[jwrauch]

My Dad took me fishing numerous times but he wasn't much of a hunter. I went with him the one time I can remember him hunting small game and I walked in line with him and several other guys he worked with. He had a Browning A5 16 ga and an H&R 22LR leatherneck semi-auto both of which he taught me to use and allowed me to hunt with later. In High School a friend's family owned a farm and once I could drive I'd go to Dick's and we'd go plinking and rabbit hunting in season. My 1st 2 years in dental school my fall Saturday rabbit hunts with a neighbor and his friends provided Mrs R and me with most of our meat. After I got into practice I didn't have any opportunities to hunt until we moved to Kentucky and I took up deer hunting.

 

[Kellen]

Had to wait until I was 12, per law in Oregon. Even then I had to be with an adult. Couldn't hunt on my own until turned 16.

 

[cooker300]

30 + years ago when I started in PA you had to wait till 12 per law. But they have a mentored youth program where kids with a licensed adult they can start at 6 or 7

 

[shop tom]

My dad took me in the woods when I was young, probably 5 or 6. It was a few years after that that I started bird hunting with him with a single-shot 20 gauge and sitting with him while deer hunting. He bought me my 20 gauge Stevens pump when I was 12 and my Win 94 .30-30 when I was 14. He was a good man, I still miss him terribly.

 

[Dutch]

I used to go hunting and fishing as a kid with my dad. In my first memory of each I was probably 3 or 4, I don’t think I was in school yet. He was good at both, but quit both when I was still pretty young.

I didn’t start fishing again until I was in my early to mid 20’s. I tried to go hunting a few times, but I could never get anyone interested to go with me so I quit that again until I was 31. I hunt at least two species every year now, and fish as often as I can.

I bought a pre-68 Ruger M77 featherweight chambered for .30-06 in my early 20’s to hunt deer and elk. When I went out as a kid I was too young to do anything but try to be quiet, so no hunting rifle back then. I later moved to a Ruger American Predator in .308. The .308 is not classic or pretty, but it’s light weight, has no wood to worry about damaging, and I can hunt with a suppressor.

 

[alleyyooper]

All my long time hunting partners have passed on to the happy hunting grounds. I am the last and hunt alone these days. I enjoy the way I hunt to much to quit.

But I do belong to the group of coyote hunters. They mostly are getting long in the tooth also, have lost two of them in the last two years.

Fishing is some thing at a early age we did with my Mom. She would rush us to get our morning chores done and send us to the morning shady side of the chicken coop to dig worms and crawlers, she would tie the cane poles to the side of her 47 Cammander Studabaker drive to the old logging road wind around to the back side of a lake. Back before it was made into lots and sold.

We fished from shore and some times wade out to our chest to get the bigs ones always beyound reach don't ya know.

Al

 

[TXplt]

12.

 

[noelekal]

Eleven with the Benjamin air rifle. 14 with the Winchester Model 190 .22 rifle. Took my first two deer at 18 in fall of 1975 with a 1903-A3 I'd recently bought.

Still have that Benjamin and it still does "home defense" duties in the backyard for critters. Still have that Smith Corona 1903-A3. Plumb wore out that first Winchester Model 190, but picked up a nice replacement at a gun show some years back, mostly out of sentimentality.

 

[rando]

I remember when I started hunting that you didnt need all these extra stamps with the hunting license. Also I did not need a fishing license even after 16. There was no such thing. Then the DNR apparently needed some more money and started a license for fresh water and then salt water. Also had a rockfish permit for a few years. Commercial fishing here with hook and line unlimited was $10. They dont have that license anymore. Only people that held it the last year when they stopped it were allowed. Now you can buy from one of them if they wish to sell or lease it out. They want thousands though

 

[alleyyooper]

No need for a small game licence to hunt your own land till about 2003 I believe now they call it a base licence and cost a senior like me $5.00. to buy a deer tag when I first started was $5.00.
today you have to have the base licence peroid if you want to hunt deer. Senior deer tag last year was $8.00, Fur harvester tag is $6.00 for a senior.
Turkey tag is $6.00 for senior,

Fishing licence add up to.
You have to buy a migtory stamp to hunt ducks, pay a fee to hunt antlerless deer (My area over the counter tags 5 per day.).
Fishing you need the trought stamp and I am sure there are even more stamps depending on the fish sought.

