Steve Knight

I don't remember the year, only that it had to be in the early 1960s.

I do remember the shotgun. It was a double-trigger,16-gauge, side-by-side that had been in my uncle's closet for years. He didn't hunt, so I really don't know why the old gun was there except maybe to shoot a skunk that got too close to the house or outhouse.

It wasn't anything fancy. The forearm was held on with electric tape, the do-all product before there was Duck tape. It was also missing a butt plate. But, in those days, it was just a steel plate instead of a rubber recoil pad so it really didn't matter. The gun was going to kick like the proverbial mule.

But, it was mine to use, and for the first time I was one of the hunters and not my dad's bird boy.

My father, his brothers, a few older cousins and friends always gathered at my Uncle Bob's farm for the opening of dove season. His land, which as of last year was still farmland, was just south of Fort Worth on the Johnson and Ellis county line.

Except for the fact he farmed a lot of grain, the farm wasn't exactly the best place in the world to hunt. There was only one tank and one tree line to attract the birds within shooting range.

On this day my father and the others went off in the normal direction while I climbed in my Uncle Bob's old pickup for a ride I later realized took me to a spot that made hunting safer for everyone.

I didn't have a game bag. Instead, my pant's pockets were stuffed full of paper hull shells. My uncle carried the rest in the box. In those days hunters didn't carry a 10-box carton of ammo on a hunt. You bought a box, maybe two, to hunt with. When those were gone the hunt was over.

Fortunately for me there was an old general store up the road from uncle's house, and they sold shells -- on credit and by the shell if you wanted. Later in life I can remember walking from the farm house through a cotton patch and across a state highway to the store. I rested my gun, probably loaded, on the wall outside the door and walked in for another pocket full of shells and a soda. The best part, looking back at it, was signing my uncle's name on the ledger so he could pay for it later.

On that first hunt, however, I remember my uncle and me climbing a barbed wire fence into a neighbor's pasture. I got down on a knee so I could hold up the shotgun if a dove ever flew within range. My uncle stood safely behind me and along the fence.

And there were some birds to shoot. Not exactly kill, but in the general direction.

At first I wasn't completely clear on the concept of a double barrel, and on my first shot I pulled both triggers at once. The blast sent me back toward the fence into the arms of my uncle. Despite sending roughly 700 pellets into the area, I doubt I even scared the bird.

In those days we only hunted the afternoons. When things got slow we spent the better part of it driving around his farm, occasionally sneaking up on a pile of grain that had "spilled" out of his combine.

Eventually we ended up at another farm with more birds, which meant more shooting opportunity for me. Possibly falling under the theory that even a blind hog can find acorn, I did get that first bird.

Even though I am older and have connected on a few more of those Hail Mary shots over the year, I will still be excited when I take that a shot Monday when dove season opens. I probably won't yell out loud like I did all those years ago, but inside that little kid excitement will still be there.

Steve Knight
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