Who taught you how to hunt, and when?

[djh1973]

I am probably an outlier, but I taught myself how to hunt, and it was well into adulthood. Growing up, I had no immediate family who hunted, though lots of friends and acquaintances did. I gradually warmed to the idea and then went for it. In the modern world there are so many resources at one's fingertips.

This is pretty much my story as well. Dad and brothers never really hunted, so I "learned" myself mostly. My uncle and various hunting partners have taught me some tricks over the years as well. Now, the internet keeps me fed with info.

 

[djh1973]

How many guys do you know whose wife introduced him to hunting and shooting?

It was my wife, her father and older brother that taught me to hunt and shoot the summer of 1980. My wife grew up hunting on her family's farm whereas I grew up in suburban Philadelphia, PA never having touched a firearm. It was city boy meets the farmer's daughter. We were married in 1985. We're STILL married. However I introduce her as my first wife. Always have.

Awesome

 

[Wheels]

Friends taught me how to use slingshots and set snares. We would make a fire and cook the birds on the spot. I was in the woods around the house every day. We imagined ourselves to be JA Hunter or Karamoja Bell.

My parents were meat hunters. We probably killed 25-40 animals and a few hundred birds a year for our needs and worker needs.

Around 8, I started using a 220 Swift and 12g. Progressed to 30.06 and 375. As a kid, hunting was the fun part of life.

Hunting is a joy we can experience throughout our lives. I am blessed to have had parents and friends who introduced me to the sport.

It is interesting reading how others got into the sport. I am amazed at the number of you who are self taught. You definitely have a hunter gene deep down. Keep the stories coming.

 

[Hunt anything]

Friends taught me how to use slingshots and set snares. We would make a fire and cook the birds on the spot. I was in the woods around the house every day. We imagined ourselves to be JA Hunter or Karamoja Bell.

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My parents were meat hunters. We probably killed 25-40 animals and a few hundred birds a year for our needs and worker needs.
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Around 8, I started using a 220 Swift and 12g. Progressed to 30.06 and 375. As a kid, hunting was the fun part of life.

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Hunting is a joy we can experience throughout our lives. I am blessed to have had parents and friends who introduced me to the sport.

It is interesting reading how others got into the sport. I am amazed at the number of you who are self taught. You definitely have a hunter gene deep down. Keep the stories coming.

@Wheels, I’ve seen some of those pictures before, have you posted them on here before? Or did I see them in a book?

 

[C.W. Richter]

Great-grandfather W. took me out from age 3-5 to observe him hunting deer (and i was HOOKED!) 'Got a kid's bow when I was about 8 and then another, a .22 WMR, 16 ga and 30-30 at age 10. I would hunt woodchucks from sun-up until sundown, scouting many thousands of acres for deer, bear, turkeys, grouse, etc. cutting through ravines, woodlots, steep wooded slopes otw back and forth to many, many hay fields and hedgerows where I'd woodchuck hunt. Prob. bagged 1,000 w/ that .22 WMR, got it re-blued and still have it. Also was lucky to grow up across the road from a big wooded wetland area and river beyond, so many many days spent afield waterfowl hunting (and occasionally deer/bear out on large islands in the river.) My ancestors got me into it, but 'had to learn myself over time. Chuck Adams' books are exceptionally well written (i think he's an English Prof. in MT) and even if archery isn't your thing, he spends a LOT of time explaining how to be successful in hunting (stalking, stillhunting, stands, etc. scent control.) The man knows his stuff! I read his books as a 10-12 y/o. Hunting woodchucks (at close range) is perfect practice for stalking deer (and hunting rabbits/grouse/pheasants/waterfowl is a great way to get comfy with running or moving shots)! There was a time when the woodchucks were scarce for some unknown reason lol, but they've recovered fully and i'm often too busy to hunt 'em these days, so I let 'em go and enjoy seeing 'em. I still have access to all of those properties today (Many, many fond memories afield,) as the same neighboring families still own 'em. There is no replacement for time spent afield-you just learn so much about how everything interacts out in nature...(i.e. find a grove of big hickory trees or a cluster of butternut and get in there from a downwind position during the bear season! There are so many weekend warrior hunters out there (on the one hand, i get it, hunting is really not a priority in their life,) but it's in my DNA and blood 24-7-365. It's a way of life to me, NOT a retail-oriented latest, greatest widget sales pageant perpetuated by MSM magazines and tv shows.