Al

 

[Jim Bridger]

I don't recall my age when I started to hunt. It was long ago in the Wyoming Rockies. What I do recall is getting burrs in my diapers. I leaped into the saddle. The burrs hurt so much I peed in my diapers.

 

[neophyte]

In NC. @16yrs we had to be licensed
I could never justify a Lifetime license
Now; I carry NC Lifetime Sportsman license

NC got it right. Offering Sportsman License.

 

[Rambo]

I bought a .22 rifle from the Holiday gas station at the end of the block when I was 12yrs old. Saved up until I had the $20 for it and a box of .22 shorts. Set up pop bottles in the back yard and taught myself how to shoot. Went out that next winter with a cousin(he was armed with a .410) and we started rabbit/squirrel hunting. Ironically, our mothers knew how to clean the game, not our fathers. Our mothers grew up in families that hunted.
My cousin and I were the first in our generation in our family to hunt. I am the last in that generation to hunt today.

 

[Ron Eagle Elk]

I was 4 when I started shooting (BB gun). and 5 when I started hunting for the table using my JC Higgins single shot .22. I was given 5 .22 shorts a day for hunting ammo. If I came back with 2 rabbits or squirrels and 3 bullets all was good. If I came back with 2 rabbits and 2 bullets, I didn't get to hunt again until Dad and I went to the range for practice, because I missed or took two rounds to kill something. When I started school at 6 years old, we used to take our guns to school, store them in the coat room until after school, then go hunting. The girls took home ec classes that included instruction on processing game animals and birds and how to cook them. Rural North Dakota, 1950.

 

[FortyXDM]

My second gun (first rifle) was JC higgins single shot 22. You closed the small bolt then cocked it by pulling back on a small knob at the back of the action. Got a few rabbit and a few squirrel with it. But it killed more rats at grain silo's than anything else. Mostly used .22 longs that were .26 cents a box from a&n hardware.

 

[Dragunov]

I was 10, and went with dad, with a .410 shotgun. I got a squirrel. 12, first time by myself, with a .220 Swift. I got my first deer that fall, with that rifle.

 

[455rocket]

I was 6 or 7 and dad would take me bunny hunting with him. I was allowed to carry my BB gun to demonstrate safe firearm handling.I think he just let me go just to walk through the brush and jump the rabbits (I was the dog).

Probably 9 or 10 when he let me carry an Ithaca single shot .410. He made sure I could cock the hammer, and put it safely back down without dropping it on it primer of a live shell, before turning me loose.

Once I could start bring home a few squirrels and rabbits, he bought me a 12 ga Mossberg 500 (with the Poly choke) I’m guessing that was around 12 or 13.

 

[Rocky7]

8. 22 single shot Cooey hunting partridge with dad. Heads shots only, if you please.

 

[mouser868]

The first time I remember going hunting with dad is when I was 4. He took me squirrel hunting and was using a Ruger Standard pistol. The first time I got to actually use a gun was when I was 9, and again it was squirrel hunting. I used a Savage 22LR over a 20 gauge.

 

[Stickman]

We "went hunting" as soon as we could walk in my family. Just like skiing, it was what the family did. There was a very strong tradition of gun presentation as well, BB gun (or in My case a Sheridan 5mm pellet rifle) on the 8th birthday, a 22 on the 11th and a real hunting rifle at 16.

My older brother got a Winchester M70 30-06, I got a Remington 700 30-06 and my younger brother got a Ruger .270.

Shotguns were never a part of our hunting scenario since Pop was blind in one eye. He couldn't shoot one very well and told us if we wanted to learn the shotgun we would need to find an instructor. I never bothered.