My father left me his pheasant gun when he passed away. A Browning Double Auto, brown receiver, round knob, plain modified choked barrel. He traded $100 and a worn .410 Winchester single shot to an employee for it in 1968. It killed alot of pheasants and ducks, too.
Now when I was a kid, it was absolutely VERBOTTEN to use any of Dad's guns without his explicit permission. I writing, prefered! Well, it wasn't unusual for me to come home from school during duck season and grab my Model 12 pump and head for the slough bottoms to get a limit of ducks as they came in to set for the night. It also wasn't unusual for Dad to have "borrowed" my gun for the 3" chamber for an afternoon of goose hunting.
And so, one such afternoon my brother and I were going to head out for a late duck shoot, and 'Lo & Behold! My Model 12 was missing! My brother says, "I'll use Dad's gun. We'll be back before he will and he'l never know."
Murphy has followed my little brother around since before the day he was born.. He was an "oops!" baby, afterall. I KNEW better but agreed anyway. Sure enough, Murphy raised an eyebrow, pointed at my Bro while he was crossing a barbed wire fence (while using the unloaded, open chambered receiver to hold the top strand down and, you guessed it! SLIP! SCRATCH-SCRATCH! It is amazing how deep a barbed wire fence can scratch into an aluminum alloy receiver! Clear through the gold toned engaving, I can tell you for sure!.
Needless to say, Dad noticed the next time he pulled his gun out. Guess who caught hell for it? Yep. ME! Even when my brother admitted what happened, I caught his wrath because I was the Big Brother and new better than to let Dad's gun go out without his permission!
Dad has since passed away last December, but has been unable to hunt for the past 10 or 11 seasons.. My brother and I have hunted pheasants Opening Day together every year for the last 7 years. Our kids are grown and gone, so it just the two of us and we take turns shooting our Opening Day birds with Dad's gun and remember this incident and many more with Dad and hunting season. It's always a great time, laughing 'till the tears run, telling Dad's tired old jokes and old stories we've heard a hundred times, and we usually get our limits. Even with only the one gun for the two of us.
Poper