I remember my first air rifle, I was about seven yrs. old (big for my age), it was Christmas morning, Santa left me a Daisy mod. 25 BB gun, it was a bear to load but I eventually got the hang of it, we lived in a small rural town and our house abutted some hay fields and a great deal of woods, during the summer months you couldn't walk anywhere near without raising a bunch of grasshoppers, I mean huge grasshoppers, like with five inch wingspans, it didn't take long for me to get good at wing shooting them.
Those couple of years before getting my first .22RF single shot rifle (an Iver Johnson) with that Daisy BB gun were great practice for small game hunting that would help stretch the family food budget, my parents, grandparents, and my uncle and aunt all went through the great depression and through the rationing and shortages of WW-2, we had a big victory garden like most folks in our area but it was still hard for some families to get by in the late '40's and early '50's.
Today the area has changed, gone are the fields of hay, the big gardens, and much of the woods that I once hunted have been replaced with housing developments and new businesses, and with them went those big grasshoppers.
And now after a life time of powder burners I'm back to shooting air rifles in my backyard, it's true what they say "the more things change, the more they stay the same, I also have changed, I no longer shoot at those little creatures, I guess you could say that I've come to grips with my own mortality, they are just doing what God designed them to do, every one of them keeps nature in balance in their own way, now I just enjoy them and let them be, there are plenty of novelty targets to practice on without shooting at live critters.
Not finding fault, just saying what works for me.
. First kill I’m pumped
