How'd You Get Into Hunting

Very good question , I'm not from a line of hunters ,My Father hunted a little , Pheasants , rabbit , pigeons , then one day we had new neighbors move across the street . one time they were cleaning a mess of doves and I went to their house and started cleaning doves then I was hooked on hunting . but as far as I can remember that I always wanted to hunt even before I met my neighbors .

I'm originally from Pennsylvania. It's in the breeding.

I came from a broken home and was forced into this horrible hunting / fishing lifestyle by brutal parents and family members. At this stage their is little hope of turning things around.

Great thread. Hunted as a youngster (I am 63). Grew up went to college and went to work. Family and work got in the way and I stopped hunting until I was 59. Lived mostly in urban areas until I moved to my place 18 years ago. Took me several years to reconnect to hunting. First it was just varmints. Then I thought why not deer? Now my primary interest and goal is to become a better hunter. I work at it all year, whether it is food plots, reading and learning or trying to find good land to hunt in addition to my place. I shot competitively for 5 years but I still work on my accuracy.
My avatar is my first deer taken on my place last winter. Yep, hunted three years with no kills. That is the cool part about hunting. It is a learning process. At my age learning is very important to me. When I stop learning life is ending. Just my opinion. Hence my commitment to hunting and learning.
Last spring was my first turkey season. It was a fine learning experience. Have a whole lot more to learn and that is a good thing.

I grew up around it. My Dad hunted, his dad hunted, my great granddad was a professional hunter in charge of supplying meat to the railroad workers in northern wisconsin/minnesota. (thats him with the handle bar mustache standing up with tent behind him

Ogg and Alley Oop asked me I if wanted to go kill some dinosaurs?

I said," sure, why not?"

Moved to the country when I was about 8. My dad had given up hunting long before me and only had an uncle that I knew hunted but no one else. Had a couple move in next door through the woods that were diehards. I remember them killing big bucks every year, an albino buck even. They'd call me if they killed one and I'd come check it out and always loved all their mounts. There was talk about taking me squirrel hunting but they followed their hunting passion to Illinois and another family moved in when I was 12 or so.
This guy was also a hunter, mainly archery. I remember him taking me squirrel hunting for the first time and then on my first deer hunt with his 20ga when I was 13 or so. He sold me a recurve really cheap that year and that's when I started shooting. From that point on I was always hunting something or trying to. That guy is solely responsible for my love for deer hunting and I could never repay him. I'd spend hours shooting up his bow range, he let me take his gun anytime I wanted to go and took me along more than he ever had to. I remember spending hours in his pole barn shooting bows at night and learning how to process deer.
I could go on and on but my neighbor is how I got into hunting. We stay in touch once in a while but this reminds me that I need to get ahold of him again and catch up.

When I was a young tike dad's family would rabbit hunt after thanks giving dinner. I tagged along and got to carry the rabbits. Never did get to carry a gun and hunt as things changed. At about 19 I was bow fishing carp and has gone to the local resavore and was walking thru woods to get to the bank for some fishing when I walked under a guy in a tree that said he was deer hunting with a bow. We had a nice long conversation good fellow. Couple days later a frendly came over and I told him I saw some idot hunting deer with a bow (this was in 1978)
He said I hunt deer with a bow and said you could too. if you can hit a carp deer are lot bigger. We joked about this and I told him I had no deer arrows and was not gona spend $10 for a deer tag. (Money was tight back then) he gave me some arrows and said he would pay half my license. So I said ok. The next saterday we went to the resavore and I stood under a dead fall on a creek and had a doe walk in to about 20 yds and a fawn followed. Never got a shot but I have been addicted every sence. I hunted the first two years with a recurve bow because I did not have a deer gun. The first year I gun hunted a frendly loaned me a 12 ga pump. And I ran in to a guy that had a mz loader that said there was a second season for mz soooo I saved and had a mz the next year and hunted all three seasons. I hunted about 25 years with that gun. It has killed a lot of deer. Took me about 7 years befor I killed my first deer. Had to learn every thing on my own with no help.. but sence then I have given the deer a run for there money. At one time we depended on deer meat to eat and I tried to take at least 3 a year.
Hope this was not to long winded but there was a lot that got me in to hunting and I would not trade any of it for all the money in the world. I have made some life long friends thru hunting that I never would have met other wise. At times it kept me from going to bed hungry. I have seen parts of the state's and Canada I would never have seen. I have eaten a lot of things that would never been available any other way and learned to cook in a different manner to make wild game great table fair. These are just a few of the meny rewards I have received from hunting

I've always hunted to some degree since childhood, largely self taught. My dad hunted in his youth, but not much afterward, so he never took me, though he did share his love of fishing. I began with small game and varmint sniping, eventually transitioning to deer somewhat later.