I spent my childhood fishing. My dad did fish for a while, so that is probably what got me started. I fished every free moment I had. And I would fish anywhere. I would fish lakes, rivers and the tiniest of creeks. I got into flyfishing as well, and started tying my own flies as a teenager. My dad had a friend who flyfished, and he showed me the ropes. Even in college (went to Anna Maria in Paxton), I would flyfish after class, bring the trout to the dorm and cook in the community kitchen. The other kids thought I was tapped. I also fished for bass, bluegills, pike, catfish, you name it. And I would eat most of them :)
Anyway, about twenty years ago, my wife worked with a person who was close to my dad's age. He loved to hunt and we became good friends. I bought a bow and he taught me the basics. I took it from there. I have only bow hunted until last year. I had a great spot that treated me well for years. I lost it recently, so now I have been forced to learn how to scout. Last year really put me in my place. This off season is being spent on quality scouting, mobility and lots of questions for you guys.
My hunting buddy is now in his 70's and has bugged me get a muzleloader to extend my season, and hunt more with him. I did it this past season. I love to shoot that thing. I am probably the only person around that takes his inline to the range on a regular basis to just shoot. Everyone I see shows up the day before the season to make sure it is still sighted in. They are missing out.
I am about to pull the trigger on a shotgun so I can hunt turkey with my hunting friend. I have taken a couple with the bow, but it is not easy. Plus, I want to try shooting clays. I got my LTC about a year and half ago and have really fallen in love with the shooting sports. I have even done a couple of IDPA and pin shoots events at my local club. I even reload 9mm, 38 special and 357 mags. Ya I got it bad. My wife and I shoot a lot.
Coyote hunting is also in my future. But I really, really, really want to hunt hog with a bow. Someday.
I have not fished for the last five years. Time has not been on my side. I spent many a nights jigging the canal, and I have taken some big bass out of there. This is another thing I hope to get back into again this year. I got really good at it. I belonged to the Canal Sportsmans Club for years. I think my wife continues to keep that membership alive. I learned that sport from a gentleman in his eighties (about ten years ago). He has since passed, but he was one of the original canal rats. We had some great times.
I love the "outdoors sports". Probably not the right state to be living in for it, but I try to make the most of it. I wish my dad hunted because there is so much I wish I had the chance to do. Never bird hunted, and quite frankly I think I am missing out on something great. I have had dogs for the last twenty years, and I spend an awful lot of time with them. It would have been fun to train them to be bird dogs. My hunting mentor..... he used to train beagles for rabbit hunting. That sound like fun too. Although I can't tell you the last time I saw a rabbit in the wild.
I am in my fifties so I still have time to try these things, but I find it difficult to do in this State. I am absolutely baffled how people can have an issue with this sport. It is good for your soul, it is relaxing, it makes you appreciate the simpler things in life and gives you an incredible appreciation for for the natural resources that are out there. I find myself wanting to learn more about plants and animals in our area . I recently reached out to the New England Forestry Foundation to volunteer as a forest steward. I know I kind of went sideways answering the OP question, but it is all closely tied together. For me, the I got into hunting question is an ongoing answer throughout my adult life. Ask me the question again in ten years or so and the answer will even be longer :) Pete
Edit: Just ordered a Remington V3 with a 28 inch barrel. I kept flip flopping between the V3 and Mossberg 930, but too many good things about the V3's system. Despite Remington's problems. it seemed like the logical choice. Hopefully next weekend I am testing which shot works the best. Ok, so who is going to take me trap or skeet shooting?
WI was much the same. Farmland for days. Nothing but corn, beans, and alfalfa. Then it was pretty much “pick your spot” and wait for twilight. My grandpa (who lived there) used to just “hunt” from the porch with his 30-06. It was there I learned where on the first edge to look for them, they’d always come out of areas nearest a thicket or pines. I picked up what I could, but ultimately my grandpa gave up on hunting as he enjoyed shooting gophers on his property bit more, and usually ended up getting ~5 deer a year with his Cadillac.
Prior to 2015 (when I started out hunting in MA) I was big into fishing. Not to toot my own horn but most go fishing, I go catching (ice fishing excluded).
