When was your FIRST Hunting Season?

[Mad_Jack]

In 1967 at 19 yo, I went to Nebraska to Fairbury Jr. College in Fairbury NE. I was on a football scholarship and after the season concluded, I started going home to the farms of some of my new friends. I bought my first license at $3.25 plus an upland game stamp, duck stamp and started hunting with them friends o' mine. I guess they were quit surprised that a city kid from southwestern PA could shoot better than the average guys. My years as a Scoutcraft Director at a summer BSA camp, spending spare time shooting archery and firearms (.22 caliber bullets and shot loads) with private instruction from the Field Sports Director and Archery Instructor paid off greatly. Great memories, Thanks for the post opportunity.

[GoodOlBoy]

First hunting season was around 1978. I was 4 and my great grandfather took me on a squirrel hunt. The next year was coon hunting. In 1980 I was given my first shotgun and proceeded to squirrel and coon hunt under direct supervision.

GoodOlBoy

[Rapier]

Interesting, I must be one of the very few on the board that started hunting and fishing without a license of any kind. I spent months at a time with my grandparents on lake Okeechobee, in FL. My grandfather ran a large pumping station on the lake, knew all of the game wardens, etc. I started shooting and hunting when 5 and fishing before I can remember. I started driving a tractor sitting in my grandfather's lap when 3. By the time I was 7 I was driving a WWII surplus Jeep and running a boat on the lake. We had no trees for squirrels and no deer, so we hunted rabbits and ducks.

My first actual hunting experience, besides rabbits, that I can recall, was duck hunting on the lake with my grandfather's 12gs single shot Stevens. That first duck hunt left me black and blue, but with a mess of ducks for supper. My grandmother could cook up a real good pot of duck and rice. That was about 51-52 during the winter. We always took just what we needed to eat for a meal and that was the end of any of our trips, fishing or hunting.

Speaking of the old Stevens, it had a hollow plastic stock and forearm, no recoil pad, it would mortally stomp the mud out of you. A box of high brass shells out of it, left you wanting to wait a while before you went out again. It is in my safe, not a safe queen, just a host of memories wrapped up in an old shotgun. But that 12ga is also what started me wing shooting with a 510 single shot Remington 22 LR as a kid, as an act of self preservation.
Ed

[GoodOlBoy]

Actually Rapier I didn't know you needed a hunting or fishing license until a game warden stopped by and had a talk with me when I was 17..... I remember thinking what a rip off it was to have to spend $12 for a hunting and fishing combo, and wondering what communist came up with "tags" that you had to use. What I wouldn't give to be able to spend $12 for a combo these days.

I hunted with a single shot H&R 20 gauge pardner with a fixed modified choke (my 6th birthday present) until I was 18. That year after a calf sale I purchased a Marlin Model 60 22. Other than borrowing older relatives guns that was my only choice until I was 20 years old and purchased a surplus SKS for $45 at a Houston gun show.

GoodOlBoy

[popplecop]

Received my Rem 510 for my 8th birthday, 65 yrs. ago. Still have it too, been hunting ever since.

[Rapier]

Ah, GOB
I did not mention my first hunting license because, I never had one until I was in HS and we had moved to NJ and a friend invited me to go phesant hunting on his uncle's farm in south Jersey. I was informed by his family that I would need a hunting license. Now that turned into a real goat roping as NJ required a state safety course which predated the multiple state recognized courses. So my friend put off his hunting so we could go together, such are the bonds and friendships generated by hunting together. By that time, I had a Savage Fox SxS 12ga and a 512 Rem. My first centerfire would come two years later in NH when I bought an Arisaki M-99 barreled action in 7.7 for $5. I put a Fajen stock on it and bent the bolt myself, still in HS.

Regards the 510, I have always regarded it as the premier training gun for youngsters. It is small, light and has the automatic safety on feature. Last year I finished, or so I thought, my mission of giving each of my grandchildren a 510 for Christmas after their 9th birthday. Well the son and his wife snuck another one in on me in April, so perhaps, God willing, we will be around in 9 years to deliver the next 510 to Noah Drew.
Ed

[Hoyt]

Don't remember the yr...mid 50's..but will never forget the first time I shot a 12ga. I was so young I sat between my Dad's legs and he held the gun. It was an old Remington hump back. I leaned my face down on the stock with my nose right behind the hump so I could aim good and squeezed the trigger. Cried like a baby..just about was one and my two older brothers had a good laugh.

I tagged along through the briars with my Dad for many miles quail hunting with my little unloaded Win. .22 before I got my first shotgun. A used Ithaca 16ga. double barrel and then a Win. model 12 16ga. 28" mod. that my Dad had cut off with an imp. cyl. Cutts Compensator installed for quail hunting.

I remember my Granddaddy had an old sawed off single shot 12ga. and when I was at his farm I used whatever shotgun I could find a few shells for..you could buy them at the little general store for a nickle a piece if you had the money. But that morning I didn't and a few 12ga shells were all that was around. So me and the old farm dog went to the branch with the sawed off shotgun to see if we could find a quail, dove, rabbit or squirrel or two.

Rex treed a big ole fox squirrel way up in the top of a Ga. pine. I knew that sawed off 12 kicked real bad and didn't really want to shot it standing under that pine shouldering it straight up, but the squirrel was so high up there it was my only chance of getting it.

I thought it over a while and came up with a good idea. I'd just hold the ole 12ga. straight out in front of me and point the barrel up at the fox squirrel. That way it wouldn't break my shoulder or back. I squeezed off the trigger and the butt came back down and hit my hip bone, hurt like the dickens and missed the squirrel.