I was given a shotgun the day I was born, that is how much my dad was into hunting back in 1960. I grew up having him teach me to shoot and ultimately tagged along on many a hunting trip going after squirrels, rabbits and pheasant. By the time I was 14 or 15 I was going out with friends fishing or hunting, sometimes both in a day. My parents would drop us off in the woods with loaded shotguns and come back to pick us up hours later, it is amazing no one ever got hurt. I did my last hunt as a teen home from college break, some college friends wanted to go bird hunting so I went along and bagged a pheasant which was possibly the first thing I ever shot on my own.
I stopped hunting shortly after that trip and didn’t do it for decades. I kept fishing most of my adult life but it was almost all catch and release trout fishing. I even gave up fishing for part of the time but ended up back into it since I just loved it so much. When I got sick and needed to eat meat I got back into hunting which was a bit of a challenge as an adult even having grown up doing it. Now there are aspiring adult-onset hunters or fishers out there and they face a big challenge getting into the sport. Having done it I hope I can offer a bit of advice.