Anyhow, I moved out here in 2006, was working my ass off for 9 years, wife and I had two kids, and one day I’m watching deer out in some field out in Sterling and I think “oh yeah! I can hunt those!” Honestly, that’s how it went down. From then on out I was out to learn anything I could about hunting in MA. My first year I was skunked (committed the sin of getting too close to bedding, I then spent too much time where the deer weren’t because I felt if I was just patient enough it would pay off... it didn’t, I was fishing in a bathtub).
My second year I was a bit more aggressive and mobile. I took my first deer (a good sized doe) from 8 yds, on the ground. She dropped immediately like Godzilla had stomped on her. After that, I was beyond hooked.
This year was my “coming out year.” If you will. I was super aggressive in my hunting. If I didn’t see deer after a few days I was moving on. I was hunting like my family was starving. I learned so much this last season it was nuts. I learned to ignore hardwoods and go for the swamps and thickets, I watched bucks move throughout the day/days and at what times they were most active in my area (close but no good shot). Ultimately I lost one deer on a bad shot and took two more. That’s not a ton, but I was able to be in a position to both select which deer I wanted to shoot, and how to create the shot.
Anyhow, I can’t wait for next season, I’m going to lean how to duck hunt this year (getting a kayak) because venison is delicious, but venison cooked with goose and duck fat is other worldly.
Hunt like your family is starving, it will completely change your game.
Fast forward twenty years of doing other things and my cousin invites me pheasant hunting. I loved it and started hunting upland birds, geese and ducks. Really got into waterfowling and at one time had close to one hundred various decoys.
Back then I owned a place in Maine and used to rifle hunt for deer but never had much success. Where I live in MA, you pretty much can't discharge a firearm so I started bowhunting. After my first season bowhunting I was absolutely hooked. Have only bowhunted since then. As my kids got older I got away from waterfowling and bird hunting and concentrated on bowhunting only. I had the good fortune of meeting a guy from PA who really opened up my bowhunting world. Him and his buddies live, eat and breath bowhunting and I really got an education when they took me under their wing.
Since then I've bowhunted in fourteen different states and two Canadian provenience. It's been a great journey and God willing, I have a few more bowhunting adventures in my future. I'm getting close to retirement now so I'm also looking forward to sitting those local spots here at home without worrying about getting to work on time. Good luck to all you guys on your bowhunting journey.
I was already into my 40's when a new neighbor told me what he was into and had me shoot his bow. It was a lefty bow but I was impressed with the speed and accuracy. I was fortunate to get a spot in the hunter Ed and firearms classes that year and so I hunted the next season. I did as much research / reading and asking questions as I could and off I went looking for deer signs. I practiced with my new bow but Shooting accurately came natural to me .
As it turns out I had great luck right off the bat . I remember thinking it is like bay fishing . There are places they want to go and tend to be and then there is signs that they are there and sometimes they just show up.
There are a few tricks and things to learn like anything else ... But it seems the more I learn the harder it gets. So I am trying to keep it simple and basic . Be there, be ready.
I grew up fishing like crazy, but not hunting. My Dad would take my brothers and I fishing at least once a week when we were younger. During the summer months my brother and I would be up before dawn every morning, we'd hop on our bikes with a back pack filled with tackle and our rods rested across our handle bars. We kept enough to have a family fish fry once a week and eventually, when I was probably 11 or 12, my parents got sick of filleting all of our fish, so my Dad gave us a crash course on fish cleaning. We thought we were bad ass being able to throw a line in the water, then bring home nice clean fish fillets for everyone to eat.
My Mom loved to collect all sorts of edibles from the wild. Different greens, berries and mushrooms. That sort of thing always fascinated me. She grew up on a farm in Minnesota without power or running water and 9 siblings. They ate snapping turtle soup, venison, TONS of walleye, milked their own cows, raised and killed a couple hundred chicken a year and grew their own veggies. I think my Mom was a driving force for my interest in food and how to obtain it.
Even though I was killing a few or more fish a week, I had this strange conundrum where I thought hunting was cruel. Just a total disconnect or brainwashed by Disney. I dated a girl in high school who's Dad was seriously into hunting, but I still really hated the idea of even trying the meat he killed at first. Eventually I ended up trying venison and bear and obviously thought both were delicious. Nearing the end of high school I got my first restaurant job and I completely fell in love with food. As the years passed I became more and more concerned about where our food was coming from, how it got to us, how it was treated prior to it's arrival at the back door of the restaurant.
