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A hunting story

Ricci WrightRicci Wright Member Posts: 8,259 ✭✭
edited December 2017 in General Discussion
I listen to talk show host Rick Rodgers on WBAP radio Dallas when I can and last night he related a story of how he grew up hunting with his Grandfather who was self-employed and had a bunch of guns and really enjoyed hunting with his little Grandson. Rick said it was toward the end of the day and they hadn?t seen any squirrels or rabbits,he was 10 years old and carrying his little .22 rifle when he spotted an opossum on a tree limb and called to his Pappa to look at the opossum. The old man took careful aim and killed the opossum where upon Rick started toward the dead opossum but noticed his Grandfather was going in the opposite direction toward the truck. ?Pappa where are you going? Aren?t you gonna get the opossum?? The old man replied that he didn?t want a opossum. Little Rick asked, ?Pappa if you didn?t want it then why did you kill it?? He said he and the old man stared at each other for several seconds and without a word the old man turned and started for his truck . Rick said they never spoke about it again.
Skip ahead a couple of decades, the old man is gone and Rick is talking to his Grandmother, the old man?s wife. Granny asks Rick if he remembers when his Grandfather shot the opossum. Rick replies, ?Yes like it was yesterday?. His Grandmother told him his Grandfather never hunted again after that day.
I guess the old man felt he had committed a sin in front of a small boy that he loved and felt responsible for.
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Comments

  • m88.358winm88.358win Member Posts: 7,269 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Good story.
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  • Sam06Sam06 Member Posts: 21,244 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Nice story.


    When I was a kid, about 10 or 11 I had a bb gun. I went out and shot a bunch of little song birds.

    Well when my Dad got home and found out he made me breast them out and I had to eat them.

    I learned my lesson.



    Fast forward 45 years and I am teaching my Nephews to shoot in the woods behind the house. They want to shoot a squirrel. I told them fine but they were going to eat it. They passed on the chance for a nice squirrel dinner. I told them you do not shoot anything you are not going to eat unless its a varmint.
    RLTW

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  • wpageabcwpageabc Member Posts: 8,760 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    A neat stoy...

    Waste not want not.
    "What is truth?'
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  • HandLoadHandLoad Member Posts: 15,998 ✭
    edited November -1
    I never had the Gift of a Father or Grandfather (or anybody) teaching Me Hunting or Hunting Ethics when I was Young.

    A Member here generously took me in at age 56 or so, and Helped Me learn on His Land.

    I would put Opossums in Varmint/Disease Vector Category, and have no problem shooting them, along with Rats, Feral Cats, Raccoons, and Coyotes and leaving same to nutrify Trees and Wildlife.
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  • OakieOakie Member Posts: 40,565 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I had a friend that killed a squirrel, on his first time out hunting. After he walked over to it and seen it was dead, he turned to me and handed me his shotgun. He said to me, I quit. He was really upset that he killed something. We were 17 at the time. I took the squirrel and we left. I still have his Browning A5 till this day. I asked him several times if he wanted it back for his son or grandkids. NO. It's yours. I am gonna give it to my son when he moves next year. Gun is 35+ years old and shot only once. Oak
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  • droptopdroptop Member Posts: 8,363 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    Possums are vermin. Possums kill chickens, possums carry disease, possums multiply like rabbits, possums get in your attic and "stink it up" and are almost impossible to get rid. Where I live overseas people don't have guns so they poison them. A slow death for sure,, better to shoot them.

    Don't believe the story, a fairy tale made up by libtards.

    The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Think I'd got along with the man in the story just fine.
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  • hillbillehillbille Member Posts: 14,459 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    had an uncle who was in his late 70's or early 80's at time. We were deer hunting and decided to drive a small hollow behind our cabin, we set him at the head of the hollow in a lawn chair and a few of us younger nephews and his sons went down the road and came up both sides of the hollow to drive the deer to him.

    we did run a small herd of deer out, 7-8 deer right up past him, he shot 7 times, we figured he had deer laying all over the head of the hollow, by the time we got there he was walking back to the cabin, rifle and chair in hand. He had missed all 7 shots and the deer had cam within 15 yards of him. He never hunted again. looking back it is sad to think about, but he was afraid if he couldn't hit a deer he may miss and shoot one of us someday, as he hadn't seen the deer till they were right on top of him. but he knew his limits and figured better safe than sorry. I hope I have the sense to do the same when the time comes......
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