When did you start and where and with whom

[AFG270]

Started hunting doves with my Dad when I was 6 years old, I carried a BB gun and would finish off any wounded birds.

First big game animal was a Colorado mule deer when I was 16. My uncle took me out of high school for a week+ for a great hunt. I used my Winchester Model 70 30-06 that my Dad and uncle helped me buy earlier that year. I still have the rifle, last year rebarreled it to a 25-06.

Great thread as usual, April.

 

[jmm]

I got my Stevens .410 break open, single shot in the 2nd grade. I had been shooting a BB gun and moved up to a Sheridan 5mm pellet rifle. My first job was as a 10 year old shooting crows for HL Hunt at his pecan orchard. $1 per crow. My grandparents would drop me off in the morning with a sack lunch and a pocket full of .410s. I would spend all day walking up and down the pecan trees looking for a shot. At 12, got a Winchester 9422M(first year they were introduced) and shot countless snakes, pests and worked up to shooting clay pigeons that my buddies would toss up. Still have it today.

 

[longrangehunter]

Geezes hard to remember just how young I was, but at age seven I got my Marksman and Pro-Marksman w/a .22 LR at camp. I know I used a BB gun before that and took out a Robin. The first Game Birds were Bob Whites, but anything that moved was also on the list as long as it wasn't a Songbird or Migratory bird, and could be eaten. Those first Crossman .177/.22 pellet powermaster bump guns were accurate I remember, but so was my Marlin .22 lever action.

My first Big Game animal was a White Tail deer taken on our farm in Michigan with a PSE bow and a Easton arrow. I must have been 19 since my Dad wasn't a hunter, and I couldn't hunt by myself until I was 18. I took far more deer with a bow/arrow then I had w/a gun in my younger years....... then I moved out West and all that changed!

 

[REDGREEN]

I started in 1961 with a 22 single shot potting rabbits, squirrels and grouse. By the time I was 15, it was deer and bear. Now, it's moose, elk and deer. Don't need any more bear rugs.I still enjoy blasting gophers all day. I was also on a trap line at a very early age getting beaver, muskrat, mink, ermine, coons, and whatever else decided to stick their nose in the area. We did trap bear way back when too. I should have been born in the mid 1800's, as the country side is now cluttered up with houses.

 

[Gunner46]

I started with my Dad when I was around 9 yrs old. It was really more of him taking me for a stroll through the outdoors, than any real type of hunting.

Later, around when I was 11, we actually got into bunnies with me using his Dad's Savage 22/410.

But the truth is I really learned how to hunt on my own, when I was about 19. I did OK for a few years, filled a few tags along the way.

Then I met Mr. Billy Johnson when I was in my mid 30's. Ran a pay per day operation. We were both vets and quickly connected. In the next couple of years I learned more about hunting than I had from the past 15yrs on my own !

Proud to say Billy & I spent 20yrs terrorizing the hell out of the E. Carolina whitetail population !

 

[IdahoCTD]

I can remember starting with a Red Ryder BB gun at about 5 or 6 and hunting geese in the snow with my dad at about the same age. We lived in CA when I was old enough to hunt deer and shot my first blacktail at 13. My first mulie was a year or two later in ID and my first elk I was 18 or 19 when I moved to ID for college. I've shot a lot more elk then deer over the years (as many as 3 per year when I can get that many tags) and I've only had 3 unsuccessful years elk hunting since that first elk about 27 years ago. I generally rely on elk to fill my freezer and hopefully my 5 and 6 year old boys will carry on the hunting tradition my dad passed to me.

My dad and I generally do a August 1st cow elk meat hunt every year and next spring we are going axis deer hunting in Hawaii. My dad turned 70 this year and doesn't get nearly as excited about hunting as he use to but I still try to get him out shooting and hunting as much as possible. He's done more shooting then I have this year for sure.