In 2014, I was 28, I had a sudden urge to hunt, to gain a deeper connection with the food we were eating. I went to BPS in May of 2014, bought a bow and the rest is history. I was immediately obsessed with hunting. I was working 70-80 hours a week as a chef at a restaurant in Boston. We'd get out of work around mid-night or 1am, my co-workers would go to the bar across the street, but I'd run home to sleep for a few hours, wake up at 4am and hit the woods before work. They would show up bleary eyed and hung over the next morning and I'd show up bleary eyed from lack of sleep and running around the woods. I had no idea what I was doing. I would literally just stumble around the woods with my bow in my hand, I loved it. Fortunately, I found this forum and you were guys were great at steering me in the right direction. I could ramble on about this for hours, but I can say with certainty that hunting has drastically changed my life and outlook on the world.
I loved fishing and the outdoors from when I was as young as I can remember. No one in my family fished or hunted though. Not at all. We lived in a very rural town (Petersham), and my earliest memories of hunters were split. Good, when thinking of a neighbor who hunted and a few others we knew... But bad when I thought about the drunk guys doing 20 man pushes through peoples yards (that's not an exaggeration).
Some how, the lure of archery hunting got into me. And I was really proud when one of our neighbors daughters, her fiance took me out archery hunting with him. We "still"hunted several areas - basically hunted shotgun style but with a bow. Bumped a few, and I was amazed. Gotta do this again!
My parents had a basic approach to parenting. They are the most amazing people I've ever known, still a gift to have around and endless source of knowledge, inspiration and support. Well, they believed that you helped kids find things they loved and you let them explore those areas. While they didnt fish, they took me to fly shops and drove me to quabbin or other rivers and lakes constantly to explore my love of fishing. My dad loves telling the story of how he did this ice fishing, but didnt get me an auger or chisel and hoped that having to hammer through the ice with a hatchet would cause me to "not like" that one... Didnt work, and they ended up buying me an auger - same one I still use :)
Archery was the same way. When I wanted to try it, they took me to archery stores, learned what they could and got me started.
I tried to figure hunting out on my own - one other buddy who was and still is into it, but other than that, it was mostly just me and occasional days hunting with other locals.
I paid for that "self education" with a lot of years prior to getting my first deer or turkey. But I enjoyed the process so much it didnt (and still doesnt) matter.
Fun stuff.
I got real involved with diving eventually working on charter boats and doing a lot of deep shipwreck diving in the 80's and 90's. When I met my wife in 2003 she took me to Kittery and bought me a PSE bow and a climber. It was nice to be back in the woods again. Dont scuba dive so much anymore, but do a lot of freedive spearfishing. That's how i know Mike, Teddy, Eric and a few other guys here.
I love bow hunting and spearfishing. Thank dog the seasons line up the way they do!
The next year I bought a compound. But at 12 I was more fascinated with Dukes of Hazard and imitating the Duke boys firing more cheap ass arrows with stuff that would explode or start a fire taped to it. C'mon you did it too! Until he caught us and it was taken away lol. From there I did not hunt until I was 41 years old. That was a long punishment lol.
Dad had me on the water every chance we could get. From the age i first started walking dad would drive the old station wagon down to the beach and pull out the rear bench seat (That's right, it wasn't bolted down) and place it on the shore for me to sit/sleap on and we would surf fish all night with a campfire until the following morning. Some weekends, until Sunday night. I was lucky enough to spend my summers and most fall weekends on Prudence Island when it wasn't uncommon to share a stretch of beach with a few deer in the morning or even have one swim by. The evening's recreation which I am sure was to put us kids to sleep was ride around the island and count deer. 20-30 in an after dinner sunset drive was typical. I grew up living on the ocean so I fished, clammed, crabbed from the time I could walk. Always felt that progression to the next challenge pulling me so from surf fishing, to ultralight (before it was cool), to fly fishing, then freedive spearfishing as an adult. I could care less about hunting trophies in the water or land anymore, it's all about the experience. I seem to have come around in this circle just in time to introduce these passions to my kids with this spirit.
That same pull now has me in love with traditional stuff. Longbow and the new darn obsession... flintlock's. Just aquired a 18'th century style PA Longrifle. Why do I torture myself lol .