 

[Zinz]

My dad insisted us boys have a place to go in the country to learn the ways of life, far from the concrete. I was freezing in the deer blinds of South Texas as a very young boy.

Later he bought a small ranch in central Texas where generations of us have learned to hunt, fish, and tend the land. All under his tutelage.

I took him on safari later in life and hunted along with him to be there when he took Kudu, Impala, and Zebra. He was like a kid again.

The last 15-20 years I made sure to sit with him every opening day of deer season. He would recite the opening stanza of “The Lady of the Lake”. It always fascinated me… this simple ranching type engineer from the tiniest town of SW Texas memorized this poem.

In his last years, he put it to paper the reasons and for his sons to pass along. His handwriting had gotten very shaky and it took a couple of attempts for him to get it all down without mistakes (he hated erasing things).

Papa has been gone 6 years now and I miss him dearly, but I can distinctly hear his voice emphasizing the lines of prose. I’ll be sure to recite his poem come November.

Papa Z, headed to the deer blind

Ed Z

 

[meigsbucks]

Nobody in my family hunted. My grandfather did a little small game and waterfowl hunting when he was young.
My father, who never fired a gun in his life, wanted my brother and me to learn safe gun handling due to an AD at a friend’s house when he was a teen. He bought a .22 rifle for me and signed me up with a junior rifle club. Thus I got into small bore competition. From that I became a “gun nut”. I read everything I could about guns and hunting. I read Warren Page, Bob Milek, Elmer Keith and Jack O’Connor as well as others like they were gospel.
When I was old enough, I bought a Remington 1100 12ga and soon after added a .30/06. At that time Ohio was a shotgun only state for deer hunting. At an outdoor show in Cleveland, I found there was a hunting preserve in SE Ohio. I hunted there several times. That’s how I learned to hunt.

 

[leslie hetrick]

my hunting stared on the farm at about 9 years old. my dad was not a hunter, he was a meat killer and was quite good at it for a navy vet of ww-2. his firearms were a 1917 enfield 3006 a sears .22 single shot along with a old 12ga single shot. i was allowed to use them untill i got my own in 1953 at age 10-11 at farm auctions with my dads help(loans), my shinning star was a grandad who was a ww-1 vet having served in France. i was allowed to hunt with him and use his firearms and he owned some fine firearms. i,m indebted to him for the love of firearms he passed on to me.

 

[Phil Giordano]

Great-grandfather W. took me out from age 3-5 to observe him hunting deer (and i was HOOKED!) 'Got a kid's bow when I was about 8 and then another, a .22 WMR, 16 ga and 30-30 at age 10. I would hunt woodchucks from sun-up until sundown, scouting many thousands of acres for deer, bear, turkeys, grouse, etc. cutting through ravines, woodlots, steep wooded slopes otw back and forth to many, many hay fields and hedgerows where I'd woodchuck hunt. Prob. bagged 1,000 w/ that .22 WMR, got it re-blued and still have it. Also was lucky to grow up across the road from a big wooded wetland area and river beyond, so many many days spent afield waterfowl hunting (and occasionally deer/bear out on large islands in the river.) My ancestors got me into it, but 'had to learn myself over time. Chuck Adams' books are exceptionally well written (i think he's an English Prof. in MT) and even if archery isn't your thing, he spends a LOT of time explaining how to be successful in hunting (stalking, stillhunting, stands, etc. scent control.) The man knows his stuff! I read his books as a 10-12 y/o. Hunting woodchucks (at close range) is perfect practice for stalking deer (and hunting rabbits/grouse/pheasants/waterfowl is a great way to get comfy with running or moving shots)! There was a time when the woodchucks were scarce for some unknown reason lol, but they've recovered fully and i'm often too busy to hunt 'em these days, so I let 'em go and enjoy seeing 'em. I still have access to all of those properties today (Many, many fond memories afield,) as the same neighboring families still own 'em. There is no replacement for time spent afield-you just learn so much about how everything interacts out in nature...(i.e. find a grove of big hickory trees or a cluster of butternut and get in there from a downwind position during the bear season! There are so many weekend warrior hunters out there (on the one hand, i get it, hunting is really not a priority in their life,) but it's in my DNA and blood 24-7-365. It's a way of life to me, NOT a retail-oriented latest, greatest widget sales pageant perpetuated by MSM magazines and tv shows.

