Major holidays pack in the memories, and the family pretty much dozed as we headed back from an inlaws house in PA, so I drove and remembered a few holidays and ordinary days long past. And I was a little amazed at all the changes in my life.
After living in the LA madness post military for a few years, I moved back to Md after Pop had his infarction. As I recall, all I owned fit into a half ton Chevy van with plenty of room left over.
Big change there,just my firearms and associated clutter would fill a few vans these days.Moving vans.
Once back in Md, I fell in with a group of young men of varied background but similar interests.
We regarded beer as one of the major food groups.
We all had Chevy P/U trucks(My van got traded for a 66 3/4 ton Pop needed no more).
We all regarded monogamy as similar to a life sentence with no parole.
Even tho we were about evenly divided between vets and non vets, none of us trusted the gummint much, if at all.If anything, the vets were the more extreme on this.
We all loved Southern Rock and regarded Duane Allman's death as a personal tragedy of high magnitude.
And we all had long bbled, tight choked repeating shotguns.We regarded them as versatile and useful weapons good for anything,anywhere.A-5s,12s, a 97, some 37s and a couple 870s were in the arsenal, along with a Springfield and a Noble,soon discarded.
Our other firearms were long on milsurp bolt action rifles, short on handguns, and specialty shotguns like 20 gauge SXS's or dedicated slug guns were obvious signs of having mo' money than was good for us.
We were redneck/hippie hybrids, proud of the fact that we bought little meat and proud of the fact that most of us were on the deadly side when it came to shooting.
We got that way by using shotguns as our fun tool. A stone quarry a few hundred yards from where we hung out on one guy's farm was open to us for Sunday pigeon shoots. It wasn't unusual to go through 100 rounds each there, and get a wheelbarrow load or two of those birds for our efforts. It was a great way to learn wingshooting, and a great way to polish those skills.
We also hunted crows, used an ancient trap to throw clays, and even went to the county landfill at night and shot rats by the headlights of all those old Chevy trucks.
Even tho the 'burb's were already impinging, there were farms we could hunt, climax woods loaded with gray squirrels, creeks we could drift in canoes and take woodies and mallards, some tiny little ponds we could jumpshoot off of, and a few corn and wheat fields we could stick decoys in and get Canadas within range. There were fox and coon to be taken for fur in the winter, the occasional deer was to be found(In 1976, 54 deer were checked in here in Howard County, last year about 1500), and shotgun fun was to be had 12 months out of the year. Ringnecks, dove, quail, woodcock, a rare grouse or two, rabbits and so on were to be had.
And TTBOMK, none of us ever had a shooting lesson beyond the introductory one given by a parent. I think Mom gave me my first on the 22, Pop on the shotgun.
Basically, And here's the moral of all these scribblings,we taught ourselves to shoot the shotgun. We did OK, because we thought we could do so.
We learned leads by shooting at those pigeons, etc, that would circle inside the quarry, giving us the same shot opp time after time. We'd increase the lead each time until the bird folded, and file that in our memory. Same with woodies and their near vertical jump.
We learned patterns on those grey squirrels. Knowing how to hold on the head so the meat wouldn't get too torn up, we learned to "fringe" with the edge of the pattern. We learned to match the load to the game, and how long to wait out a quail before shooting so it caught a usable pattern, instead of a miss or a meatgrinder.
Now, this isn't to badmouth the shooting schools and instructors. If we had them back then, we'd have gotten better faster, and maybe I wouldn't have all that trouble on Jumping Teal targets at Pintail Point. Maybe...
What I'm trying to say is that a case or two of ammo,some basic instruction, and some thought can make a shooter. The fancy stuff is good,by and large, but it's an aid and not a method.
So, grab your shotgun, go shoot it a few hundred times and see what happens. Either form and fit are so far off you'll have to adjust them to keep on shooting, or you'll be a fine shotgunner.
And the big advantage of those shooting schools is you shoot lots of shells under controlled conditions.Kinda like pigeons in that quarry....
