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What year did you start going hunting?

BSK said:
Killed my first rabbit and some doves when I was 16 (1978). Went deer hunting for the first time in 1979 using a borrowed Stevens double-barrel 16-gauge with slugs. Killed what would be my best deer for 2 decades (2 1/2 year-old 8-point grossing 104) on my first ever hunt in Logan County, KY.
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Love it!! 2x4 as a gambrel. Creative thinker even back in those days, huh?
 
Best I can remember would have been about 1992. I would have been 5 years old then. I remember sitting on the ground and hearing leaves crunching behind me. Dad said don't move so I sat there and didn't move a muscle. I remember hearing him turn and then shooting. He was using an old Charles Daly open sight mz. I never seen the deer at all but he said it was huge. He then tells me to stay put and he takes off tracking it. As it started getting dark I got scared and I think even started crying. He came back and somehow had shot the nuts off the deer. Never found it.

I believe it was 1995 when I was able to go for myself and killed my first.
 
1 good shot said:
I am am just guessing because I hadn't started to school yet when my dad started taking me. Which would mean it was probably 1965 or 66. I remember he let me carry my grandfather's single shot 22 and it was longer than I was tall. I still have that gun. The ejector and firing pin are completely worn down now. My grandfather had it when he was a kid and he was born in 1895. My grandfather is long gone and lost my dad about 3 years.
But that rifle brings back years of memories
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I'm guessing around 1979 , killed my 1st deer. 5 point I was hooked!!! Daddy always took me when he went
 
My first deer hunt was in 1966 (when I was 11 years old). At that time Tennessee didn't even allow kids to deer hunt until they had turned 16 years old. But my father (Robert "Bob" Simms) and many of his Tennessee Archery Association peers lobbied the then Game & Fish Commission to establish a special hunt just for kids. The Commission did so, setting a special two-day archery-only deer hunt for kids under 16 at Chuck Swan WMA (then called Central Peninsula WMA).

I failed to kill a deer the first two years. Then in 1968 I killed a spike buck. For ANYONE to kill a deer with a bow back then was pretty unusual. For a kid to do it was a BIG deal. I made the front page of the Chattanooga Times newspaper sports section (above the fold) - story written by now-departed outdoor journalist, Dan Cook.

My Dad was with me when I "lucked up," walking into the middle of a herd of deer bedded down in an overgrown logging road. He was also an extraordinary artist and painted a picture of the scene which hangs in my den to this day.

My_First_Deer.jpg
 
rsimms said:
My first deer hunt was in 1966 (when I was 11 years old). At that time Tennessee didn't even allow kids to deer hunt until they had turned 16 years old. But my father (Robert "Bob" Simms) and many of his Tennessee Archery Association peers lobbied the then Game & Fish Commission to establish a special hunt just for kids. The Commission did so, setting a special two-day archery-only deer hunt for kids under 16 at Chuck Swan WMA (then called Central Peninsula WMA).

I failed to kill a deer the first two years. Then in 1968 I killed a spike buck. For ANYONE to kill a deer with a bow back then was pretty unusual. For a kid to do it was a BIG deal. I made the front page of the Chattanooga Times newspaper sports section (above the fold) - story written by now-departed outdoor journalist, Dan Cook.

My Dad was with me when I "lucked up," walking into the middle of a herd of deer bedded down in an overgrown logging road. He was also an extraordinary artist and painted a picture of the scene which hangs in my den to this day.

View attachment 116431
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That.....is freaking awesome.....thanks for sharing the painting......and a great read.
 
That's really cool Mr Simms!

I had to look at my hunter safety card. I got my card 8-25-1980. Dad would not let me carry a gun on a hunt until I had my hunter safety done. So my first hunt was probably Nov or Dec of 1980 for rabbits in Union county Tn. And I would have been 11. Dad loved to hunt small game but never killed a deer in his life. He died in 2016 and so did most of my desire to hunt.
 
