Who inspired your interest in hunting?

[WAB]

Curt Gowdy and his show American Sportsman...... you have to be old to remember that show.

And Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom!

 

[PARA45]

My grandfather! I grew up with my grandparents, and my grandpa taught me how to hunt and fish. This is the best memory I have of hunting with my family. I was probably 5-6 years old, and we took my great grandpa duck hunting for his 100th b-day. He was using a SxS shotgun, and sat on one of those little folding canvas chairs with no back. He took a shot at the flying ducks above him, and down he went on his rear end, and got one duck. He did this twice, landing on his rear end, and bagging another duck. He looked at me and said he had enough, that this was a young men game and to help him sit by a tree. He sat there smoking his cigar, while my uncles hunted. One year working at my grandparents farm I made enough money to buy my first rifle, a bolt single shot rifle. I was probably 8 years old or so, didn't have a scope, but I was deadly on the white wing doves and iguanas.

 

[jeff]

No one I was born with the will to hunt and it still burns inside even now.

 

[CJW]

Kind of like @jeff I have always had a desire to hunt and it just feels natural. Other than that I didn't grow up in a hunting family. The only "inspiration" and place I had to learn from was from TV shows, magazines and friends growing up. We weren't the most successful in our ambitions and I didn't hunt with all of them but through hunting stories in school and hunting together with a select few we drove each other. I begged for a bb gun when I was about 10 which my parents bought me for Christmas and after my dad died a year later my mother nurtured my desire to hunt and my love of firearms. By 15 she purchased the only 3 shotguns that I still own and an RWS pellet rifle and allowed me to purchase myself 2 rifles. She also purchased for me my first compound bow with which I took my first whitetail. She woke up at 5am to take me to my hunting spot and helped me drag out and field dress that deer in the dark when I was 14. We also learned how to butcher a deer together by just doing. It was actually my moms boss growing up who also took me to Colorado at 16 to elk hunt. She actually went along on that too but stayed back in town with his wife and daughters. He helped me some with learning about guns and trapping too.

So as far as inspiration goes, TV, magazines and friends.

As far as enablers go, mainly my mother and her boss.

 

[Rocked and Loaded]

Funny thing is that I didn’t grow up hunting. My interest in hunting started with safari films like the old Tarzan movies on Turner Classic Movies and Ghost and the Darkness which came out when I was an adolescent.

As I got older I began reading Africana starting with The Man Eaters of Tsavo and African Game Trails followed by other books in the Capstick library. I’ve always been a romantic and the golden age of African Colonialism has always been an interest to me.

Not being able to afford safari, I started hunting what I could here and my hobby has evolved from there with safari always being an end goal.

 

[CJW]

Not being able to afford safari, I started hunting what I could here and my hobby has evolved from there with safari always being an end goal.

I've had the desire to hunt Africa since I was around 12 or 13. 20 years later I did it and it was like a weight was taken off of my shoulders since I did something that I had thought deeply of for so many years. Oryx are probably my favorite game animal and the main reason I went to Namibia on my first African hunt. Seeing that first big bull oryx along the road and shooting an old broken down bull as my first African animal was a dream come true.

 

[Captain Munro]

Funny thing is that I didn’t grow up hunting. My interest in hunting started with safari films like the old Tarzan movies on Turner Classic Movies and Ghost and the Darkness which came out when I was an adolescent.

As I got older I began reading Africana starting with The Man Eaters of Tsavo and African Game Trails followed by other books in the Capstick library. I’ve always been a romantic and the golden age of African Colonialism has always been an interest to me.

Not being able to afford safari, I started hunting what I could here and my hobby has evolved from there with safari always being an end goal.

Almost exactly how I came to be on this forum!

 

[Longwalker]

I think I was a hunter from the time I could walk. At 4 years of age the only toy I wanted from the Eaton's Christmas catalogue was a double barrel cork firing shotgun and a wind up duck as a target. I actually hunted mice and house sparrows with that thing, improvising with a sewing needle as a way to make a cork "deadly" to the tiny varmints. I bought a worn out BB gun with the first $2 I ever earned. I stalked a snipe to within that BB guns effective range of 3 meters and shot it in the head. I suppose that was poaching, but it was my first "official" game bird/animal and something I would find a difficult achievement today. I still remember how delicious it was. My dad would go hunting moose with his buddies once a year, but he was working too hard to manage our large farm and family of 7 kids to spend much time teaching me anything about hunting. My brothers and I taught each other. As a teenager, we could wander the neighbouring farms and fields pretty much at will while carrying a .22 or shotgun. I didn't get to hunt deer until I was 15 and invited by my older brother. I don't have a preference for hunting big game or small game or birds, I love it all.

 

[Ragman]

100% it was my Dad. No one else on his side of the family hunted and nobody on my Mom’s side did either. Dad was almost completely self taught but did have a little help from some older local fellows.
He started taking me out on the trapline and duck hunting when I was 3 and deer hunting when I was 6. At 8 years old he took me on my first fishing trip. That lit a fire in me that hasn’t gone away. When I was 15 he let me take time of school to go on the annual moose hunt and that really did it for me. He gave my brother all the same opportunities but it never ignited the same spark in him that it did me. My brother will occasionally come out to shoot a deer but the “hunt” isn’t what he’s into…he’s just getting meat.
To this day my Dad is a hunting buddy to me. He’s 79 years old this season. I’m now 52 and can’t wait to go out hunting with my Daddy!!!

