Do you remember when…

[Certus]

It is not all bad though.
I can remember when I saw the first Sambar deer on our property - probably about 45 years ago.
Now it is a matter of how many can we see. On our property in the alpine area we are now culling the stags with weak or deformed antlers to improve the herd. The hunting opportunities are now so much better.

Lucky bugger, I’ve seen like 5 deer in Australia in my life and never hunted one or had the chance.

 

[steve white]

Believe it or not, I was allowed to keep a single barrel shotgun (all I had at the time) in my dorm room at North Texas State University with the full knowledge of the lady in charge of the dorm. Of course, I was also a resident assistant, and she approved my plan to only take it to and from my room wrapped in a blanket. I did in some quail and dove in Sanger, just north of Denton. Year was 1975.

 

[Pirkan]

Sometimes just mentioning hunting would get an invitation to come and shoot varmints, ie groundhogs. Come fall the farmer often extended the invitation to allow rabbit, squirrel, .....and ' if you see a fox shoot it!!..' hunting. Farmers, especially chicken farmers, wanted us to shoot anything and everything no matter the time of year, in or out of season, to protect his/her chickens and their eggs.

A good friend of mine comes from a family of farmers and we've been on their land for some recreational shooting a couple times. Most recently his dad offered to overhaul and put up an old hunting tower if I wanted to hunt some pigs and roedeer but since I'm moving in a couple weeks I had to decline. We were shooting among other things a full auto Swedish K into a puddle of mud, giggling like small children, and he came out to join us and had a great time so he's a really cool down to earth guy. Speaking of prices the M/45b was probably bought for 50-100 usd.

 

[Ridge Runner]

Something else: in high school if opening day of rabbit hunting season fell on a school day, those of us that hunted could bring to school and show our hunting license to the student attendance secretary the day before to get an excusal to skip school to go hunting opening day only.

 

[FlyGuy]

- I remember a time when most of the plains game hunting I did was free and on open, no high fence farms in SA and Namibia.
- I remember seeing springbok herds of over 100 000 free range animals.
- I remember being reminded to shoot an extra gemsbok or two for the farmer to give to the local church minister and old age home.