Squirrel season!
This Saturday is opening day. After years of not hunting the little nutters, we are back at it. Last year pop asked me to join him. It was Pop, my bro-in-law and his son-in-law. It was a blast. So we are doing it again.
We are all pretty serious bow hunters for deer and hogs, so to take off a Saturday to play is new and needed!
I’ll again take my little light weight 870 wingmaster 20 ga. It was the first gift my pop ever gave me. I was not even a year old. ( It and I are both 45.) He put it on layaway and paid for it by. It eating lunch or buying sodas and snacks. Took what money he had allotted for such things and payed on it weekly. At age 7 her took me to a local gunsmith and had me measured and the stock cut with recoil pad added. The smith begged him not to make him do it explaining “the boy will grow”. But he did as instructed and the boy and his shotgun began a journey. The 410 I hunted with the previous year did give me my first squirrel and even a dove at a slow motion left to right pass by! It the 20 changed everything.
At 15, a new smith was found to lengthen the stock by adding a piece and new recoil pad. He wanted to just order a new stock. It would be impossible to match the grain. I would always see it. Said it would even be cheaper, I said no. I wanted to remember why it was there. A dad bought a baby his first shotgun. And couldn’t wait for the boy to grow into it. That man spent years molding that boy into a man. The little 870 was just one of the tools he used to do it.
I can taste the dumplins already!