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

And Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom!

Even though it really wasn't about hunting, I loved that show as a kid. I knew if I could I would visit Africa just to see her wildlife because of this show.

 

[vancewalker007]

My father, paternal grandfather/grandmother, uncles and aunts all hunted in Texas. I grew up in an environment where hunting is what we did starting in November through January. I've helped grind deer meat in my grandmother's kitchen many many times. Plus, my dad and his buddies would all mount a 3 day over night dove hunt to the Texas valley area every September that I got to go on a bunch. The rest is history.

I've managed to pass it along to my son, daughter and son in law. They have all successfully hunted Coues deer in Arizona. And, recently my wife experienced her first hunt in Africa and is now hooked and ready to go back to Africa to finish her tiny 10.

 

[Randy F]

Even though it really wasn't about hunting, I loved that show as a kid. I knew if I could I would visit Africa just to see her wildlife because of this show.

+1

 

[Buffalo1]

Reading outdoor magazines at the barber shop and I think I have hunting DNA in my blood.

 

[Fredsteyn]

Grew up on a farm but my father never hunted, or took us hunting really. Shot the odd wild animal on the farm, but didn't get into it till I nearly turned 30.

Think my son's story will be a bit different , got his first buck this year turning 8.

 

[7MAG]

My moms friends husband growing up really inspired me. His name is will, I remember seeing his trophy room as a young kid he had gone all over the place and taken all kinds of game. The last thing I saw before we moved was a Christmas card with an elephant he had taken pictures on the back. Man, I wish I could get in touch with him now!

 

[Ryan]

My family wasn't much into hunting, so I kind of went at it on my own. My parents supported me when I wanted a bow and 22 rifle as a kid, but they weren't the inspiration. That said I recall going through the Fred Bear museum back when it was still in Grayling, Michigan as a single digit midget, so definitely Fred. My gym teacher, Larry Rogge, in high school who had an archery club going after school. Then Chuck Adams and Pete Shepley with their articles and videos in the 80s.

 

[Happy Myles]

My childhood environment, my Father, and Jack OConnor. I grew up on a small cattle ranch, There was no one to play with, no radio, no television, no sports. When I was not doing chores, working cattle, messing with horses, chopping wood, pitching hay, digging post holes, i hunted. If we needed meat we shot it and butchered it. We had chickens, Turkeys, hogs and cattle. We made our own ham and bacon. For past time we hunted….everything. My dad was a great hunter and I was with him by age six. We had one magazine, Outdoor Life and I learned to read by monthly memorizing Jack OConnor’s column, “Getting The Range”. Once a month we went to the county seat and my Father went to the cattle auction yard and I spent the day at the library reading every book on Africa exploration. We did not have any money but were not poor. We had family and nature. My Dad used to say when times were tough, “someday we will hunt Africa”.
It was 25 miles to high school and after that I got on a Greyhound Bus and went to college on a scholarship. Since then have hunted the world over annually. My favorite haunts are tented safari wild places. Especially Tanzania for buffalo or the Pamirs for rams. I always take my Father’s silk hunting scarf. Occasionally at night I say to myself, “we made it to Africa Dad, in Spades!’”

 

[Rubberhead]

God (Psalms 139:14 - I am fearfully and wonderfully made), Dad (we spent all yesterday deer hunting together) and a first blue-winged teal.

​

 

[Cam Moon]

My childhood environment, my Father, and Jack OConnor. I grew up on a small cattle ranch, There was no one to play with, no radio, no television, no sports. When I was not doing chores, working cattle, messing with horses, chopping wood, pitching hay, digging post holes, i hunted. If we needed meat we shot it and butchered it. We had chickens, Turkeys, hogs and cattle. We made our own ham and bacon. For past time we hunted….everything. My dad was a great hunter and I was with him by age six. We had one magazine, Outdoor Life and I learned to read by monthly memorizing Jack OConnor’s column, “Getting The Range”. Once a month we went to the county seat and my Father went to the cattle auction yard and I spent the day at the library reading every book on Africa exploration. We did not have any money but were not poor. We had family and nature. My Dad used to say when times were tough, “someday we will hunt Africa”.
It was 25 miles to high school and after that I got on a Greyhound Bus and went to college on a scholarship. Since then have hunted the world over annually. My favorite haunts are tented safari wild places. Especially Tanzania for buffalo or the Pamirs for rams. I always take my Father’s silk hunting scarf. Occasionally at night I say to myself, “we made it to Africa Dad, in Spades!’”

It's too bad that you never got to take your Dad in person. But he taught you well if he was your source for saying that you had no money but were not poor. Love it!

 

[Cam Moon]

To this day my Dad is a hunting buddy to me. He’s 79 years old this season. I’m now 52 and can’t wait to go out hunting with my Daddy!!!

Now THAT is something truly special!