What road did you (or those before you) take to become an outdoorsman?

[alldaysit]

Well, this was supposed to be a short opening post for the thread but it spiraled into what it is, a story of sorts mixed with lessons and learning. Hope you guys have some to share as well.

The beginning:

I was sitting here tonight thinking of how I got hooked on the outdoors (hunting, fishing, shooting, kayaking, camping, canoeing, etc) and thought maybe others thought about the same thing. The recent past has me thinking a lot about my life and how I got to where I am, how much I enjoy the present and how exciting the future is. My daughter is 8 months old now and I look forward to teaching her whatever she wants to learn and involve her in everything until she gets bored. She's already my land tour buddy and enjoys the outdoors extremely well. She just loves looking at trees; it really is something watching her look at them. I think it's something I enjoy the most, watching her look at stuff with wonder and excitement. Those who say everything changes after the first kid don't lie. But they never describe it very well and they typically leave out all the great things.

Back to the post at hand:

From birth, my grandfather and father involved me in all aspects of hunting and outdoors really (who doesn't like watching a big largemouth hit your top water just before sunset on the lake). I remember the spike bucks they would bring home harvested on public land and us kids would just admire grandpa and dad. This is how I got started as they showed me the positives and negatives.

Grandpa would take me with him hunting all the time (road hunting as I was like 4-8 years old). I have fond memories and remember all the times with him.

Once we stopped because he seen a deer out his window. I said he sure has a nice rack from the passenger seat (I was like 5 at the time). Grandpa said "it's a doe". I was like "that's a buck". By the time grandpa looked out my window the buck was walking away already and Gramps couldn't have drove up and stopped to come back and get him.

Another time we were driving down this two track on national forest land and I seen a porcupine up ahead. Grandpa seen it to. I told him to watch out, but at the 5 mph the old Jeep Cherokee was traveling he hit the poor porky, and the porky got the last laugh as grandpa had to get out and put the spare tire on to fix the flat. Even now I don't know to laugh or feel bad for that porky; because I think grandpa may have aimed for him.....

Another time in the middle of winter with grandpas "Go Anywhere" Jeep Cherokee he decided to climb a snowbank and go back and do some "scouting" as he called it. Well, we got over the snowbank and he kept on a driving until the snowpack couldn't hold the jeep anymore and we sunk to the frame in snow. We pushed for hours and finally got it moving backwards and we made it out. Didn't get a minute of scouting in that day.

A side benefit to hunting with grandpa was lunchtime at the local establishment. They always had tasty drummies or burgers. The only negative was grandpa loved the poker gambling machines at the bar and he would sit there for hours playing them during the middle of the hunting day. Looking back, he was having fun and I'm proud of him for that.

I remember driving around and looking for deer with my parents. We didn't have money but we had fun doing that. It's something I look forward to doing with our daughter.

I remember going shining all the time during the fall with my dad and brother. The Bucks we have seen feet from the spotlight were just amazing. I know of a few that made the newspaper (were harvested by a neighbor etc) that we had seen with the light. I remember talking with dad about the Rampola buck and how those ears looked similar to bucks ears we've shot after harvest, but the width was a little strange. Not a year later we shined two huge 8s. One we estimated at 22" wide and the other at at least 27". We have never seen (even to this day) something like that buck. Turns out the 22" buck was shot opening day of rifle and was 23 5/8" wide INSIDE, who knows how wide that other one truly was.

The next time I see grandpa I think I will ask him how he got started hunting.

So, how did you become/what did your road look like to becoming the outdoorsman you are?

 

[bueller]

I was born and raised in a major metropolitan area. My father enjoyed fishing but got out of the sport when I was very young so he never actually introduced me to it. My grandparents owned a farm in northwestern Illinois and I spent quite a bit of time there as a kid. Also spent a lot of time biking and hiking in the local forest preserves. Couple friends and I started fishing together on our own teaching ourselves along the way. Quickly learned that fishing in an urban area was a different world compared to all the guys on tv catching gamefish. We became damn good carp fishermen and were successful in regional tournaments. My father had been introduced into deer hunting by a neighbor of ours and when I was a teenager he invited me up to camp. I was immediately hooked and have gone every year since. Also got my father back into fishing and even taught him some things. My love for the outdoors wasn't really taught or introduced by anyone. It just kind of happened. It is one of the things that kept me on the right track growing up, at least sometimes ;).

