Are you a 1st generation hunter?

[SlowDave]

So, from my small little corner of the world, pretty much everyone I know that hunts learned from their parents and were brought up that way. I don't personally know anyone who hunts who didn't have parents (or at least grandparents) who hunted and brought them up in a hunting environment.

I'd like to hear from anyone who has started hunting on their own, without having been brought up that way by their parents. Selfish motives here: I'm a bit concerned that the old hunting families are dying off and no new folks are coming into the "breed." If there are, I'd like to hear how you got into it and maybe try to use similar tactics to bring in other new hunters. Context for CHL-Forum is that creating more hunters generally creates more pro-2nd amendment voters.

Buehler, anyone?

[FlynJay]

I have never been hunting, but would like to try it sometime. My parents grew up in hunting environments but I did not. Unless you consider fishing hunting, which I don't.

[Bart]

I used to be a first generation hunter but I quit when they started demanding a SS number.

[RiveraRa]

I will be a 1st generation hunter. Havent started hunting yet becasue Im trying to get out of debt and cant afford it. But when Im ready I have 2 friends at work who hunt. One in particular is very knowledgeable with all aspects.

[Rex B]

I'm a non-hunter. My grandad on my mother's side hunted, but I wasn't around him enough and he died when I was fairly young.
Dad hunted rabbits for food as a kid, but never developed beyond that.
And I don't have any friends that still hunt.

Always wanted to, and have several suitable firearms, but I just haven't been able to put it together so far, and I'm not getting any younger.
I guess honestly it hasn't been a priority, as I've had some other interests all my life that consumed time and money at a rapid rate.

But I'd like to do some hog hunting, or varminting for starters.

[TheArmedFarmer]

1st generation hunter here, I suppose.

My grandparents took deer every year, and my father took several when visiting his parents. When I was very young (5 years old?) I went along on only one hunt but nothing was taken that day. I remember feeling like I was going to freeze to death in that deep midwestern snow.

As an adult and living out in West Texas, I became interested in hunting due to the vast numbers of whitetail deer running around. I had to learn by reading online how to skin and dress a deer. Took the education class and got my license and bagged 5 deer (the limit) that first winter. The first deer I dressed was with a kitchen knife and it took a very long time. I later bought myself a quality hunting knife and things got better. :)

Nowadays I butcher my own hogs, chickens and steers. And, of course, I try to get out there and take a deer each winter. I have plans to start against some of the feral hogs that I've seen evidence of down in our bottomland.

[mikeintexas]

I grew up on a farm in central Iowa and was carrying a shotgun as soon as I was able to carry one. Dad loved to go pheasant and quail hunting. He also went deer hunting each winter when the whitetail populations in Iowa were very low in the 60's and 70's and the deer tags were determined by a lottery system. He introduced my three brothers and I to hunting, like I said, as soon as we could keep up.

When I moved it Texas in 1985, I didn't hunt much, unless I went back to Iowa. Some friends introduced me to dove hunting a bunch of years ago, and wait for September 1 each year. When my step-daughter got married several years ago, I introduced my son-in-law to dove hunting. He now has 3 sons (7, 6 and 3) that now hunt with us. Well, the boys fetch the birds rather than hunt. I have in turn introduced my Dad to dove hunting. He has been down for 3 years in a row to dove hunt. He likes it because you don't have to walk for the doves like you do pheasant and quail. I have also introduced one of my best friends to hunting (and may have attributed to his divorce!), along with some teens from church and my wife (she isn't into hunting nearly as much as I am, but goes because of the grandkids!).

I guess when you add it up, I have made more of an impact than I realized. But, then, there is nothing I would rather do than hunt! As much as I love to hunt with a group, I enjoy hunting just myself and my pointer. MS

[The Annoyed Man]

When I was a boy, I shot a rabbit once, using a friend's air rifle, but our family were not hunters. However, about a year and half ago, one of the guys in my Bible study brought me along on my first deer hunt, on his lease. I enjoyed the heck out of it. I brought along a Remington 700 in .308. My friend took a doe with an AR15, but I got skunked. However, I also got hooked, and I've been trying to figure out ever since how I could afford my own share in a lease. I BADLY want to go hog hunting, and my son - who has never been hunting in his life yet - wants to come with me.

Anyway, I will gladly take advantage of any future hunting opportunities that come my way, and while we are first generation, I will do whatever I can to make it into a family tradition.

In fact, I first found out about this website from our member flintknapper, who is a member on a hunting discussion board I helped to build for someone back then.

[Dan20703]

I was the first to start hunting in my family. Began at 10 yrs old with a bow then graduated to a pellet gun. Got a 20 gauge at 14 and got to do some "real" hunting. Luckily many of my friends' fathers hunted so I had lots of opportunities and guidance. I still remember the all the work I had to do to convince my parents to bring a real firearm into the house. Everything was always locked up and only I had the key. If there was ever a lapse in this policy I would have to sell the gun. Taught me the meaning of being responsible for my actions.

Now as a father with two girls I hope to keep future generations of my family interested in the sport. So far only one will hunt and she is the younger of the two. The boys she knows are very jealous of her.

Link to thread:

http://texasshooting.com/TexasCHL_Forum ... 78&t=20274" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[sneedb82]

I'd say that I am a psuedo-1st Generation Hunter.

My mom and dad hunted as youngsters, when living on the farm, or living out in the sticks was the way that many families supplemented their groceries. My father lived on a farm in Gaines County, and they shot varmints, and Sandhill cranes for the Menonites and farm hands. Otherwise, there was not any real hunting. My mother grew up in various areas of the US, and learned to shoot things, but mostly varmints as well. Growing up, my uncle started hunting when he met his wife. He attempted to get me into hunting but my mother was very much anti-guns and against letting me leave under his supervision to the hunting lease; I could go anywhere in town with him, but never to the lease.