Man, this really brings back some memories. I was about 5. So this would have been around 1988. Dad started me out squirrel hunting and he would take me over to Cheatham quite a bit. That lead to a little deer hunting. I was a little cowboy back then and carried my shiny pistols in my holsters everywhere I went with the caps that popped. I don't remember this, but my dad always tells folks the story of when we had a spike coming in and he was going to shoot it with a bow. He drew back and right before he took the shot, I stood up from behind the log with both cap pistols drawn and fired away rapid fire until all the caps were gone. Needless to say, that deer lived another day.

Shot my fist deer in 1995 at 12 years old - button buck. With the same gun my dad killed his first deer with 30 years to the day (336c .35 Marlin). Good times!
 
rsimms said:
My first deer hunt was in 1966 (when I was 11 years old). At that time Tennessee didn't even allow kids to deer hunt until they had turned 16 years old. But my father (Robert "Bob" Simms) and many of his Tennessee Archery Association peers lobbied the then Game & Fish Commission to establish a special hunt just for kids. The Commission did so, setting a special two-day archery-only deer hunt for kids under 16 at Chuck Swan WMA (then called Central Peninsula WMA).

I failed to kill a deer the first two years. Then in 1968 I killed a spike buck. For ANYONE to kill a deer with a bow back then was pretty unusual. For a kid to do it was a BIG deal. I made the front page of the Chattanooga Times newspaper sports section (above the fold) - story written by now-departed outdoor journalist, Dan Cook.

My Dad was with me when I "lucked up," walking into the middle of a herd of deer bedded down in an overgrown logging road. He was also an extraordinary artist and painted a picture of the scene which hangs in my den to this day.

View attachment 116431
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Very cool! Love it!
 
BSK said:
Killed my first rabbit and some doves when I was 16 (1978). Went deer hunting for the first time in 1979 using a borrowed Stevens double-barrel 16-gauge with slugs. Killed what would be my best deer for 2 decades (2 1/2 year-old 8-point grossing 104) on my first ever hunt in Logan County, KY.
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I shot my first deer with a Harrington Richardson single shot 20 gauge shooting slugs. I shot three times at that buck before I hit it. :D:D😂😂😂
 
It was 1965 when I began hunting squirrels with my brother. He was 17 and I was 14. That was really fun. It was amazing to me how a Red squirrel could take a solid 40gr 22 to the body and keep on running/climbing. We started aiming for the head and that really slowed them down. It was great fun in upstate NY in the fall with leaves changing and falling, so crunchy underfoot. We would set up and use a little rubber call and they would come on in. Plus the grouse drumming and crows caw cawing, was so exciting. I always looked forward each year to get out the red plaid hunting coat, hat, and waffle union suit.
 
1984 after I got married. I was 27 and never had anyone to teach me so I learned myself. Went ot every available minute I had and would rent hunting videos to watch. Finally met a friend that showed me some things I was doing not quite right and I finally got me one. Loved it ever since.
 
Somewhere around 1990, I had been a couple squirrel/rabbit hunts before but as I got closer to 10 yrs old I was able to venture out with gun in hand.

I love to story of my late grandfather strapping his shotgun to his motor cycle and traveling in the early morning hours through downtown Nashville to hunt some property on the outskirts of town. It was the late 1950's when he did this. Unfortunately its a different group of young people carrying guns in the darkness of Nashville nowadays.
 
I lived by one of the farms that Conway Twitty would keep his animals at during the Twitty City off season. I had saved up enough money to buy some POS bow from a pawn shop and I was so anxious to go hunting I snuck over to that farm, I was determined to shoot a rabbit. As I snuck through that pasture with a oversized aluminum arrow I caught a glimpse of a Zebra then a Camel stood up next to him, thankfully I couldn't bring myself to shooting one of these critters. For a brief moment I had consider notching my African tag....fortunately, I still had a few brain cells left.
 
Probably 78-79 ish. I was 8 or 9. Dad would take us out to the Mojave Desert and we'd shoot prairie dogs, cut their tails off and hang them on our belt. I accidently muzzled my brother on one trip and had to hunt with a cap gun the rest of the year. Didn't have the same kill ratio, but the smell of the old red rolled caps was awesome.
 

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