Who else introduced themselves to hunting?

Ardent

Ardent

CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Rating - 100%
818   0   2
Location
Northern BC, Coastal BC, or Africa. Depends on the
It's almost a point of shame for me so I don't mention it often, but I've realized this is ridiculous and would encourage the other guys trying to start from scratch to talk about it. I introduced myself to hunting, quite young, as I had a grandfather who hunted but who had stopped by the time I was growing up. He gave me my first rimfire and centerfire, but I was on my own from there. Those were a Cooey .22 and a Pre-64 .30-30. We grew up on a farm so that part made game easily available, but there was a lot of learning, primarily reading well before the internet was handy, to get it figured out. For simplicity I hunted birds extensively before moving on to predators, then deer, all on our land before venturing further. My father didn't hunt, aside from the odd grouse a long time ago when my parents were in the Yukon, and was primarily a fisherman and hiker. Plenty of time outdoors with him in the backcountry, none of it hunting.

I often feel a bit sheepish admitting that I don't come from a long hunting history, family wise in a way I do but it was interrupted for a long time, and I never got the hand over on it from the family. I really don't think it would be any different starting at 40 than it was at 12, and today there is a lot more information available at our fingertips. Who else was their own teacher, for better or worse? Certainly wasn't a fast and successful way to start, but learned a lot of things that work for you.

Angus
 
No one in my family hunted but for as long as I can remember there's been nothing else I wanted to do. I credit Outdoor Life and Field and Stream and their many great writers for really adding fuel to the ember that was burning inside of me. My folks didn't really understand my desire but they did everything they could to facilitate it. I had my first pellet gun when I was about 6 and a bow about the same time. Sparrows and frogs were my cape buffalo and bighorn sheep back then. When I was about 14, mom would drive me out to the field and drop me off to shoot ducks and geese and when I turned 16 and could drive, there wasn't a critter in the country that was safe. I learned a lot of lessons the hard way but learn them I did. I truly believe that you are born a hunter or you aren't....I was. Having a mentor most certainly would have saved me a lot of hard lessons but in the end, I think it worked out okay.
 
Last edited:
My Father was a radio operator for the airports in the Northwest territories back in the day. If you didn't hunt, you were a vegetarian. Meat was expensive to have shipped if you remembered to do it a year ahead of time. It was always there, I never had to adapt. Forty some years later, I find it more challenging to bring out new and novice hunters to get their animals. Its easy for me to fill my tags. Its like going out to the garden and bringing back something for dinner.
 
sheephunter said:
No one in my family hunted but for as long as I can remember there's been nothing else I wanted to do. I credit Outdoor Life and Field and Stream and their many great writers for really adding fuel to the ember that was burning inside of me. My folks didn't really understand my desire but they did everything they could to facilitate it. I had my first pellet gun when I was about 6 and a bow about the same time. Sparrows and frogs were my cape buffalo and bighorn sheep back then. When I was about 14, mom would drive me out to the field and drop me off to shoot ducks and geese and when I turned 16 and could drive, there wasn't a critter in the country that was safe. I learned a lot of lessons the hard way but learn them I did. I truly believe that you are born a hunter or you aren't....I was. Having a mentor most certainly would have saved me a lot of hard lessons but in the end, I think it worked out okay.
Click to expand...

Sounds very, very familiar. :) You put it better than I could, and I can recognize myself and the zeal I had for it at a young age in that. I was given a pellet / BB gun one Christmas, and it remains perhaps the most exciting day of my life (well til the .22), whether that is sad or great would be for another to judge. Nothing on our farm was safe from that moment on, not even my brother (yes yes… safety, we all did unbelievably stupid things). My first duck is as strong a memory as my first Cape Buffalo, maybe more so, it sounds like you have similar sentiments. First Coyote could have sworn I'd just called in a Lion and I was glowing inside. Hope I can inspire the same in my kids, except for playing hunter with their brothers in the bush and a "BB only, 2 pump rule". First deer was just a ton more work than I had anticipated, but got through it, hacking at it in the barn. Pretty embarrassing job, but it worked, I chopped the legs off with a hatchet not knowing any better, right through the bone, and other things like that.
 
LOL...I learned to field dress and butcher from pictures in a book....I suspect my first attempts had similar results to yours!
 
With parents who went through the war, there was no appreciation for firearms in my family. Luckily a family friend had left some books at the house. I read those books every day. At the age of fifteen me and my school buddy decided to get our license. Didn't get my first gun till I hit college.

I did get my brother into it, only for him to stop when he got married. It took twenty years but my brother finally got his gun license again.

Now the challenge is to get the kids involved.
 
I was basically self taught too. The farm was there, and the guns and traps were there but dad had quit before I was even close to being in the game. I read what I could find, mostly about stuff that didn't work in our area, and eventually started over based on what worked instead of what was supposed to work. Eventually things came together about the time I actually learned how to fish effectively.

My kids got it easy.
 
I always had the desire, got an FAC and bought my own ammo and hunting licenses as soon as I could. Reverse order, actually, as they would happily sell ammo to a kid with the money then. :) It wasn't ALL that long ago, eh?

