PORES 
Vol. XCIV No.9 

September - 1924 
The Twenty Gauge on Ducks 
How the Fascination of the Small Bore Claimed Father and Son 
[Tt shall be the tale of one who 
from a 20 gauge standpoint was 
lost but now is found, who from 
a skeptic of the possibilities of the 
small bore as against the larger, be- 
came a proselyting convert, and who 
typifies in his own experience that 
prophecy of the millennium. “And a 
little child shall lead them.” It 
shall also be a tale within a tale, 
for it was in the leading of a 
little child along the path he 
should tread with a gun on his 
shoulder, the writer’s gun was 
changed on the way from a 
twelve to twenty; so beginning 
at the beginning: 
The first and only boy arrived 
at true hunter’s time in the grey 
dawn of an April morning. 
When I stood at that little bed 
and caught the full meaning of 
the life placed in my care and 
the vista opened of days along 
streams and in marsh and for- 
est, camp fire nights after the 
chase, with the companion God had 
given me, that mine and mine alone, 
should be the task of teaching that boy 
to hunt and fish, and in the right way. 
I am a strong believer in firmly im- 
planting the idea of success in the mind 
of anyone undertaking a new task. 
Right at the start the beginner’s men- 
tal attitude should be shaped so as to 
consider failures only temporary halts 
on the way to ultimate success. 
E showed his hunting instinct by 
his early love of popguns and toy 
pistols, and even that early in the game 
I began to teach him never to point the 
muzzle of his popgun or pistol at any- 
one, for in the muzzle of a gun lay its 
danger. His first shooting with a 
twenty-two rifle was from a rest until 
bull’s-eyes became a matter of habit, 
and then off-hand shooting simply con- 
tinued the bull’s-eye habit. Step by step 
he was taught how to handle his gun, 
how and when to shoot, and many is 
Page 515 
appeals to you. 
that class 
centers on the sixteen. 
By E. W. EHMANN 
the time I chuckled inwardly when my 
own peculiarities and mannerisms were 
faithfully reproduced in that “Chip of 
the old block.” Oh, the teaching of 
that young idea to shoot surely was a 
labor of love. 
When he was ten we started shooting 
ducks together, he using the twenty- 
Perhaps you are already a twenty-gauge 
enthusiast or perchance the twelve-bore ap- 
we feel sure you are going to enjoy this tale, 
not only because it has to do with wing- 
shooting arms, but also because, woven into 
the fabric of what might easily have been a 
technical article, there enters the tempering 
influence of a father’s relation to his son. 

two and taking those that lit on the 
water within range, and we shot one 
season together under those conditions. 
He had been shooting my own twenty- 
two and the time had now come for his 
next birthday present to be his own rifle 
and he looked forward with delight and 
impatience for the day to dawn. 
In the meanwhile I had been sizing 
him up for something more effective on 
ducks than the twenty-two, and so de- 
cided to change that program and sur- 
prise him with a single barrel Iver- 
Johnson twenty gauge shotgun, and 
here is where the twenty comes into the 
picture. 
HAT morning he took up the pack- 
age with every faculty expectant on 
finding a twenty-two rifle, and when he 
fully realized that in his hands was his 
first shotgun, the rapturous hug I got 
was worth about a million tail wags of 
a high-priced bird dog, for it is a sad 
comment on our parentage that we 
Again, you may belong to 
of sportsmen whose admiration 
Regardless of your 
belief in what constitutes the ideal shotgun, 
spend hours of patient time and take in- 
finite pains in the training of a bird dog 
and leave the hunting education of the 
boy as a matter which will somehow 
take care of itself. 
He began his training on wing shoot- 
ing on tin cans tossed into the air with 
a load planned with so light a recoil 
that a change from the rifle to 
the shotgun would have no ad- 
verse effect on his shooting. We 
could find no such light loads on 
the market, so persuaded the 
factory to load the shells we 
wanted. “Now Bud,” I said, 
“remember ‘you will have to 
miss a lot of cans and keep on 
missing until you begin to hit 
them, but remember you are go- 
ing to hit them, and some day 
you will find it will be hard to 
miss them.” That day came 
quickly. We began by shooting 
a load of 1% Dupont by % 
ounce No. 7 shot, this load prov- 
ing very effective for practice, 
but so light that at twenty-five to thirty 
yards that it would not drive shot 
through one side of atin can. We shot 
this load during the first summer; about 
a month before the opening of the duck 
season, changing to 1% ounce Dupont 
by %’s No. 7 shot, and then keeping 
the same powder charge, but changing 
the shot to No. 6; it was a proud young- 
ster who took his place beside dad in 
a double blind with his first shotgun 
on the opening day of the duck season. 
AGAIN following along my ideas of 
his training, his first shot that 
morning was held up until a duck lit 
on the water about twenty-five yards 
distant, and careful instructions given 
as to aim. He was in transports of de- 
light over the success of that first shot 
on his first duck with a shotgun. That 
same shot was again duplicated until 
he had killed three birds on the water, 
and with his confidence in himself fully 
established, he was given permission to 
Contents Copyrighted by Forest and Stream Pub. Co, 
