridge,and I tried to shoot it,but by the time I got the safety off and the gun up and sighted,it was long gone.They don't fly really well,but once they get out of range,they are capable of staying there even though you can still see them.I would just have to be quicker the next time.
Really,I suppose we were not accomplished hunters.My father didn't hunt often and it was my first hunting trip.Likely we made enough noise to scare off every animal in the whole county long before we could get close enough to shoot.By afternoon I would even have settled for shooting at more beer bottles.I just wanted to shoot something.Anything!
It was right about that time that we were walking through a meadow with a grove of maples on our right..Something moved in one of the trees,about twenty feet away and twelve feet up.I was very quick this time.I aimed without thinking anything about roast partridge or delicious rabbit stew,and I pulled the trigger.And then,just about the time that the lead was coming out of the end of the gun,I remembered the rule.Shoot it,eat it.The "it"in question turned out to be a woodpecker,and it amazed me how much I was able to think about in the time it took the lead to get from my gun to that woodpecker."Oh crap'it's a woodpecker.I'm going to have to eat it ,and woodpeckers can't be all that good to eat,with all the wood that they eat.Well,maybe with enough onions...and some hot sauce...anyway,it's just a small bird,only two or three bites at most,but it's going to be really tough.Crap,I wish I hadn't shot it.But maybe I'll get lucky and blow it all to pieces so I won't be able to eat it."When the lead arrived,it didn't blow the bird to pieces.Not at all.Four -tens are not anything like twelve gauges.There was a big explosion of feathers as the shot stripped that bird half naked and left him squawking at me as he flew off.In his language I'm sure he called me everything but a Republican(luck for him,if he'd called me that I'd have shot him again). Guaranteed to piss off a chickadee at twenty feet.I guess that applies to woodpeckers as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment