Just reminded me of a short story lol...
... I grew up around a bunch of sho-e-nuff city folk... growing up on the coast of west central Florida, I did not have access to a lot of hunting land as a kid... I grew up on the water, fishing, diving, spearfishing... but I always had an "itch" to hunt on land thanks to my grandfather whom introduced me to gun/archery hunting in Ohio early on...
... to appease my desire to hunt, I sought out all viable hunting opportunities that one could possibly imagine...
... I was a country boy trapped in a "airy-fairy, ever-more civilized world"... the christian school I went to was filled with the spawn of wealthy parents that could not have tied a hook to a line to save their own life lol... so... the handful of freinds that were brave enough to join me in my hunting adventures were there more for the show than to actually join in themself lol...
... I began my hunting carreer laying waste to the local squirrel population haha
I killed THOUSANDS of the bushy-tailed little rats... A school-mate's dad owned an avacado grove and eagerly allowed me to clean it out hahaha... I quickly learned the joy of efficiency/production of kill
... I further honed my skills with my "walmart-pellet gun" to the point that I could ride my bicycle(gun wrapped in a towel, layed across my handlebars lol
) into a town park, and be peddaling my ass back out before the first tree-hugger had a clue there were no longer any squirrels in the vicinity hahaha... I was a ruthless little baystard in my youth lol...
... from squirrels I moved on to hunting raccoons in the tidal mangrove swamps... "big game" to me lol... I even finally managed to kill a big bobcat with my pellet gun... still smile about that day hahaha...
... I soon was known as a "hunter" in my circle lol, and... as such....
.... my friends would always notify me of any "exotic" opportunities that arose...
... one such day...
... had a friend come to me in school and tell me a far-fetched story about "monkeys" that were occasionally seen in the trees of his father's "country-club-golf course" lol... I scoffed at the notion... but he was quite persistant in that they did indeed exist...
... wasn't long, and I had an expedition plan laid out...
We may have been 11 or 12 at the time... we all met up on bikes just outside the golf course... after sighting in one last time, we began our "approach" ...
... at a pivotal point, I noted that we would have to cross one last vast expanse to reach our "target area"... "brilliantly", I came up with the plan to "stash" our pellet guns under some bushes while we did a "surveilance pass" of the mark lol...
INDEED... there were monkeys... I was PUMPED
... we "non-chalantly" sped walk back across the field to be greeted by a convoy of golfcarts, manned by old, WW2 vets that had intercepted our "stalk attemp" , found our weapons cache, and promptly confiscated them hahaha... those old buggers were SO proud hahaha... they had all of our BB guns laid out on the putting green... "breeches open" lol... and just sat, staring silently, as we walked up... scared the absolute chit out of us hahahaha
... they asked us what we were doing... and I said, "just lookin' for a squirrel to shoot"...
... old baystards threatened to call the police but eventually let us get our guns and leave(less ammo lol)...
... I went back alone a week later and got my damn spider monkey...