My 12 year old son Zach killed his first three doves Saturday morning with my old single shot Stevens that dad gave me in 1967. He would have killed more if they had been flying better. He had a ball and can't wait to go again.
I passed on a lot of birds to make sure Zach would have plenty to shoot at, but still managed to drop 7 birds out of twelve shots backing Zach up.
A cold front came through the night before and must have run most of the doves off. Our group of 14 killed approximately 60 birds, which wasn't too bad. But on a good day we would have killed a lot more, those guys we hunt with can really shoot. They grew up hunting dove, quail and ducks and are excellent wing shots. It looks like Zach will be right in there with them from now on! Especially since after the hunt my brother gave him the old Stevens 20 gauge double barrel that we used to hunt quail and ducks with when we were in our early teens. That Stevens is well used but still looks great. I better float a loan to keep him in shotgun shells.
I really worried whether Zach would like to hunt since for the first nine years of his life he really didn't have much interest in going hunting. He was into video games and I wasn't going to make him hunt. He started wanting to deer hunt when he was ten and really got into it at eleven. Now I will have a hunting partner every time I head out the door. I guess patience does pay off and I am a happy dad!!!!
