taking a survey out of curiosity

Carl 9.3x62 said:
Haha, I wonder if your opinion would change when/if you have children of a hunting age.

I would say both. I am all for opportunity. This was my son's first year hunting. So far we have only hunted public. Tomorrow he will have a chance to hunt cow elk on a ranch that has rarely been hunted. It will not be a "normal" elk hunt, but I think it will be a great opportunity to expose him to elk and to give him a high chance of success for his first elk. I think it's important though to explain the difference to youths between hunting private and public, and that their vast majority of hunting will be on public (in my case).
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No. Emphatically NO.

They absolutely need to learn to love the "suck", that animals are crafty, cagey, and wily, they are not hiding behind every tree, and can be quite difficult to kill. If that means they don't kill anything for the first dozen years, so be it, that's what learning to hunt means. Besides, I thought we were all about the experience and not the kill anyway? If my daughter draws a doe tag, we're damn sure going to pick the steepest canyon around to shoot it in, no candy ass road hunts.

It's no different that teaching your kids the value of hard work and not spoiling them rotten.
 
neffa3 said:
No. Emphatically NO.

They absolutely need to learn to love the "suck", that animals are crafty, cagey, and wily, they are not hiding behind every tree, and can be quite difficult to kill. If that means they don't kill anything for the first dozen years, so be it, that's what learning to hunt means. Besides, I thought we were all about the experience and not the kill anyway? If my daughter draws a doe tag, we're damn sure going to pick the steepest canyon around to shoot it in, no candy ass road hunts.

It's no different that teaching your kids the value of hard work and not spoiling them rotten.
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What’s hunting if you don’t get cliffed out in the dark with a dying headlamp ;)

I seriously wish you had a video of that moment, I thought of that Tim and Wren video specifically because of your write up.
 
neffa3 said:
No. Emphatically NO.

They absolutely need to learn to love the "suck", that animals are crafty, cagey, and wily, they are not hiding behind every tree, and can be quite difficult to kill. If that means they don't kill anything for the first dozen years, so be it, that's what learning to hunt means. Besides, I thought we were all about the experience and not the kill anyway? If my daughter draws a doe tag, we're damn sure going to pick the steepest canyon around to shoot it in, no candy ass road hunts.

It's no different that teaching your kids the value of hard work and not spoiling them rotten.
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(y) Good luck with that.
The kill is part of the experience, in my opinion anyway.
 
I don’t have kids, but I’ve introduced a few people to hunting and I’m a hunter education instructor, so I have thought about this quite a bit. I shot my first mule deer buck when I was 12 on private land owned by family friends. We walked out from the ranch house on foot for a mile or so, and I felt pretty badass at the time. I don’t think it turned me into a complete candyass.

I also knew a few kids growing up who had some sweet private land connections for elk, shot a 300 plus bull off a pivot when they were 12, and never hunted again once they graduated high school. If kids want to be hunters they will, and if they don’t want to be hunters you probably won’t make them change their mind.
 
EYJONAS! said:
When the opportunity comes it'll be a mixture but I'm not looking for either of my kids to shoot the first thing they see either. I want them to see that it's good to let things goplus that way we can go more as well.

All depends on the circumstance of things.

Here's a curve ball for the youth deal in Montana, I'm not a huge fan of the "mentor" program that's offered today. I don't believe anyone should be in the field especially that young of an age (10) without a hunters safety course under their belt and plus i don't think they should be able to hunt if they're less than the age of 12. My kids have tagged along on many hunts over the years and while they're starting to pickup and understand more they're not ready yet. I don't believe many kids are at that age either.......
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My son wouldn’t like your plan. He’d killed 50 whitetails and an antelope by the time he was 12.
 
neffa3 said:
No. Emphatically NO.

They absolutely need to learn to love the "suck", that animals are crafty, cagey, and wily, they are not hiding behind every tree, and can be quite difficult to kill. If that means they don't kill anything for the first dozen years, so be it, that's what learning to hunt means. Besides, I thought we were all about the experience and not the kill anyway? If my daughter draws a doe tag, we're damn sure going to pick the steepest canyon around to shoot it in, no candy ass road hunts.