I also grew up reading Chuck Adams, still I have and treasure those books! One of the greatest hunters of all times, a true Predator. And a great writer too, as you point out

 

[Wheels]

@Wheels, I’ve seen some of those pictures before, have you posted them on here before? Or did I see them in a book?

These photos are all in my media on AH. I just recycled them here. I have some other photos/slides in the attic somewhere and others on an old crashed hard drive. One of these days if I ever get the proper motivation and time I will try to get them out.

 

[BryceM]

Really cool thread.

I grew up in rural Idaho in the 70s and 80s. Hunting was in my family's blood, and like most people in the post WW-II era, hunting was a natural part of life for everyone. This applied to just about everyone and it was pretty common in those days to go to school and swap stories with the principal or algebra teacher. My paternal grandfather returned home from Japan and continued hunting with his brothers and friends. During one of those trips he was killed in a hunting accident. My father was 7 years-old at the time.

This did not deter him in the slightest, and he spent his youth chasing pheasants, deer, elk, and about anything else that had an open season. Shotgun News, Guns and Ammo, and Outdoor Life were always laying around and I digested them thoroughly. I was always drawn to stories of Africa. In those days it was a far-off dream to even consider traveling out of the state, let alone to the other side of the world.

I started shooting with Dad in my youth, and by the time I could legally hunt at age 12, I was dying to go. My 6th grade algebra and science teachers were my hunters ed instructors and they were genuinely eager for news of the hunt. I still remember that first magical trip on opening morning to the "secret place" a couple weeks after my birthday. The area has actual names, of course, but we knew it as Buck Canyon, Spook-em, and 10-shot. It's still sacred ground to me, even though the numbers of deer in that area are nothing like it was in the 1980s.

Opening morning for Sage Grouse, jump shooting ducks, decoying in geese. All of it was magical. I watched him made an off-hand, running heart shot at a nice pronghorn 200 yards away one day. Those rabbit hunts of his youth really paid off. In reality we were probably mediocre hunters, and we didn't often venture far from places we could drive. Fast forward a decade or more past college, medical school, residency, and all of that. Finally, I was able to return to the Rocky Mountains and rediscover my love of hunting.

Around this time my dad's financial situation improved, free of the demands of raising a family. I was starting to do well enough in medicine, and we started kicking around the idea of an adventure in Africa. One thing led to another and dad and I made our first trip to Namibia in 2010. We returned again in 2012 and 2015, but dad's cancer kept him home for the 4th trip. He was in the hospital recovering from surgery and I made the trip with my son instead. Those trips left indelible memories that have been the source of many pleasant hours of reflection.

Dad passed away not so long after that, and he left an enormous hole that will never be filled. In fact, I'm not sure how the world is getting by without him. Before he died, he had the opportunity to be with my son and daughter on their first hunts. Too bad the younger cousins won't really know what they missed. Big mule deer will forever be my first hunting love. The story of this deer is legend, for another time:

Hunting the Big 5 was the stuff of legend and fantasy in that world. I finally did a DG trip to the Caprivi in 2020. It was supposed to be a buffalo hunt, but ended up being an unforgettable buffalo and elephant hunt. Dad would have LOVED it. I suppose he was there, just out of sight.

I just got back from trip number 7, this time with my middle son. He's already scheming and dreaming of ways to get back.

 

[leslie hetrick]

its also sad that my two sons don,t share my ideals about hunting, if time permits they will go down to a life long friends farm and hunt with me on a few weekends and then back to their world. i,m not complaining as they have turned into fine men who take care of their famileys and take care of business. one has a sail boat that he sails on the ocean out of new jersey and the other would sooner take hikes and ride his bicycle, i think their wifes have alot to do with their choices.