Steve,
It gave me pause to read of your upbringing and your father's experiences. I now appreciate my late father just a bit more. He was a WWII vet as well. Though he never spoke of any combat, or any other WWII experiences for that matter, he was in a combat theater in the Pacific.
I was fortunate in that just about a year after your first pheasant hunt and encounter with the law, my father bought a .22 for me and my brother and was teaching us to shoot in Montana.
For what it's worth, even though I had already bought a .410 and was using it/them for skeet, I really didn't get inspired to use it for any hunting until you and a few others from this bbs related your hunting experiences with them. Thanks very much for that. Hunting with the .410 has given me great pleasure.
