doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Demographics-where you grew up, when, etc.

Born on the lower Eastern Shore back in the 50's. Great place to grow up and hunt. You can hunt in three states within a 40 mile drive. Twice I have filled three state quail limits in the same day. We would start out in Va, then move into Maryland and finish in Delaware. Back then there were tons of places to hunt and there were not a chicken house every half mile. Land was never posted and a lad only had to ask to get permission to hunt and advise of where the owner knew where all the coveys should be. Bad days back then would be only eight or ten coveys.

Father use to have land on what is now Assateague Island and we use to hunt ducks there in my youth. Also family had relations down on Smith and Tilghman Islands for great hunting on the bay. Family farms on three rivers, off the bay, gave a boy a place to hunt in every possible wind direction and I tried almost everyone of them. Ten ducks a days limit and all the lead shot you needed was about all a boy could ask for back then or now.

Ended up where I am after wife took a job at UK to run one of their medical programs. Like the area but miss the duck hunting. Still, most all of the family hunting property has been either sold off or built up to the point that hunting is a thing of the past on most of my best hunting spots. One is now a mall, one is a cemetery, several have houses on them. Many farms have been sold off in small parcels for "farmettes" as they call them. Five acres and a house in the middle, for country living.

In 1955 my parents lived in NYC when I was born but technically the hospital was up the road in Yonkers.

No one hunted in our family, I had an air rifle when I was a kid that I would load with wads of clay and target shoot in the basement, no BB gun for me.

Never gave hunting much thought until I was 30, I spent all my free time, fishing in saltwater, SCUBA diving and the assorted worthless things young men do and never regret.

When I was 30 all my good friends were "hunters", they went to deer camp, partied, I think one of them actually brought home a deer once. I got invited along so that year I took the safety course, bought a Browning 12ga. pump, borrowed a slug barrel and went hunting.

I loved it, got a deer my second year, did some pheasant shooting, and it took off from there. All those friends that hunted were "asked " to stop by there wives or kids, I'm the only one left that is still an avid shooter.

I've found a whole new set of hunting pards in the last 10 years. Sadly, most are older than I.

Another greyhair. Born "47", raised in rural, New Bremen,Ohio, Youth spent hunting any fur/feather I could find. Pump Daisy,Stevens Favorite in the early years. First real purchase was Mossberg 340 K Chuckster,22mag. for serious chuck hunting. Oldest of three brothers, all hunters from the womb on. Youngest and I serious SXS shooters/hunters. Went on to college, ended up teaching HS and then onto photography. Currently, hunter/gatherer. Living in northern Michigan since college. Bought a Beretta 56E O/U in "72". Sold it to by Parker GH in early 90's. Upland always took a back seat to big whitetails from the 60's till mid-90's when SXS's and dogs overtook the passion of hides and horns. Randy

Born 1939 in Columbia, South Carolina. My mom was from Eastbourne, England & came over with her aunt for a visit & only went back once in the '50s. She was the head civilian in Troop Movement at Fort Jackson from 1940 until she retired in 1970. She married my dad in 1937. He was from Hopkinsville, KY & was mustered into the 11th Cavalry in 1915 & chased Pancho Villa back & forth across the Rio Grande with Genl. Pershing & Capt. George Patton. He taught me to ride & shoot & appreciate the outdoors. He gave me my first gun when I was six, an antique dueling pistol. His 12 gauge Fox Sterlingworth now sits proudly in my gun cabinet. I had it completely refinished for him before he passed away in 1974. I have been collecting now over fifty years & learn something new almost every time I read the posts on this board. To paraphrase what an old friend, now gone, Valmore "Val" Forgette once told me "When you think that you've learned everything that there is to know about your special area of interest of gun lore, just wait a minute and something new & unexpected will come along & prove to you just how little you really know". I love to learn & am still learning.

Best Regards, George

1947, NW Ohio. Small farm town of 700 souls.

Flat farmland and pheasant paradise, until the farm boys went to OSU and learned that bigger is better -- then adios to habitat. Family moved to city, but I grew up on relative's farms in the summer, and tagged along in the fall hunts. Once I could drive, both game hunting & varmint hunting were my free time 'job.'

For fun, I added clod-busting long range pistol shooting with a .22 Match Woodsman I bought with grocery-bagging money. And a M39 Marlin .22 And a Ithaca 20 Magnum 100 SxS [Francis Sell just ruled, with his Richland Arms 20ga incredible air cannons] And a 6MM flatbolt Ruger with a four digit serial -- my perfect all around deer/varmint -- for Ohio/Mich. That combo would still be a good basic hunter's collection.

