Comments on: Hunting with Dad

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 14:26:20 +0000

While my father was stationed in England for the Air Force, we would go Pheasant hunting at a local farm. I was about 8 at the time. The hunts usually consisted of about 10 hunters and whatever children were available. We were given heavy sticks to “beat the brush” with and scare up the birds. My first experience actually spooking a pheasant was memorable… It shot up out of the grass only inches in front of me, the flapping wings brushing my face and scaring the bejeezus out of me. My father, walking about 10 feet behind me, shot the bird when it was just a few feet over my head. I promise you, the sound of a 12 gauge shotgun going off directly behind you, aimed at something just over your head, will tests the bowels of an 8 year old kid! And to top it off, if the pheasant wasn’t killed outright by shooting it, the kids were expected to grab it by the neck and swing it around a few times to “dispatch it cleanly”, as the British farmer would say in his proper English. It was quite an introduction to huntig.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:00:31 +0000

Not exactly me, or hunting with Dad, but still. My mom was once watching her sister’s kids, and the son, who was then 4, started out the door with a sack and a gun. “Where do you think you’re going?” she cried, in (natural) alarm.

“HUNTIN’.” Assured this was perfectly normal by his two sisters, my mom watched him stalk out to the woods.

Apparently he returned with three dead squirrels in a sack. Congratulations, Josh. Now he’s a lumberjack. Ah, Splendora, TX. You make America proud. (If America knew about you.)

By: QuinO

QuinO — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 15:07:34 +0000

Duck Hunting was our thing, my Father, our Chesapeake Bay Retriever “Molly”, and myself. We would sit in a duck blind in the middle of alligator infested waters for hours. My Mom has pictures of me sitting in front of the outside refridgerator (Where the dead ducks were stored before they were cleaned) with ducks laid out around me. I was trying to “heal” them.

By: Sean

Sean — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 14:24:38 +0000

Went hunting at arounf 9 or 10 with my Dad, looking mainly for grouse but hoping for a moose (oh how I miss the taste). We had a rule that whoever sees it first gets to shoot. Never did see a moose that first time, but there were plenty of grouse to go around.

By: Jean Cain

Jean Cain — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 04:58:40 +0000

I was allergic to dogs, which deprived my dad of owning a German shorthair hunting dog like his father had owned. Consequently, when I was a young girl, aged in the single digits, my dad brought me along on pheasant hunting trips and instructed me to run around in the stubble corn and try to scare something up. It was fun, it was Wisconsin, and it didn’t seem at all strange to me at the time. [You're probably wondering, but no -- I wasn't expected to fetch back any kills.]

By: mamacita

mamacita — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 04:24:02 +0000

I definitely did — the magic age was 8. The first time I went bird hunting with my dad and grandad, I shot at a bird and they told me I just missed hitting two birds with one shot. Which I believed until I was 25, when I found out that they told the same story to each of my sisters on their first hunting trips.

By: Melissa in MT

Melissa in MT — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 15:59:06 +0000

I was never invited to go hunting with my dad, but I am still traumatized to this day by the memory of dead animals hanging from my swingset.