When and where?????

Quailnerd

Quailnerd

Well-known member
I can remember with gps accuracy where I shot my first upland bird. I’m sure most of you can too, I think about that day often. Where was yours?

1989 Texas panhandle on my grandpa’s farm. Missed a bunch that year until I finally knocked one down in his favorite tail water pit. I made him leave his gun in pickup so he wouldn’t shoot one and let me claim it. Great memory!!
 
1969. I was 13 and already on about my 4th shotgun with my own money. I kept trading knowing that it was the guns' fault that I couldn't hit:LOL: I was walking the railroad ditches hunting rabbits by myself when I walked into a covey. Missed for the umpteenth time. Then later walked up a single. Shouldered and fired. To my amazement it fell! Man, I was so proud!! Got my fist bird dog two years latter. Thanks quail nerd, I hadn't thought about that day in a long time!!
 
1976 when I was 13 in between Phillipsburg and Norton Kansas. Would have been opening weekend and I was shooting my Ithaca Model 37 feather weight 20 gauge I got for my 12th birthday. We were hunting what the farmer always referred to as the “ big draw”. It was a steep 1/2 mile long grassy/ treed spot full of brambles and plum thickets. My dad was so proud when I held that bird up. I ended up shooting two out of there that morning. Little did I know I would only have three more years to hunt with him. Good memories
 
Not proud of this. In 1974 my dad got me out of the barn when I was 12, he said there is a rooster up our lane. So he told me to hop in our white 65 Chevy pickup with 410 volt action. It was still there so I shot it out the window. My dad never hunted but he did get me into hunting. After that I walked miles trying to hit one with the 410. I finally did after a year. My dad then bought me a 870.
 
Huede said:
Not proud of this. In 1974 my dad got me out of the barn when I was 12, he said there is a rooster up our lane. So he told me to hop in our white 65 Chevy pickup with 410 volt action. It was still there so I shot it out the window. My dad never hunted but he did get me into hunting. After that I walked miles trying to hit one with the 410. I finally did after a year. My dad then bought me a 870.
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No judgment thread…. We were young!!!!
 
Huede said:
Not proud of this. In 1974 my dad got me out of the barn when I was 12, he said there is a rooster up our lane. So he told me to hop in our white 65 Chevy pickup with 410 volt action. It was still there so I shot it out the window. My dad never hunted but he did get me into hunting. After that I walked miles trying to hit one with the 410. I finally did after a year. My dad then bought me a 870.
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Hell, I could barely hold it together and not shoot the first road rooster I saw at 26!!
 
Quailnerd said:
I can remember with gps accuracy where I shot my first upland bird. I’m sure most of you can too, I think about that day often. Where was yours?

1989 Texas panhandle on my grandpa’s farm. Missed a bunch that year until I finally knocked one down in his favorite tail water pit. I made him leave his gun in pickup so he wouldn’t shoot one and let me claim it. Great memory!!
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GPS accuracy for sure. Upper East TN.
I can see the spot from the interstate that, of course, wasn't there in 1966. It had to have been late November or early December as I had just gotten my driver's license. Small farm, maybe 20 acres. Rabbit hunting, no dogs, flushed a covey of bobwhite quail under a power line. Using my Grandfather's 1894 Parker Bros 12 gauge, SxS - Damascus barrels. Still got it - one of my most cherished possessions.

Fortunately back then, with no Walmarts, etc., there was a local hardware store that sold shotgun shells from the box so we could buy just 5 or 6 shells. We picked up coke bottles tossed out of cars; I think the return was 2 cents which we used to buy cheap shells.

Thanks for starting me down memory lane.
 
October 17th, 1992. Opening day hunt with my dad's side of the family. Walking in a line in some weedy grass up at Skajem's, hear a rustle in the grass to my left, about three feet from my boots, and then a rooster flushes behind me. I pull the hammer back on the 16 gauge single shot, turn and drop him. I hear my dad cheering from across the field. I also remember how proud I was when I got to the end of the field to show and tell my uncles/grandpa/cousins and as we're standing around, dad's dog, Kit, gets birdy and works up the fenceline and dad followed, proceeding to shoot three roosters in a span of 10 seconds or so. Not a true triple, but definitely stole my thunder. :) I shot my first duck (Blue Wing Teer, of course) in a slough not 200 yards from there a couple weeks earlier.

Fun to remember those firsts. I also won't begrudge anyone for shooting from a vehicle or ground pounding or both. People did things differently back in the day.
 
1981 or 1982, and I was 10 or 11 years old. Kansas seasons stretch into January and I can't remember for sure when during the season. There was snow on the ground and it was just my dad and I hunting that day. The rooster got up to my left and gained altitude quickly to clear the hedge on the edge of the pasture. My mom took a picture when my dad and I got back that day. I'm pretty sure the picture shows the two of us kneeling and facing each other with 2 pheasants and 2 quail laid out on snow bank in between us. I still have the single shot H&R 20 gauge I shot in those days. Both my boys learned on it. I couldn't drive to the field where it happened, but in those days we did a lot of hunting from Goessel up towards Durham.

I also remember my first dove, which was from earlier that season.
 
Fall of 1984 if I remember correctly, pheasant on PA state game lands #242 above York PA. Remington 1100 12ga. & #6 shot.
 
My boys both got their first on a farm in Blunt Sd. My oldest had four opportunities in about ten minutes and was frustrated that he wasn’t able to connect. Finally on his fifth chance he got one. That would have been about 2008. There were a lot of birds that year. My younger son got his on that same farm a couple years later. He shot way less and was extremely cautious on his shots. He showed as much excitement as he ever does which is not much
 
Quailnerd said:
I can remember with gps accuracy where I shot my first upland bird. I’m sure most of you can too, I think about that day often. Where was yours?

1989 Texas panhandle on my grandpa’s farm. Missed a bunch that year until I finally knocked one down in his favorite tail water pit. I made him leave his gun in pickup so he wouldn’t shoot one and let me claim it. Great memory!!
Click to expand...
FC1FDB58-F1E0-4477-882F-4C4ADB0BC146.jpeg
Pulled ol faithful out of the safe today for a walk… still shoots as straight as 1989.
Thanks for everyone’s response on the thread, lots of dads and grandpas involved. Wouldn’t have a love of birds without mine!
 
I was 12 roadhunting as my dad really wasn't a hunter. Shot a rooster coming out of the ditch with my single shot .410. He was about 20 yards away and going up. I barely hit him , he flew about a 1/4 mile and killed himself hitting a powerline. No kidding.
 
Probably just turned 12 (DOB 11-19). My uncle, some other fella, and I walked from Grandpa's farmhouse in Republic County, KS, across the road to hunt a burned-up hedge row. A hen flushed high and toward me. My shot was at a pretty good up angle past 45 degrees. No idea if that hen was legal then. Gun was a single shot .410, brand unknown. I carry the memory as a vivid mental snapshot.
 
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