Now, my uncle passed away some 10 years ago, and I not once was able to hunt with him prior to his death. As of last year, was the first time I was actually out "hunting" for animals, and this past March was the first time I ever shot and killed another animal for sport (raccoon) and last month I shot my first feral hog. I've been fortunate to be friends with people who enjoy teaching others the trade and the tradition. I have been very much pro 2nd Amendment and understanding of the rights that we have been given to be able to go and supplement our food supplies with the abundance of wildlife that God has blessed us with.

I too disagree with the requirement of the state acquiring/verifying our SSN to be able to have a "permit" to hunt. It should be simply "show you license or CHL" or put that in to the system (if you do it online) to have access to legally hunting game animals. Those things have SSNs already input to the system.

So, in conclusion, I consider myself to be a 1st generation hunter. I've learned from the guys on here, Flintknapper is a huge resource in feral hogs, which he's provided on several forums (most notably thehighroad.org's thread on feral hog control). There are others on this forum that have provided a wealth of knowledge including calibers, ballistics, and effective ranges that have been a huge resource in my endeavors of hopefully bagging my first whitetail deer this fall.

My daughter already shows some interest in Mom's .22 Marlin 60... and the wife hopes to bag her first doe this winter as well.

Good luck in your trek as well OP. Annoyed Man, if I could find a place to hunt some pigs closer to you, I'd invite you in a heartbeat. God bless guys.

Brandon

[TLE2]

My dad hunted, more or less, when I was very little (great story about skinning a squirrel).

But I hunted from scratch, badly. I've hunted deer and quail but not for a long time. Love to go again, but time, responsibility and finances have kept me at the range instead of in the field.

Actually, if ammo prices don't go down, I won't be doing much of that.

I do dream of the day I can take my grandson (now 4) hunting. I just don't know if it will happen.

[SlowDave]

Great response! Thanks everyone. Let me see if I can make some kind of summary.

First of all, glad to hear from 10 posters on this. See if I can break this down:

5 not active 1st gen hunters:
...3 have not hunted but will when funds/time/priority allow
...1 was but quit when SSN became a req't
...1 was but is temporarily stopped due to $$ limitations
5 active 1st gen hunters:
...3 had parents/grandparents that hunted when the poster was very young, but didn't involve the poster in it (this includes one from the inactive group above)
...4 of 5 actives got started with help from friends (one of these incld'd friends' fathers)
...1 got started on his own via reading online information
...most entered the hunting (pun warning) field as adults. One unique entry started on their own at 10 yrs old (very impressive!).

My own comments: Looks like online hunting material can be helpful, but generally, one needs to know a hunter to get them through the hurdles. This should really encourage us to all talk to others about hunting, not in a pushy way, but just to let others at least know that we hunt and that we're open to helping others in case someone around is interested.

One of the "actives" and one of the "inactives" (somewhat arbitrary) was in some mode of holding waiting for money to get a place to hunt and/or ammo. I have thought for awhile that traditional lease hunting in TX has become so expensive that it is really a hurdle to entry. Maybe I'm reaching, but I think this lightly confirms this. Sounded like one of the others might own his own land, which takes him out of that problem, but is not the case for the majority of Texans.

Actually encouraging to me that this many people started hunting on their own without having been raised into it. Gives me more hope. Thanks everyone for participating. Like to hear any further thoughts.

[TheArmedFarmer]

Further thoughts: what motivated me was the white tail deer everywhere in the hill country where I was living. It was like having livestock roaming all over the place; free food for the taking. So it was a matter of economics for me. It still is, I suppose. I don't get much of a thrill from the hunt (actually, I always initially feel a little bad each deer I take). I see it as stocking the freezer with venison and absolutely nothing more.

As for wild hogs, I think I would get a strong sense of satisfaction from killing those devils, and I think I could really get into it in a big way.

[NuBer92]

well when i was a small lad, my dad bought some acreage out past kerrville and i have been goin ever since. It is something that is close to my heart. And to be honest after i took my first and only buck i felt like i didnt need to kill anything anymore but i do like to go to my ranch and relax. maybe i'll take a hog or spomething but, as a conservationist ,sort of, i like seeing the wild animals roam free.

[SlowDave]

I appreciate those thoughts. I also feel a bit of remorse... well, I'd call it awe or responsibility when I take an animal. My beliefs are that God has provided these animals for my responsible use, as I take them primarily for meat for our family (the healthiest available, IMHO), and secondarily to manage the size of our herd. I have some trophies on the wall (which also went to the table) but am really not interested in that anymore. The extra ones we take to manage the herd (in conjunction with the TP&WD's Deer Land Management system [MLD]) are taken to town and donated to families who are in need of meat. I do take it as a serious thing, but I think that keeping the herd to a sustainable size is the most humane thing I can do for them. If you've ever seen a herd of deer on the verge of starving to death... ugh. And I think that shooting deer that have lived in the wild is more humane to animals than buying meat at the store, from animals who surely didn't live nearly as good of a life as those deer I'm hunting.

I also believe that hunting with your kids, and having some of these discussions with them, really helps them to have a good basis for thinking about life and the big picture. It is a fantastic activity to share with your kids, IMHO, that includes practice and responsibility, a big reward, along with the depth of emotion of ending an animal's life and how that fits into my worldview.

Along the humane lines, it nearly makes me physically sick to lose a deer that has been shot and not be able to recover it and put the meat to good use. Over many years and lots of hunters, this is almost bound to happen, but I hate it in a big way. I want a good quick, kill to minimize the suffering of the animal and then let's have some venison.

Good discussion.