For me it was around 10 years old, on my uncles farm hunting for Ruffys in the bush with a single shot .22 Coey.I don't know if a thread like this has been posted before.
But how did you start shooting ? How old were you ? What gun/caliber did you fire first ? Who was with you that very first time ?
I'll start off:
4yrs old
Winchester 67 youth model .22 Rimfire, don't know if it was shorts or LR ?
My Dad
Shot sitting backwards, on an old kitchen chair. Resting forearm on a padded cutout on the chair back, think I shot a tin cans. Maybe 25ft
I cannot remember not shooting.
No, given to my next younger brother when I went into the Army. And yes, it left a lot of bruises and left a flinch for shotguns that lasted until I got a 20 gauge Ithaca model 37, that I still have.I hope you still have that one Ric. Even my .410 kicks like a mule with 3" shells, but even as a kid I never felt the pain when downing little flying sandwiches. Well, until after the ride home and discovering how difficult it was to lift my arm.
Got my first pheasant on the fly when I was 9 with a .410 single shot. Dad traded into an old Climax 20 ga. single shot that became my first deer gun. That old 20 sat behind the kitchen door for years until I got a well worn 870 in 1968. My Mom had a spot on the edge of the field where we dumped the kitchen scraps and pheasants would scratch around in it for squash seeds and such. In the morning before the school bus would arrive, I'd hear my Mom sing out, "Lynn, there's a pheasant in the slop hole!" The spring on the old kitchen screen door made a zinging sound, the rooster would either look up or fly. Didn't matter much, a load of 4's would bring him down. Ground swatting was totally acceptable when Supper was the goal.Need to find a pre-1917 Ithaca SxS, same stock dimensions. Model 37 was the first shotgun I bought with my on money, a 12 gauge for $20 in 1958. Kicked like a mule, but it shot the same place as my Dad's Ithaca.