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Took the 6 year old grandson to the range with me this morning and he shot his way through a half bag of balloons with the BB gun. Then he said, “Let’s go shoot some clay birds.” The range I belong to has an area where you can throw your own pasture clays and since he’s turned 6 I’ve started letting him trap for me. NaNa always packs a bag of snacks and cool drinks for us so we drove over there, sat on the tailgate and ate and talked about “stuff” before unloading the trap.

For a long time I’ve had a short LOP hammer single ejector (16ga) in the back of the safe waiting for the day one of the grandkids was ready. He’s not yet but I decided to pull it out and shoot a few with it this morning to let him see it and start asking about it. I make him sit on the tailgate and pull the trap from there so I don’t have to keep an eye on where he is. After the first bird, I “aimed” the breech so the shell ejected into the back of the truck. He immediately jumped up, retrieved it and seeing a little smoke stuck it up to his nose.

“What’s that?”

“It’s gun powder.” I said.

“Well, PaPa, I LOVE the smell of that!”

It’s been a hard stretch with the loss of our younger son earlier this year and just the instant honesty and purity of that exclamation was, as I said above, priceless.

If that's not a gift from God, there ain't a dog in Georgia.
JR

That's great FCF. Very happy for you.

I learned yesterday that both my grandsons who live here in GA will be with me opening day of dove season, this Saturday. I remember when they both were bird shaggers for me, then when they each began shooting on their own. Now, they will shoot with me as fine young men. Times like this are indeed a gift from God.

2013

The problem with grandsons is when they get 6 feet "long" they won't sit on your lap anymore but the benefit of that is pretty soon they will bring you great grandsons (or daughters, they shoot too).
Mike

Methinks you’ve got a real hunting partner in the future. Bet he’d love to tag along on a pheasant hunt. Get photos!

Enjoy you grandsons and granddaughters. I was blessed with grandfathers and a uncle who hunted a lot and were glad to take me with them. My father hunted some, but worked full time off the farm and full time on the farm, so had little time to take me. I think they all got to take turns with me so my father made sure I got to hunt and know men who hunted with respect, not greed, for game. They taught me to enjoy a sunrise in the marsh, the excitement of the world waking up every morning and that hunting was so much more than shooting a gun. Taught me to outfox a squirrel, how to get out foxed by a black duck and so much more.

My uncle taught me to consider the quail as a previous resource which was to be protected, harvested sparingly in poor years and always leave enough seed birds to ensure good bird numbers next year. They would even leave extras, if the planting rotation for the next year was for crops not conducive for good nest success. We could take a couple extras out of a cover if the farm would have tomatoes planted next year. Quail did really well around tomatoes but not so well around corn. Six decades later I still can hear their voices explaining things as we walked, sat and hunted.

You're not kidding it can help. I recall so many times that a rain stopped a dove shoot and we all ran for the trucks. Then, 1/2 hour or so later we re-took the field and all of a sudden it seemed like every dove within miles wanted to come in and feed at the same time. That makes for some fast and furious shooting, and some grand memories!

Grandkids are the #1 benefit of getting old. There is not much that brings me more joy than spending some one on one time with them.

I think that most of us love the smell of gunpowder, probably because of the good things that accompany it. Such as spending time with grandpa in the great outdoors. Priceless indeed. Bravo!

My son Harry will shoot this Saturday. Now looking like rain is going to be an issue. If it does not wash out the hunt, it should help.