The older I get, the worse my gun aims

To paraphrase Bill Heavey, have you ever had one of those perfect pheasant hunts where the birds flew like big balloons, your shotgunning eye was picture perfect and your dog was even better than that?

Yah, me neither.

Last week, I needed one more rooster in the bag to reach a limit. Raven rousted a long-tailed balloon that despite my intentions flew away unscathed. Two blasts from my 12 gauge -- two, mind you -- never lifted a feather, which is hard to believe, I know.

Sadly, there were witnesses. They probably were shocked, but they shouldn't have been.

Last fall while pheasant hunting in South Dakota, I had a bout of shooting ineptitude that lasted an entire weekend. And I'm not afraid to admit it. As the old saying goes, I couldn't hit my rear cheeks with both hands, let alone drop a ringneck.

Worse, three of my hunting buddies were hooting and giving high fives whenever I shot another hole in the sky. I felt so humiliated I intentionally lost a high-stakes game of Liars Poker that evening in exchange for the pain of buying cocktails and steak dinners for my friends to shut 'em up.

The sad thing is I remember being a pretty fair shotgunner. There was a time, my clay-busting average on a trapshooting field used to be 23x25. That kind of average would never beat a Minnesota shooting champ such as Loral I Delaney, but one time I tied her husband, Chuck.

I've never told anybody this, but my shotgunning slumps seem to be happening more frequently over, say ... the past 30 years or so.

This could be a natural coincidence or it could be the Aging Process (AP).

I don't remember where I read this or who told me, but they say the Aging Process (AP) is apt to strike women earlier than men. Like I said, I don't know who told me this or even whether it's true.

All I know is pheasant hunters are slow to mature.

Last week, I felt like a kid again, pushing through the tall big bluestem fields. The feeling lasted for hours.

But then, I missed that last bird. Slowly, I trudged back to the road, shotgun empty and hanging over a shoulder. The grass seemed thicker, the truck farther away.

Ol' Raven was panting, too, although her face seemed to be wearing a smile. Lil' Raven, now 16 months old, was still full of endless pep.

It's a sad thing to watch your hunting companion grow old. At the age of 9, Raven is showing signs of AP. She could barely crawl into the truck. Lil' Raven leaped with plenty to spare.

When it was time to put away the shotgun, I held it up and peered down the barrel one more time. How could it miss?

Trusty ol' scatterguns aren't supposed to get old.

Ron Schara • ron@mnbound