 

[yoderjac]

I wet my diapers a lot. My mother tells me that when I was 3 years old I bugged my dad so much to take me fishing that he when out and learned to fish so he could teach me. That led to hunting as I got a bit older.

Thaks,

Jack

 

[j-bird]

I grew up in a small town, and I do mean in small town. There still is only 1 stop sign to keep you from driving thru without having to stop at all! My grandfather was a fisherman and small game hunter. My father was a fisherman and small game hunter. When I was roughly 10 you could find me fishing any water puddle big enough to hold a fish. I liked the woods but I just didn't have much of an outlet. I got a BB gun for my first communion and carried a BB/pellet gun all over the place....neighborhood chipmunk, black birds and sparrows where not safe. I loved the idea of shooting and being as precise as possible in my shot. So I owe that interest to my father and grandfather. As I got a bit younger and into junior high my grandparents bought 20 acres outside of town that had an acre pond on it. This was like paradise! I grew up squirrel hunting and fishing that pond to death. I spent far more time chasing fish than I did chasing girls....especially in high school - high school girls where crazy! I did that all thru high school. I even took Ag and FFA classes in high school because they interested me and did well in soils and forestry - which totally floored my family.....cause none of us had any dealings with living on a farm. Off to college was my first time living in a decent sized town/city. I would come home for weekends and holidays and I always felt the best out at the property. Life just seemed calmer there. I met my wife in college and her dad had passed away and left her half of the farm I own now. We would later buy out her brothers half and the rest is history. I again picked up hunting small game, and then I decided "deer hunting couldn't be that hard". Yep - shows what I knew. I taught myself how to deer hunt but many of the basic parts of hunting I learned by hunting small game and fishing. Fishing is very similar actually....they have resting places in cover and feeding places and they follow different features for different reasons and breeding season is always exciting. Young animals do dumb things and older animals are far more cautions and a much bigger challenge. That is why I feel so strongly about at least exposing my children to the outdoors.....that is my job as a father and I take it seriously.

 

[MoBuckChaser]

What road did I take? It was beat into me as a little kid!

I was tired of getting the piss beat out of me up until I was 15 years old by my old man. He thought he was still in the 504th airborne fighting the germans yet. So I started heading out to a lake by our house to hide, teaching myself how to hunt and fish, then meet a few guys whose parents owned a hunting farm on a lake. The rest is history!

 

[chummer]

I think hunting and fishing was therapy for my dad. He is a Vietnam Vet, a fact I didn't find out until I was 20. He is not a people person and still does not like being around them. He has still never mentioned Vietnam to me. I try to bring it up with my mom but I don't get many answers. He has not spoke about it since he made it home. Anytime he wasn't working he was hunting or fishing, and he always dragged me a long. While the outdoors was healing him I was being exposed to all its wonders. Forty years later as he nears 70 the outdoors has become my therapy, and I drag him along every chance I get.

 

[tater]

For me my grandad got me started. First with fishing then with hunting. Shorty after that I got hooked up with an uncle that was allergic to work and hooked on shooting bucks. I heard a lot of "do as I say not as I do" in those days. After I got my drivers license I spent all of my weekends during hunting season at his camp hanging out with " the guys". I learned a lot from those guys and probably kept myself out of a bunch of trouble at home. Now I'm almost 40 and hope I can give my kids some of those same fun times when they get a little older

 

[Native Hunter]

I listened to what this guy told me to do:

 

[Four Seasons]

I was lucky enough to hook up with friends fathers to get a start. It started out running coon's with a buddys uncle. After that it was full blown out of control outdoors every day. We were skipping school to go check traps that we were doing so we could grab enough cash to go for our week hunting trip up in the big woods of the Adirondacks. After the Whitetails came to be it was nothing short of obsession, It was Whitetails for every season be it Scouting, setting stands or riding back roads on the look out. It was then..30 years ago that i found out you could raise whitetails and the plan was in motion...Now i get to spend every day of the year with one of the greatest animals God put on this earth.

 

[John-W-WI]

Much like Four Seasons it was a friend's father that helped me scratch the itch.

The strange thing is I had the itch long before I had an outlet for it. I'm the youngest of 4, NOBODY in my immediate family hunted or fished. Yet I had an interest for as long as I can remember. Much of what I learned was self taught. Probably the best thing for me, as I'm not a very good student.

I've had a need to be in the outdoors for as long as I can remember. That's where I belong.

