What Bow/gun/weapon meant the most to your outdoor life?

For me it's an original Marlin 39A 22 caliber rifle. This gun has the weight and feel of a big game rifle and after all these years this is my go to and favorite gun.
The gun was the only one my father ever owned and after a day of instructions and practice shooting in 1960 that sweet gun was mine.
I have had it in my possession since and it still looks feels and shoots like new.
I never had a BB gun this was my first gun ever.

The first gun I ever bought was in 1966 my sophomore year in high school, I had saved my lawn mowing money and bought a MARLIN GOOSE GUN.
This was 3"magnum 12 gauge bolt action with 36" full chock barrel, that gun was so long it would stick out of the duck blind like a stove pipe.
I remember it sold for $49.00 new, I wish I still had that gun.

By far, my best memories come from the Remington Model 11 my grandfather taught me to hunt with near the Kankakee River in northwest Indiana. It was given to him by his father in the 20's. Last year, I took that bad boy out and let my son pop some squirrels with her (as shown below). Five generations and still going strong. I only wish I knew all the stories this gun could tell!!!

At lot of shooting & hunting history with my first compound a Bear Black Tail, Remington 1100, Remington 742, & Ruger Black Hawk.

Im not sure I can narrow it down to just 1.

The Ruger 10/22 my dad bought for me when I was maybe 11 years old. Bought it from G&R Firearms in Vincennes .... I was one proud little boy. I killed a whole bunch of squirrels with that gun until i lost it in my house fire in 2001.

Or the Remington Model 11 that my dad borrowed from his dad for us to shoot doves with. Dad still smiles when he tells the stories of me getting rocked back by that gun each time I pulled the trigger. I was only 9 or 10 years old and by the time I touched off the third shot I was usually flat on my back.

Or the Bear Whitetail Hunter which was my first bow. My dad didnt bow hunt so he would take me our river camp and drop me off for a days hunting then pick me up after dark. I was about 12 years old the first time I killed a deer on one of those hunts .... and my mom came to pick me up instead of dad. I remember her asking me "why is there a dead dog in the yard" when she saw my deer. It was a spotted fawn and I couldnt have been prouder ..... I used that bow for several more years before trading it for a newer model. Wish I still had it.

Most the guns in my safe now are just tools .... a means to an end without much attachment. The guns of my youth were more than that.

Not so much one particular bow for me, but definitely "the bow" as a collective category.

I think my first bow as a kid predated my first BB gun. I know I had my glasses when I got the BB gun, and I remember being amazed at my bow sending arrows "completely out of sight"....for me, anyway. That was my parents' first inkling that I couldn't see all that well, but I didn't get checked and get glasses until a while later when the traveling nurse visited our 3-room school with and eye chart, and I flunked badly.

I enjoyed hunting with both, but when one season came along as a young married man with too many expenses and too little income and I had to choose between a bow license and a gun license for deer hunting that year, I bought the bow license with little hesitation and no regrets. First deer with any weapon came years later, with a 68# Jennings two-wheeler, but I was hooked on archery and had owned several adult bows by that time, beginning with a Bear Kodiak.

The gun's not "mine" but it is an Atlas 28 ga. over & under. Don't know where my dad got it, but that gun was the first thing I ever shot and it was the demise of my first squirrel, rabbit, quail & dove. I remember them all clearly! It was the first gun both of my older brothers ever shot as well. Needless to say, dad's got it in the safe for a special day when his new grandson can pick it up.

Old Winchester single shot break action 20 ga my dad gave me when I started hunting. He got it from his dad

I had a double barrel .12 gauge, big thumb-hammers, about six feet long. My father bought out of a mail-order catalog around 1920, and he hunted rabbits and birds with it until he went to the Pacific in WWII. When he got back some jerk had managed to talk my mom out of it and some other guns. He went and found the guy and got his guns back and left the guy a little something to remember him by. He gave it to me before he died at 81.

Then it was stolen from me about 2 years ago - I didn't have it in the safe. If I find somebody with it maybe I will leave them something to remember ME by.

Good stuff!