I routinely, as a child along with my "shootin' buddy", called our bb gun shots on sparrows and pigeons. Through the eye was one call as was top or bottom beak and left or right leg... we also cleared the grain bins of mice by climbing in and scuffin our feet and when they ran the wall we picked them off on the run. Also kicked over the clumped wheat stalks after harvest to root out field rats and get them as they ran from us.
One of the best mornings of shooting was my only negative contact with a conservation officer... we saw fingerling trout swimming in a creek under the bridge so we commenced to shooting them. I told "SB" that my mom would fry them up for us with eggs from his aunts hen house. I found an empty bread sack and we crammed it slap full... had to be 25-50 fish in their... We were walking along when the DNR officer pulled up. Asked in a nice way what we had... I tried to say "got us some smelt"
He said "you boys know dang well them are trout!" He then goes on to tell us of bag limit, size limit and method of take violations... Next he says "see the tanker stoppin' back there?" He just dumped those upstream in a re-stocking program...
He asked what we were gonna do with 'em. I said I am gonna ask momma to cook 'em for breakfast. He loads us, our bb guns and fish and heads to the house. I am crappin' thinkin' my po' parents ain't gonna be happy with a fine and I am losing my bb gun too.
he walks to the door and momma is there in her 20 year old pink house robe. Officer asks her if she knew what we were up to... She said "He is gone shootin' every morning before sunup unless he is in school."
He commenced to tell her of our heinous violation of michigan fishing regs and shows the bag. He then tells her I intended to have her fry them up and her reply was... "If it is edible and hogdogs cleans it, we cook it and eat it." I then pipe up and say with a smug look... "Tell me them ain't gonna be a sweet meat with eggs
" He tells her the only reason we were not cited was her corroborating my intent to eat them. She then asked if he would like a trout and eggs sandwich to go... he looks at me and says "SEE YER MOM EVEN KNEW THEY ARE TROUT"
He then declined to take her up on the offer as "A conflict of interest" (first time I remember hearing that term)... And yes they were the tastiest breakfast meat I ever had!
As an adult I used to shoot 20 gauge hulls at 100 yards with my Marlin 60 and S&W .22 auto loader...
Brent