It's no different that teaching your kids the value of hard work and not spoiling them rotten.
Click to expand...
My thought is that if you take a 12 year old out to "enjoy the suck" they won't. Enjoying the suck is a learned skill in my opinion. If you take a kid out into the freezing cold or hike day in and day out, they may give up on it. You and I encounter that and say "just need to work harder tomorrow" but a kid might think "this is never gona happen and the process sucks." It's my experience that new hunters and especially children tie the success of a hunt to an animal on the ground, and that's something you grow out of rather than pop out of.
 
lpshunter29 said:
My thought is that if you take a 12 year old out to "enjoy the suck" they won't. Enjoying the suck is a learned skill in my opinion. If you take a kid out into the freezing cold or hike day in and day out, they may give up on it. You and I encounter that and say "just need to work harder tomorrow" but a kid might think "this is never gona happen and the process sucks." It's my experience that new hunters and especially children tie the success of a hunt to an animal on the ground, and that's something you grow out of rather than pop out of.
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This has been my experience as well. I don’t have kids but I started taking my little brother at about 5 and it was whatever you could do to make sure he was comfortable and having fun. (Good thing because he didn’t see many deer go down) He’s 14 now and has grown into the be comfortable with being uncomfortable mode and an appreciation for being out there. I’m not sure that would be the case if he had misery implanted in his head from the start.
 
@TN2shot07 and @lpshunter29 Do you want me to provide a list of suckfests my kids have already endured? At the end of the day they always have fun. But you can't throw them into it at 9 without training. We took our daughter, our first, out fishing in a February snowy windstorm at 11 days old. I wanted to set the expectations early, LOL. It would take me hours to complete the list of badass shit my kids have done that most 20 somethings couldn't.

I joke, but I'm serious. If all your kids ever know is that "fun" involves long stretches of hot/cold boredom and misery, it makes those short fleeting moments of excitement and joy that much sweeter. You don't need to have grey hairs to recognize the experience is enriched by hardship.
 
Growing up we had 2 deer camps in PA. We had quite a bit of land at each, but my dad insisted on dragging my ass all over public ground around the are atleast a couple times a year. Man did I bitch and moan about that, but I understand it now.
So to answer the survey I say both.
 
neffa3 said:
@TN2shot07 and @lpshunter29 Do you want me to provide a list of suckfests my kids have already endured? At the end of the day they always have fun. But you can't throw them into it at 9 without training. We took our daughter, our first, out fishing in a February snowy windstorm at 11 days old. I wanted to set the expectations early, LOL. It would take me hours to complete the list of badass shit my kids have done that most 20 somethings couldn't.

I joke, but I'm serious. If all your kids ever know is that "fun" involves long stretches of hot/cold boredom and misery, it makes those short fleeting moments of excitement and joy that much sweeter. You don't need to have grey hairs to recognize the experience is enriched by hardship.
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I agree with everything your saying at this point in my life (I'm 16 but I've helped a couple of my buddies get into the woods). Last spring I spent 150 hours turkey hunting with my bow and didn't connect, and next spring I'll be out with my bow again. I'm planning a doe hunt 3 miles of the nearest road because that's the experience I want.

But if those experiences were supposed to "develop my interest" I'd be spending a lot more time on the couch. It takes a lot of maturity and some time to enjoy an uncomfortable and "unsuccessful" hunt. So I think people should be introduced to that slowly so as to not scare them away.
 
When my middle daughter still hunted I would take her to my best friends ranch to hunt deer. Due to school, we were always on a very limited time allotment.

I made sure she understood 1) how generous it was of him to let her hunt 2) not everyone has access to places like that. She killed her first elk in public land, accessed through private. It’s good to let kids experience success, but they also need to experience frustration and failure as well.
 
neffa3 said:
@TN2shot07 and @lpshunter29 Do you want me to provide a list of suckfests my kids have already endured? At the end of the day they always have fun. But you can't throw them into it at 9 without training. We took our daughter, our first, out fishing in a February snowy windstorm at 11 days old. I wanted to set the expectations early, LOL. It would take me hours to complete the list of badass shit my kids have done that most 20 somethings couldn't.

I joke, but I'm serious. If all your kids ever know is that "fun" involves long stretches of hot/cold boredom and misery, it makes those short fleeting moments of excitement and joy that much sweeter. You don't need to have grey hairs to recognize the experience is enriched by hardship.
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No arguments from me! I think we are headed to the same place, just went about it differently. Like you said, I wanted him to embrace the hardship that adds so much to our experiences outdoors. I just didn’t want him to have it imprinted that we go outside to be miserable all the time and run him off early! I don’t hesitate to take him anywhere I would go now and think we will hunt together for the foreseeable future!
 
so we have another thread that has arguments! somehow I'm not surprised when opinions are involved
 
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