The 'Rats' thread got me to thinking about my growing up days: late '40s, the '50s, and into the early '60s. And, yes, we shot tons of rats at night most of us using bows (see thread). Anyway, while thinking back, I remembered some of the following: hunting ducks with my 8th grade shop teacher (try having an older teacher alone with a young man today!); carrying my .20 ga single shot on the school bus so I could hunt with him after school (gun opened, hunting vest with shells laid behind the driver's seat until school, then to Mr. XXX's office until school was out); very early morning duck hunts often resulted in us running to my grandmom's house to drop off ducks and flying to school where he wrote me an excuse for being late--try that today! Then there were the old, abandoned buildings in our little town--loaded with pigeons--right down town. I mostly used a bow, but to miss a pigeon two stories up looking over the top ledge at you meant either a smashed arrow, a ricochet to who knew where, or a miss with an arrow returning to earth
So we started using blow guns with small broadheads our blade smith buddy made us. Often you could take a bird through the upper chest or neck, it would walk along the roof top ledge, and just keel over--if it fell into the street, great as we could retreive our darts. Otherwise it required a trip up the rickety fire escape and a tricky walk across a rottening roof to retreive it. Unsure how we survived!!
Anyone else?? Stories from yesterday with experiences that wouldn't fly today??