Questions, comments, donations?....
After living in the LA madness post military for a few years, I moved back to Md after Pop had his infarction. As I recall, all I owned fit into a half ton Chevy van with plenty of room left over.
Big change there,just my firearms and associated clutter would fill a few vans these days.Moving vans.
Once back in Md, I fell in with a group of young men of varied background but similar interests.
We regarded beer as one of the major food groups.
We all had Chevy P/U trucks(My van got traded for a 66 3/4 ton Pop needed no more).
We all regarded monogamy as similar to a life sentence with no parole.
Even tho we were about evenly divided between vets and non vets, none of us trusted the gummint much, if at all.If anything, the vets were the more extreme on this.
We all loved Southern Rock and regarded Duane Allman's death as a personal tragedy of high magnitude.
And we all had long bbled, tight choked repeating shotguns.We regarded them as versatile and useful weapons good for anything,anywhere.A-5s,12s, a 97, some 37s and a couple 870s were in the arsenal, along with a Springfield and a Noble,soon discarded.
Our other firearms were long on milsurp bolt action rifles, short on handguns, and specialty shotguns like 20 gauge SXS's or dedicated slug guns were obvious signs of having mo' money than was good for us.
We were redneck/hippie hybrids, proud of the fact that we bought little meat and proud of the fact that most of us were on the deadly side when it came to shooting.
We got that way by using shotguns as our fun tool. A stone quarry a few hundred yards from where we hung out on one guy's farm was open to us for Sunday pigeon shoots. It wasn't unusual to go through 100 rounds each there, and get a wheelbarrow load or two of those birds for our efforts. It was a great way to learn wingshooting, and a great way to polish those skills.
We also hunted crows, used an ancient trap to throw clays, and even went to the county landfill at night and shot rats by the headlights of all those old Chevy trucks.
Even tho the 'burb's were already impinging, there were farms we could hunt, climax woods loaded with gray squirrels, creeks we could drift in canoes and take woodies and mallards, some tiny little ponds we could jumpshoot off of, and a few corn and wheat fields we could stick decoys in and get Canadas within range. There were fox and coon to be taken for fur in the winter, the occasional deer was to be found(In 1976, 54 deer were checked in here in Howard County, last year about 1500), and shotgun fun was to be had 12 months out of the year. Ringnecks, dove, quail, woodcock, a rare grouse or two, rabbits and so on were to be had.
And TTBOMK, none of us ever had a shooting lesson beyond the introductory one given by a parent. I think Mom gave me my first on the 22, Pop on the shotgun.
Basically, And here's the moral of all these scribblings,we taught ourselves to shoot the shotgun. We did OK, because we thought we could do so.
We learned leads by shooting at those pigeons, etc, that would circle inside the quarry, giving us the same shot opp time after time. We'd increase the lead each time until the bird folded, and file that in our memory. Same with woodies and their near vertical jump.
We learned patterns on those grey squirrels. Knowing how to hold on the head so the meat wouldn't get too torn up, we learned to "fringe" with the edge of the pattern. We learned to match the load to the game, and how long to wait out a quail before shooting so it caught a usable pattern, instead of a miss or a meatgrinder.
Now, this isn't to badmouth the shooting schools and instructors. If we had them back then, we'd have gotten better faster, and maybe I wouldn't have all that trouble on Jumping Teal targets at Pintail Point. Maybe...
What I'm trying to say is that a case or two of ammo,some basic instruction, and some thought can make a shooter. The fancy stuff is good,by and large, but it's an aid and not a method.
So, grab your shotgun, go shoot it a few hundred times and see what happens. Either form and fit are so far off you'll have to adjust them to keep on shooting, or you'll be a fine shotgunner.
And the big advantage of those shooting schools is you shoot lots of shells under controlled conditions.Kinda like pigeons in that quarry....
Questions, comments, donations?....
Pitcher of tea and some shrimp afterwards I'd be happy.