I'm doing everything in my power to instill the same thing in Jake (10, almost 11 years old). So far he his right there with me between video games. But I think there is hope for him :)

-John

 

[BJE80]

I saw people wearing camo in fleet farm and I wanted to be like them.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

For me it was Dad and my 2 blood uncles, and 2 " married-in " uncles. Hunting small game and deer was in their veins. As a kid of 4 and 5, I used to sit by the back kitchen door and wait for them to come home with a day's take of small game or deer. It would be dark until they got home each Saturday, and I'd go running out the door to see what they brought home. They'd hold me up so I could see the rabbits, grouse, pheasants, or deer they had & let me " pet " them. From those days onward, I couldn't wait to join them on those hunts.

While I was 6 or 7 years old, my Dad and Uncle Howard took me on a scouting trip during the peak of the October colors in the mountains of N.C. Pa. I thought it was really cool they invited me to tag along. I learned how to walk slowly and quietly in the woods that day from their examples and coaching. Big impression !!!!

When I turned 12 ( 1st legal age to hunt in Pa. back then ), I took the " Hunter's Safety Course " and went out hunting on the first day of the first small game season that year. Dad bought me all the necessary gear and I was so puffed up, I felt like bursting. I got my first squirrel that day and learned how to clean game in the field. Dad and my Uncle Clair broke me in and took me on many hunts with them. I got the full dose of " Safety first " and hunting ethics from both of them and it lasts to this day. They taught me to respect and appreciate the game we would hunt and to not get greedy - a limit wasn't the measure of your hunting skill.

Many years of hunting and fishing followed with Dad, the uncles and many cousins. The outdoor passions probably kept me from other things that may have landed me in trouble. It's good, clean fun - especially when enjoyed with family. The amount of ribbing, laughing and story-telling can't be measured for value. They are priceless !!

The impression all of them made on me as I began my hunting / fishing / outdoor life has made me want to teach the same values to my sons. Both are accomplished outdoorsmen - hunters / fishermen, and seem addicted as well. Hopefully, it'll be a lifelong passion for them like it has been for me.

 

[buckvelvet]

My cousin and I were raised like brothers, we stayed at my grandparents a lot, they owned 27 acres so we would walk out in the woods around 8-10 years old with a hatchet chopping on junk jack pine. I befriended a trio of brothers when was around 12, they had starting coming to my church about a month earlier, my cousin stayed the night at his their house. They were big into deer hunting because their dad was so he sparked an interest. My grandpa took myself and my cousin our first time out. We sat on a high creek bank, a farmers donkey down the road he haw'd somewhere around day break and we laughed and laughed. My grandpa couldn't help but laugh at us numbskulls out there giggling at the donkey noise. We didn't shoot anything that time. :)

 

[Tree Spud]

When I was 8-9 years old, I read this book and was hooked on the adventure of the Outdoors ever since. It also goes by the title of "Lost in the Barrens". I think this book and the main character actually started shaping me in my views of life before I even knew it ... independent, resourceful, etc.

Then it was the Boy Scouts and camping in tents in 12 deg F weather, having my cousin live in the country and spending who weekends running the fields, woods, and stream catching trout and shooting rabbits. Then hunting with my Da and brother ... I should clarify, my Dad walked on top of the railroad tracks while my brother and I walked the lower wetground and nasty brush shagging pheasents for my Dad to pick off.

One of the most fun experience at age 14 was going pheasant hunting Sunday am with the adults. Dad would have us up at 4 am and be out the door to the local truck stop to meet 4-5 other Dads and their boys. A hearty breakfast and thell moring walked some of the best corn field hunting ever. Then to the local supper club for lunch. well actually it wasn't lunch. The dads had bloody marys and beers and us boys had all the cheery cokes we could handle. This supper club would also serve up freash deep fried smelt and we ate until having to loosen :)y belt
buckle ... :)

My Dad has been gone for many years now and will never forget those memories, but I now have a new hunting partner, my 20 year nephew trying to pass those experiences. Different breed, different era so I understand why my Dad was the way he was with me... just different. The lessons I learned were more than hunting, they were about the rites of passage which i will never forget. He is now understanding why I am the way I have been.

It's all good, the transition from each generation, just gotta keep our eyes on passing on the tradition. ;)

 

[356]

Growing up in California, I was an anomaly. I read Outdoor Life, Sports Afield and loved plinking with pellet guns. While friends were going on dates and to dances, I worked on a dairy farm and saved money to buy guns (a Remington 22, Remington 870 and Marline 336C) and a pickup. When I was 18 I moved into a vacant cabin north of Effie, MN and lived "off the land" for a year before wising up and going to college. At 20 I married a Northwoods girl who was raised on a farm. We both love the out doors, and relish being with the Creator in His creation.

