jaybez... that was a good one.


A deer hunting story my dad teases me about all the time.. I was young, maybe 13 years old. I was armed with my Dad's Browning, light 12 Auto 5(nothing light about it) shotgun. Dad was worried I'd get lost, so he sat me on a stump under a black choke cherry tree. He told me to watch this trail, and to watch for grouse. We used to be able to hunt both. I had two bird shot shells in my pocket.

Dad had showed me how to flip the select switch on the shotgun to eject a slug and then slip a bird shot in the chamber. And it was cold and snowing. There I sat, all afternoon. Seeing nothing. Then a grouse lands in that choke cherry tree right over my head. I was excited, I locked the selector switch open, ejected the slug, unlocked the switch and pressed the button on the side,and quietly slid the lock closed.

That grouse was not more then fifteen feet over my head when I hit him with a 12 gauge slug. I was so excited, I put the bird shot up through the bottom. So when I closed the action it pulled up a slug. That bird exploded and I could have starred in that Steven King movie "Carrie" I was blood and guts every where, all over me.

When Dad picked me up on his walk out, he saw me and thought I was hurt. Instead I held up a small ball of feathers and told him, I got a grouse... Dad of just laughed. He ofcourse told all the guys I not only could shoot grouse, but gut and skin them at the same time.. What the heck, it washed off..