TomTeriffic
Active member
Was it something in your family or community?
I first started out by paying a guide to hunt deer on a NorCal private ranch as a 30+ age adult.
At age 13, in 1977, I got my grandfather's Outdoor Life magazines from the early 1970's. My grandfather was only an avid salmon/striped bass/rock cod fisherman on coastal boats, and I had gotten into fishing seriously around that age. My mother told me only to read the fishing articles, but I could not help reading the hunting ones including the African hunting and elk hunting features by Jack O'Connor. Since boyhood, I'd always thought it would be fun to walk around the woods with a nice, beautiful, checkered walnut gun. The wood/blued/checkered long guns looked all so pretty listed in 1970's editions of OL magazine. I asked my father about going hunting and he said there were too many fools out there. I asked him about fox hunting, and he said, "Why do you want to shoot a poor little fox?" My father had told me that he hunted rabbits with a 22 as a boy in rural Georgia. I asked my grandfather, inspired by those OL articles, about my going hunting and he said that hunting would go against my mother's wishes and that when I grew up, somebody would show me how to do it someday. My grandfather only hunted before my time and told me a few stories about his experiences. He told me he gave deer hunting up because there was too much hiking involved. At age 7, we had venison at my grandparents' house as my grandfather knew a hunting coworker, he got the venison from, but I digress.
Hunting seemed so forbidden for all of my life, I finally had to go into my bank account and do it once and for all to see what it was really like. I took an NRA safety course and got my hunting license and a deer tag. I had a nice Pendleton shirt, and I bought an orange vest and hat. I got my new Browning rifle and a Leupold scope with Browning mounts. I went out to my outdoor range and sighted her in before that fall hunt. I found a guide in the back of a hunting magazine in the classifieds section and gave him a buzz over the telephone in the fall of 1996. My Rourke, a NorCal guide and beef rancher, got my feet wet finally in the hunting game at age 32. His wife made nice country meals and his two adult sons helped with the skinning, gutting and quartering. I got my quartered venison to a local butcher packed in Coleman coolers with ice. After the morning deer hunt, Mr. Rourke took me on a ground squirrel hunt on his ranch as a fun bonus in the afternoon. I shot about nine of them with my same Browning A-Bolt II in .25-06.
My mother hated hunting but did not mind eating beef and chicken and pork and fish. My grandmother thought fishing was Ok but not hunting. My grandfather and father gave up hunting before I was born. I had no boyhood friends who were into hunting.
Hunting can be a daunting thing to take up for many. People ask themselves questions. Whom do I know to show me the ropes? Whom do I know to get permission on private land? I was told by an aunt and uncle of mine in Georgia that one has to "know people" to be able to hunt there as most land is private there. I was told by a young man I worked with at my job in Idaho the same thing. I'm an Army Vet and I never had any army buddies that hunted. I never had any buddy coworkers in civilian employment that hunted. A couple of sergeants in my section deer hunted while stationed at Fort Sill, Ok in 1990 but they were from the South. They were good-ol-boy buddies in the NCO league. I, a younger bachelor soldier, lived in the barracks and had no place to keep game and hunting equipment anyway. These deer-hunting NCOs were married men with military housing. Rank and marriage had its privileges and greater responsibilities to boot. I was a Spec4 and had no hunting peers in any of my duty stations. I never got invited into anybody's hunting game while in the service.
There is the question of where to hunt, how to hunt, what to hunt, when to hunt and is hunting within one's financial means. It seems like hunting has more do's and dont's and fees attached to it than virtually any other outdoor pursuit. Some people raised outside of a hunting community, or a family hunting culture, might find a tough go at it. It seems as dove hunting offers the least financial demand over any other game species. It doesn't seem to offer nearly the physical demand that big-game hunting offers. A limit of dove must be much easier to carry back to the truck than a deer.
I first started out by paying a guide to hunt deer on a NorCal private ranch as a 30+ age adult.
At age 13, in 1977, I got my grandfather's Outdoor Life magazines from the early 1970's. My grandfather was only an avid salmon/striped bass/rock cod fisherman on coastal boats, and I had gotten into fishing seriously around that age. My mother told me only to read the fishing articles, but I could not help reading the hunting ones including the African hunting and elk hunting features by Jack O'Connor. Since boyhood, I'd always thought it would be fun to walk around the woods with a nice, beautiful, checkered walnut gun. The wood/blued/checkered long guns looked all so pretty listed in 1970's editions of OL magazine. I asked my father about going hunting and he said there were too many fools out there. I asked him about fox hunting, and he said, "Why do you want to shoot a poor little fox?" My father had told me that he hunted rabbits with a 22 as a boy in rural Georgia. I asked my grandfather, inspired by those OL articles, about my going hunting and he said that hunting would go against my mother's wishes and that when I grew up, somebody would show me how to do it someday. My grandfather only hunted before my time and told me a few stories about his experiences. He told me he gave deer hunting up because there was too much hiking involved. At age 7, we had venison at my grandparents' house as my grandfather knew a hunting coworker, he got the venison from, but I digress.
Hunting seemed so forbidden for all of my life, I finally had to go into my bank account and do it once and for all to see what it was really like. I took an NRA safety course and got my hunting license and a deer tag. I had a nice Pendleton shirt, and I bought an orange vest and hat. I got my new Browning rifle and a Leupold scope with Browning mounts. I went out to my outdoor range and sighted her in before that fall hunt. I found a guide in the back of a hunting magazine in the classifieds section and gave him a buzz over the telephone in the fall of 1996. My Rourke, a NorCal guide and beef rancher, got my feet wet finally in the hunting game at age 32. His wife made nice country meals and his two adult sons helped with the skinning, gutting and quartering. I got my quartered venison to a local butcher packed in Coleman coolers with ice. After the morning deer hunt, Mr. Rourke took me on a ground squirrel hunt on his ranch as a fun bonus in the afternoon. I shot about nine of them with my same Browning A-Bolt II in .25-06.
My mother hated hunting but did not mind eating beef and chicken and pork and fish. My grandmother thought fishing was Ok but not hunting. My grandfather and father gave up hunting before I was born. I had no boyhood friends who were into hunting.
Hunting can be a daunting thing to take up for many. People ask themselves questions. Whom do I know to show me the ropes? Whom do I know to get permission on private land? I was told by an aunt and uncle of mine in Georgia that one has to "know people" to be able to hunt there as most land is private there. I was told by a young man I worked with at my job in Idaho the same thing. I'm an Army Vet and I never had any army buddies that hunted. I never had any buddy coworkers in civilian employment that hunted. A couple of sergeants in my section deer hunted while stationed at Fort Sill, Ok in 1990 but they were from the South. They were good-ol-boy buddies in the NCO league. I, a younger bachelor soldier, lived in the barracks and had no place to keep game and hunting equipment anyway. These deer-hunting NCOs were married men with military housing. Rank and marriage had its privileges and greater responsibilities to boot. I was a Spec4 and had no hunting peers in any of my duty stations. I never got invited into anybody's hunting game while in the service.
There is the question of where to hunt, how to hunt, what to hunt, when to hunt and is hunting within one's financial means. It seems like hunting has more do's and dont's and fees attached to it than virtually any other outdoor pursuit. Some people raised outside of a hunting community, or a family hunting culture, might find a tough go at it. It seems as dove hunting offers the least financial demand over any other game species. It doesn't seem to offer nearly the physical demand that big-game hunting offers. A limit of dove must be much easier to carry back to the truck than a deer.
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