Never got to go hunting with my father, but he was a pretty big influence. Mostly learned on the fly.

Read a few books, found out what worked for me, and what didn't, learned a few things from friends, failed (if you can call it that) and came home tired and empty handed a lot. Had a good time anyway, so it was never a loss.

Enjoyed myself every time I went out, saw new things, learned new things, made better luck for myself. Carried on.

Been taking the odd relative out and generally helping one or two with no hunting background, to ease in to the flow of it. That's pretty exciting!

Cheers
Trev
 
I've always had some attraction to firearm and the military in general, while being unable to fulfill of the latter and feeling weakened by urban life, I started to document myself. My grand-father was an avid hunter and fisher, but it skipped a generation. I spent most of my life in an urban setting which is not hunting friendly, though, I had from time to time contact with game (and game meat) through my oncle (not a hunter as well). So I decided in the past year to gear up and start up for good. I am now not in an urban setting and finally have a car, so it's gonna me much easier :)
 
I ended up living on some acreage with bush and swamp and whitetail in there with grouse along the driveway. Time for shotguns and rifles and learning to hunt! Zero history of hunting in my family known to me and certainly no friends into it growing up. This is my second season actively trying to eat wild game... and I can see where a mentor would be worthwhile.
 
I'll admit to being self taught, no one in my family is a hunter. It was my second year hunting this year and I was fortunate enough to get a decent little buck. I have learned from extensive reading and from what others have advised me, as well as the "How to" videos available on Youtube. Apparently it was good information. I have no intention of stopping hunting anytime soon and whenever I can I encourage friends to give it a go.
 
I was largely on my own, my father hunted as a young man but by the time I came along his enthusiasm for it was gone. We did a lot of fishing and he humored me by taking me out for deer, he got his pleasure from drinking coffee and watching the birds. He passed while I was still young.

My grandfather was the source of my enthusiasm (from beyond the grave), he had books on hunting in Asia and Africa, had hunted Bighorn and Stone's Sheep, had a Weatherby rifle back in the day and an interest in bowhunting. He also left a fair bit of his own writing behind; comparing hunting Stone's and Bighorn, baiting grizzlies, the methods of making bugles and calling elk, care of horses in the field. There was correspondence about (not from) Frank Golata. Some of the material would be considered dubious today; leaving the meat in the field, capturing and selling bear cubs, using airplanes for hunting. But, it was all enough to capture the imagination of a boy.
 
Definitely a self taught woodsman. Started with trapping,now I'm hunting and just took my first game this year, a partridge and a few grouse. It's a great lifestyle and it's gonna be part of my life till the day I die. I'm really trying to get some of my friends into hunting and hopefully my younger brother as well.
 
Man... Lots of this thread rings true... While dad was an avid hunter and would take me out on grouse and rabbit hunts he stopped when I was 6...the bug stayed with me as dad and I fished together... The thought of harvesting animals and fish and the challenge involved is a driving force for me...

I still remember the hundreds of hours around the woodstove at the cabin reading outdoor life, favorites as a kid being "this happened to me" as well as the antics of pat mcmanus...

I was lucky enough to get licensed when I was 15 and my fervour for the sport rekindled dad's interest for a few years... He was there when I made my first harvest... It was a "measly" woodcock shot with a cooey 84 dad gave me but to this day as memorable as any of the big game or predators I have shot...

Dad no longer hunts but he tends camp and takes interest... He encourages my boys interest in the sport and is still a great mentor...

At the end of the day, I am more successful at big game for having paved my own way but it's nice that there is a legacy there...

Great thread Angus...
 
My dad took sick when I was still too young to start hunting, so it was just me by myself or with one of my brothers. Not sure if it was a good way to start or not, but I've been learning the hard way ever since.
 
I was born into a hunting family in Belize. Not many birds were safe from my pellet gun back then. But we move up here when I was 11 and hunting got left behind. I got back into it about 5 years ago. Went out with another novice hunter friend a couple times which got me into a couple properties, but he wasn't as committed as me so I blazed my own trail for the most part. I sure would have like a mentor, but I have enjoyed discovering more effective techniques and tricks on my own too. Now I'm trying to teach my a couple of nephews and my wife, not to mention my kids are chomping at the bit too. My confidence was boosted quite a bit when I got my first buck on my very first day with the muzzle loader. Had a bit of a drought after that though, but I knew it was possible.
 
Yep Ardent, I believe I mentioned it earlier that my father bordered on an anti gun and hunter. He did buy me my first pellet gun after extreme harrasment, then a 22 then when I was 14, a 303 brit. He even took me out to appease my nagging, a couple of times, but talk about the blind leading the blind. I had buddies after we were of drivers lisence age who had some experience with their dads and it all evolved from there. I was born absolutely gun crazy and hunt crazy from my earliest memories, guns have totally fascinated me. At 3 for Xmas all I wanted was the Paladin gun set in the sears catalogue. When I finally started buying my own at about 14 with a summer job, my first was to trade off the cooey single shot my dad bought me on an Erma lever 22 that looked just like a 94, I was on my way...............later that year my dad bought me the brit and my hunting for real with a CF started.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom