I remember walking into our local Kmart shortly after I turned of age in Illinois in the early ‘70s to purchase my first shotgun. On sale for the price of only $39.99, the H&R single shot, break open 20 gauge shotgun was my very first firearm purchase on my own. Making only $1.75 an hour part-time, it was in those days still a considerable purchase, one not taken lightly. Getting home, I realized it would be no fun to shoot with the hard plastic buttplate, so drove to a local gun store to buy a red ventilated grind-to-fit recoil pad.
Not having a grinder or belt sander, I stopped by my grandfather’s house. He was a carpenter by trade, and down in his basement, we installed the pad and then carefully ground it to fit using his 24” long by 6” wide belt sander. The beech stock was a drab, lifeless shade of dark brown that hardly inspired any pride of ownership. So while I was there, he helped me to sand down the original finish on the buttstock and the forend revealing the almost white natural beech wood underneath.
Next, at the local Ace Hardware behind our home, I purchased a small can of Minwax stain in Golden Oak… how I loved the sound of that! Also picked up was a like-sized can of polyurethane in satin finish and a couple of inexpensive brushes. Back home, I first stained the stock, and then hung it below the back porch in the sun to dry. The next day, I applied a heavy coat of polyurethane, and again hung both sections in the sun to dry and harden.
Chapter 1: Reloading = More Shooting for Less
A few weeks later, I headed to the local outdoor shooting range with two boxes of shells and a case of clay birds. I also brought my younger brother, Gary, along. It seemed real hard at first, but we kept it simple by putting the clay bird on the exact same place each time so the bird went straight out, increasing our chances of breaking it on our first and only shot. After about a month of doing this, I realized we could shoot a lot more if we reloaded the shells, so back to the gun store to purchase a Lee Load-All shotshell press, a bag of shot, wads, one can of powder, and some 209 shotshell primers.
Mounting the press to a reloading bench, which my grandfather also helped me to build, in no time at all I was cranking out 100 shotshells in no time flat. Back then, a 25 lb. bag of shot cost less than $7, powder was under $4 a pound- reloading shotshells was pretty...
inexpensive- I figured less than ten-cents per shell.
Sometimes we got real fancy and would move the bird a little right or left causing it to be thrown more to the side instead of only straight out.
My brother soon also bought the same H&R, again for under $40 when on sale. At least twice a month, we’d make the 45 minute drive out west to shoot clay birds with our 20 gauges, most always only throwing the birds straight out in front of us. Sometimes we got real fancy and would move the bird a little right or left causing it to be thrown more to the side instead of only straight out. I remember breaking twenty out of twenty-five one Saturday and beginning to think I was quite the shotgunner!
Gary was the first to splurge, buying a Remington 870 pump for under $160 at a Woolworths store in a shopping mall. I thought he was nuts until we went clay bird shooting the next time. He looked so cool working the pump and actually broke a pair of doubles before the end of the day. Of course not to be outdone, I, too, went out and also got a 26”, 12 gauge 870, choked modified- no such thing as removable chokes back then. Another Lee Load-All in the new size, and we really started cranking out the shells. Our lowly, single shot 20 gauges were soon never even taken out of the closet anymore.
Chapter 2: First Bird Hunt
My brother worked nights at a large business and soon had a bunch of buddies at work who liked to bird hunt. They drove about a hundred miles west of Chicago, near Yorkville, Illinois, at Silver Springs State Fish and Wildlife Area. Getting off work in the very early morning, they’d all drive out to hunt pheasants or doves for a few hours before heading home to get some sleep.
Inside, one could carry shells, water, and munchies for the day.
They usually went during the week, but I could never go since I worked days. But finally when dove season opened up, he talked me into going on opening day. Confident in my ability to hit around 20 out of 25 clay birds thrown straight away, I was certain the doves would be dropping like leaves from a maple tree in the late fall. So I headed back to Kmart and bought an olive green 5-gallon bucket with a cushion on the lid for a seat, a very popular hunting accessory at the time. Inside, one could carry shells,...
water, and munchies for the day.
