Pennsylvania Game News - June 2011 - 5

stood next to the window. A baker’s dozen of guns stood in it, both rifles and shotguns. But, the only shells that happened to be there were two 16s, one a low base 7½, the other a high base 6. I grabbed them and Dad’s L.C. and dropped the 7½ in the open barrel, the 6 in the modified. The crows were still working over the field, which was almost bare there. I picked the crow that seemed to offer the best target, aimed the shotgun like a rifle, and squeezed the rear trigger to fire the heavier load in the tighter choke. It was an awful long distance up there for any shotgun, and I didn’t expect to connect. When the gun boomed I saw the scattered pattern erupt in the dirt all around the crow I’d selected, and a microsecond later all four crows were exploding upward, wings beating madly and cawing frantically. At least I scared them, I thought, as they angled upward to clear a big weeping willow just this side of the creek. Then I remembered that I still had another shell in the gun. It was only a low base 7½ in an improved cylinder barrel, and I knew it would be pointless to fire it, but I did anyway. And the crow collapsed, instantly dead in the air, and dropped into the creek. I stared in amazement, mouth probably hanging open. The remaining three crows vanished in a moment, still cawing raucously. For long seconds I stood there silently, then automatically thumbed the top lever over and extracted the empties, trying to visualize what had happened. In my mind I could see the crows clawing upward, see the muzzles passing through one, hear the bang and see the falling bird. I wasn’t even sure it was the same crow that I’d first shot at. But, I’d sure hit it. Luck — it was pure luck — an accident, one pellet must have hit the brain. Or maybe Elsie was magic. What else could explain such a kill? The den was a couple of yards behind
june 2011

the place on the porch where I did my rifle shooting and the crows were a few yards farther than their takeoff spot, so the kill had to be more than 90 yards from Elsie’s muzzle. My shot was even longer than Dad’s cottontail kill. I’d never before made a longer one with a shotgun. And more than 60 years later, I still haven’t. Dad is long gone now. He died in 1967 and as an only child I, of course, inherited his shotgun. I hunted with it for 35 years, off and on, though as an incurable gun nut, I accumulated many other smoothbores and rifles over the decades. (Not many handguns, though; when I was young, Dad always discouraged me from them. He felt their short barrels would make it too easy for me to point one at myself. I inevitably got a few over the years, but I never got completely over his early influence.) But, despite the doubles and autoloaders that passed through my hands, when it was small game season I often returned to Elsie, and it always seemed somehow special when I killed something with it. Dad was the youngest of several brothers and they all grew up on a farm outside of a small town. So, early in the 20th century, hunting was a natural thing for them to do. Most rural males doubtless hunted in those days. And of course their experiences led to considerable knowledge of the best ways to go about it — how to approach certain kinds of cover, how to arrange blockers, etc. So by the time I was old enough to go along — 12 or 13 — their advice saved me a lot of time. None of them gave long lectures, Dad least of all. Rather, he boiled his comments down into occasional aphorisms, most of which I still remember. For instance, one day when I was
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Pennsylvania Game News - June 2011

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