My family hunted small game, and I got to go with my dad and my uncle when I was 10. Rabbits and doves were the popular game at the time with an occassional turkey.
I got my own 16 single when I was 12. A hand me down Ithaca, and I loved it. We lived in the city, but short travels into the country side on weekends in the fall & winter were a favorite time for me. My father was very jealous when my uncle went back to Australia and gave me his 1954 Breda Brescia Auto 12 he got in Italy to take care of. My uncle was a Greek soldier stationed in Australia during WWII, and met my aunt there. After the war, he went back to Australia and got married, and stayed there. My father was like a kid when he would ask to see my uncle's gun, which I proudly would show how well kept and oiled it was.
A side note: my uncle is thankful he left his gun in America. Australia decided to do the gun ban thing and confiscated all semi-auto firearms. His shotgun would now be a pile of metal instead of a family legacy with many stories to tell my son about those great family hunting trips and how my uncle was the greatest shot around.
Recently, my son's Boy Scout Troop went to a shotgun training session and then spen the day shooting clays. That old 16 single kicked some royal but, and the boys thouroughly enjoyed it. As for the dads, my uncle's auto 12 could not be matched.