Wandering Aimlessly
Youth Duck Hunt – 2016
by Phil Burkhouse
Some things are inexplicably burned into your cranial appendage for an entire lifetime. Things of great significance including births, weddings, historic happenings, and passing of friends and family occupy some of my memory space. Much of this space is also filled to capacity with outdoor memories. Apparently these outdoor memories held importance for me because I can remember very trivial things about hunting and fishing adventures but sometimes forget the date my lovely wife was married.
When I was in my very early years of hunting, one of my dad’s best friends invited us to join him on a duck hunt in a remote string of beaver dams in Elk County. I was already an accomplished hunter with three or four rabbits and a spike buck to my credit, and I was excited about the duck hunt. My grandfather entrusted me with his single shot 16 gauge Harrington and Richardson hammer shotgun, and I purchased a new box of Peters shotgun shells.