 

[Buckly]

My intro was a solitary experience. There were friends and relatives I knew who hunted but I wasn’t involved in that. I walked around in the woods when I was younger and that was my intro. When I was 14 I took the bow hunter safety course on my own by myself ( needed a ride). Then when I was 16 got I my gun safety course again by my self. I simply found sitting in a stand ( mostly standing for years) was somewhat therapeutic and calming. Learned absolutely everything on my own. There was no internet of course, just a few outdoor magazines seems then and now I still find them quite lame. Apparently it was just something on the inside that led me into the pursuit. To this day I rarely ever hunt with anyone and if I do I’m very picky who and where. LOL. One of my favorite all time movies , Jeremiah Johnson. I think I was there. LOL.

 

[sandbur]

When I was 8-9 years old, I read this book and was hooked on the adventure of the Outdoors ever since. It also goes by the title of "Lost in the Barrens". I think this book and the main character actually started shaping me in my views of life before I even knew it ... independent, resourceful, etc.

Then it was the Boy Scouts and camping in tents in 12 deg F weather, having my cousin live in the country and spending who weekends running the fields, woods, and stream catching trout and shooting rabbits. Then hunting with my Da and brother ... I should clarify, my Dad walked on top of the railroad tracks while my brother and I walked the lower wetground and nasty brush shagging pheasents for my Dad to pick off.

One of the most fun experience at age 14 was going pheasant hunting Sunday am with the adults. Dad would have us up at 4 am and be out the door to the local truck stop to meet 4-5 other Dads and their boys. A hearty breakfast and thell moring walked some of the best corn field hunting ever. Then to the local supper club for lunch. well actually it wasn't lunch. The dads had bloody marys and beers and us boys had all the cheery cokes we could handle. This supper club would also serve up freash deep fried smelt and we ate until having to loosen :)y belt
buckle ... :)

My Dad has been gone for many years now and will never forget those memories, but I now have a new hunting partner, my 20 year nephew trying to pass those experiences. Different breed, different era so I understand why my Dad was the way he was with me... just different. The lessons I learned were more than hunting, they were about the rites of passage which i will never forget. He is now understanding why I am the way I have been.

It's all good, the transition from each generation, just gotta keep our eyes on passing on the tradition. ;)

View attachment 10203

I read the book, ‘Lost in the Barrens’ and enjoyed it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Ed Brodt]

Grew up in the 50's and 60's. There were no deer. No one in my family hunted or fished. One summer my best friends grandfather retired and he took us fishing almost every day. Cane poles, catfishing. Then came BB guns and bird hunting. Then my best friend and I got into beagle hounds and rabbit hunting during high school. Road hunting for groundhogs. Back then you just walked out the door and started hunting. You might be on 5 or 6 farms before the day was over. None of them were posted. It was just an accepted practice. Now everything is posted and you better have permission. My experience just grew from there. Now, I and a partner own a small deer camp in central KY. We are blessed with a very healthy deer/turkey population. These days I get more enjoyment out of helping a young new hunter take their first deer than shooting one myself. I guess in a way I have become like my best friends grandfather. i am so grateful for the time he spent with us.

 

[Derek Reese 29]

I grew up in an outdoor family. Even though we lived in a central PA suburb, there just happened to be a 10 acre farm behind our house with a pond and a swamp and all the little critters we could shoot with BB guns. My dad was a teacher and "domestic engineer" as he called it in the summer, so if we got all our chores done we could go out in the boat/canoe/ or go groundhog hunting till Mom got home. Weekly trips "up North" to my grandparents farm were standard from early October (archery season) to mid January (late flintlock season). It was always a team effort and my grandfather, uncle and Dad always made sure we learned something each time (usually it was how to walk quieter and not scare everything away). I really just went for the great food (my grandma made sticky buns or some other awesome baked good every Friday night) and the stories from my Dad and uncle on the way. Eventually I actually began to like the solitude, silence and cold eventually...like someone above stated I now often use these outdoor pursuits as therapy...

 

[Foggy47]

MY mom said I was born holding a Daisy Red Rider.....and she said I was teethed on a cresent wrench. grin.

In reality.....I grew up on the edge of a small town in rural MN. Hunting and fishing was a way of life back then. My dad and family all hunted and did some fishing.