Asking Gary how many shells I should bring with a daily limit of 15 doves, he said 75 to 100 shells would be enough. Four boxes of shells for only 15 birds??? I laughed and said I’d only be taking two boxes and would bring plenty home to use for our next dove hunt!
“OK by me,” I replied, and could hardly wait to start smoking them!
Arriving very early in the morning, we had to submit our group for a drawing because only a limited number of controlled spots were available for shooting. Fortunately, we were drawn that morning; many times Gary and his buddies had to turn around and go home because they were not so lucky.
A ranger took us out into the hunting area, a large parcel planted in feed corn, where there were alternating wide rows of still standing dry corn, then combined areas that had been harvested, followed by rows of standing corn. Each area was about 30 yards wide, and the openings ran north to south for at least 500 yards long. Hunters were placed along the edge of the standing corn, about 40 yards from each other. I placed my cushioned bucket just inside the corn, one row in from the edge. Gary told me right away to only shoot doves out in the open area. Without a dog, if they fell in the corn, there was almost no chance of finding them. “OK by me,” I replied, and could hardly wait to start smoking them!
Chapter 3: Dipping, Dodging, Wobbling Doves
Not long after the sun rose, we started hearing shots. In the distance I heard Bang… Bang, Bang!
I hadn’t seen any yet, but that sure got my adrenaline going. Then the birds started flying by us,almost always left to right, south to north. I was bummed that we were in the middle, figuring the others to our right would shoot them all before any could make it to us. But I did not need to worry about that happening.
I never even ruffled a feather with my first two shots, so I pumped in one more round and took aim…
To my left, maybe three hunters away I heard-
Bang! X#y*%$ Bang! ??@z%^& Bang! XX%+(7#
A shot… and then swearing like I’d never heard before! I myself hardly ever swore, and didn’t quite understand what was going on. And then suddenly, two or three doves came...
flying down the “chute” of the open harvested row and into my sight. Up went my 12 gauge pump… Bang! ...but he did not drop. Shuck in another shell, then Bang! A second shot sounded out. Still he kept flying, but he wasn’t moving in a nice straight line. Instead, the dove is dipping, dodging, and wobbling. Being used to straight away targets, just as I fired, the dove was heading in another direction. I never even ruffled a feather with my first two shots, so I pumped in one more round and took aim…
Bang! @&%=@!…as foul language spewed forth from my mouth.
Bang! @&%=@!…as foul language spewed forth from my mouth.
“Did ja gettum?” my brother asked.
He started laughing so loudly, it made me mad. This happened again and again. Finally, I started noticing that it was going on all down the line. Multiple shots were being taken to hit a single bird! Each shot was followed by a curse word, and finally a bunch of them, when the shotgun runs empty, but the bird kept flying down the line. Often, not only did the first shooter miss, but so did the next, and the next one after that. The language being shouted was not meant for church!
I went through a box of shells, and hadn’t even dropped dove one. Getting so frustrated didn’t help my shooting at all. I kept shooting and swearing, shooting and swearing. My brother was laughing so hard, I’d bet he wet his shorts. He’d taken a few, but I’d yet to connect. By late morning, so many doves had been missed that guys actually started cheering for the ones that made it past hunter after hunter!
Bang, bang bang… swear, swear, swear… bang, bang, bang… swear, swear, swear!
After being shot at by three or four guys, the cheering continued as the dove defiantly kept flying down the row, taunting the men to keep shooting. As the birds made it to near the end of the row of hunters, some of them actually stopped shooting. They figured if the dove was courageous enough to keep on flying, he deserved to be left alone and free.
They figured if the dove was courageous enough to keep on flying, he deserved to be left alone and free.
Before noon, I had gone through two boxes of shells and had not dropped even one bird… while Gary had collected 3...
or 4.
I hated dove hunting!
As the hunt ended, we gathered up our things and started walking back to the truck. Gary said he had a great time and never in his life had heard me swear so much. “Let’s go again next week!” he piped up. Needless to say, it was a looooong time before I ever even considered going dove hunting again with my brother. I had sadly found out that dove hunting makes you very humble, in no time at all…