And read: the public libraries back then had all the great classics of Askins, and Kieth, and O'Conner, and Ned Roberts and more. The world of gun magazines was exploding, especially if one was with Gun World out in California. They LIKED exploding things, or shooting a tree stump to measure how far a .460 Weatherby would penetrate.

One mag even was printed in a folded newsprint format -- Shooting Times [?]. Those gunwriter-fellas were reporters of some inventive and classic times. Later, Handloader and Rifle mags collected prime writers and technicians. The original group of editors and writers gathered under their banner was unmatchable for many years.

High School, Army, a smattering of college courses, and a footloose decade or two, during which i hunted little, but pursued success and stock options. Quit it all, and became a craftsman of wood -- starting in St Paul, and then fine furniture restoration -- which i still do. And primarily duck hunting again, which I still do.

Rediscovered fine doubles, black powder shotgun/rifles, and played with centerfire rifles until I figured out what I really needed and have pretty much stood pat since, there. Chesapeake Retrievers and a first and only wife have added a great deal to life, and we eventually settled down near where I was born: NW Ohio at the West end of lake Erie.

No great adventures or travels, but there are some sweet spots around the country which i wish to see again. Just a pretty ordinary history, and a yen to visit some birdy habitat with brown dogs and a gun.

I must add, that the BBS's of the 'Net have added greatly to the general firearms knowledge base, and really expanded my interests. I consider this board to be the home of some premier scholars and great people, both within the industry and as fellow enthusiasts.

A few mentioned prior, are fine memories. Others are still kicking, if low key, nowadays. Most certainly, there are some friends and acquaintances and correspondents met thru this BBS, that are some of the finest folk a person could know. I've enjoyed y'r company, and wit, and y'r hammered out arguments.

Thank you,

John Meeker

Born 1948 in small town central Texas. It's smaller now than when I was born. Started roaming the neighborhood and the edge of town with my Daisy model 25 at a young age. (Honestly don't remember)

My dad was a big dove hunter and I followed him as soon as I could keep up. (with the bb gun) He traded a .22 for a J. C. Higgins 20 gauge when I was about 12 and I used it until I bought my own model 870 with lawn mowing money a few years later.

Road hunted rabbits, coyotes, whatever through high school and week ends home from college. (AmarilloMike really hit home on the road/pasture hunting.) We got good enough with .22 pistols to hit running rabbits out of a moving truck.

My dad and I both had pointers and hunted Mr. Bobwhite until fire ants, habitat change, and farming practices did away with them. He started having mild strokes which stopped his hunting and slowed mine way down. He died four years ago and I'm getting started again.

Mainly hunt dove now. Love side by sides and 16 gauge guns.

I grew up in Dunedin.Born in '57.Father a former Grenadier guardsman whose early shooting experiences were when Germans were off the licence.
Early school holidays were spent in Central and North Otago rabbit shooting and duck shooting.
Now I shoot birds & targets with a Charles Boswell pigeon gun and deer with a Blaser .270.

Where I grew up those demographs lived on the opposite side of town.

Born in a coastal town in north Florida in 1963. We moved about a hundred miles from there when I was eight and I have been here ever since. I am the biggest homebody in the world, having never traveled west beyond the state of Alabama.

Skip

Born in Milwaukee Wi. in '54..My father worked at American Motors and [upland, goose/duck] hunted with my uncles on my mothers side around Beaver Dam, Horicon, and Mayville, where they lived...He hunted with a Ithaca 37 that I still have in the safe and use every now and then.
Dad got me a daisy BB gun when I was 7 and I bought 16ga JC higgins bolt action 16ga frow my cousin in Beaver Dam when I was 12, with money I earned mowing lawns and delivering papers [Milwaukee Journal]...My cousin was almost 2 years older than me and was buying a new "Remington" pump...When I was 16 I bought a Winchester model 100 from the J C Penneys store and started hunting deer with my best friends family UP NORTH on a farm in their family just outside of Rosolt, 15 miles NE of Stevens Point...


Today I live in Sussex Wi 10 miles NW of Milwaukee and [upland, duch/goose] hunt mostly within 50 miles of home.. [Vernon Marsh, Horicon Marsh, Allenton Marsh, Theresa Marsh and Jackson Marsh]...My best friend an I now hunt Turkeys on the Farm they still have just outside of Rosolt....