RE: Getting a kid to enjoy something that YOU love.
Understand that your kid growing up may likely be experiencing a whole 'nother set of circumstances which are different than you did growing up. Like for myself? Since becoming an adult way in the hell back when, I'd always dreamed of someday having a kid and taking them with me to ride DirtBikes in the Dez! Long story shorter... when we originally went out on an XR50... at whatever age that was... I'll guess and say 7yo... he liked it... when we were riding two-up on the XR50. (Which was MURDERING my ol'lower back injury)... but when I attempted to have him do it solo... though he did decent... when he had fall overs.... oh man... he whined something fierce talking about "I can't pick it up!" etc, Ugh!
I say all that to tell you to mentally prepare yourself for the possibility that your kid may end up NOT liking or taking to the things you had always DREAMED of being able to do as a kid!
And, when you're going out initially with that younger kid.. PLAN on not remaining out there very long at all initially. (Which SUCKS if you live in SoCal and have to burn $70 bucks in gas just to get there!)
RE: Hunting
Start taking them shooting with you. And/or Archery with you.
Start with making sure you show them your Big Game and Small Game animals as you bring them home and process them. (Especially if you then go and make something delicious out of it!) Have him watch you process the game. They'll be like "Ew!" and such, and when they do, go pull out a chicken bought from the store and show them how it's just the same thing, just a little more already processed. Show them what each organ is, explaining that you have this same organ in your body too! That helps to curb the "Ew!" thing, and turn it more into fascination with being able to see inside.
Then take them shooting out in the wild. No hunting. No scouting. Just shooting in a nature setting. (Highly recommend bringing an EZ-UP for shade and a Resin table to shoot from) Getting them used to the whole deal of we gotta bring our own water and food/snacks. We pick up our trash. We pick up our shell casings. Work on trigger discipline. I'm going to repeat that WORK ON TRIGGER DISCPLINE!!! Then.... if the area you take him to is such that they have like Ground Squirrels and such.... later on... once he gets his license... he can take some Ground Squirrels while you supervise. With these outings you can assess how well he minds and listens, and you can assess how much of a whiner quotient your kid has and whether or not YOU can put up with it or not just yet. The boy was annoyingly a whiner during younger years, so it just wouldn't have worked with my patience levels at that time.
Got him in Boy Scouts. That helped A LOT with taking care of the whiner bullsh*t because he's with peers so ya don't wanna look like the whiny baby of the group. And there's some kinda magic to having some OTHER adult in a group setting giving your kid commands to execute that mysteriously makes them not pitch a b*tch the way they might be inclined to do with you. So they end up just getting with the program and getting over it.
Matter of fact I was real proud of him cause on one campout they did, the dork didn't realize this red thing in his pack was his 40 degree sleeping bag I'd put in there for him.... (I guess cause of its red color, somehow he thought it was a med kit!) so.. when he got cold that night... he wrapped himself up in the yoga mat he also took, and the next night he also took out the emergency "foil"-type blanket and wrapped in that. And other Asst Scout Leaders were telling me how HE DIDN'T COMPLAIN! AND DIDN'T WHINE about it! So yeah... the peer pressure can work in a very positive way too!
Do LONG bike rides with them first several times. Get him used to droning along for long distances. For me we'd go to the beach from our home, (approx 4 or 5 miles each way) and then go out on rock breakwater jetties because those are fun to climb on and are actually quite physical to traverse, so it builds up their stamina for the mountains and the intriguing surroundings take away the whiner component.
Fast fwd to recent times (him 12yo).... with Covid, in 2020 in CA they allowed you to do Hunter Safety all online on Hunter-Ed.com so I sat with him and we went thru it all. That site did a really good job with their content and how it's presented to not make it boring.
So then with license in hand... hrmm, I think first I let him pop some Ground Squirrels, then the first "real" hunt we did together was a Rabbit hunt, on the opener, done at the crack of dawn in an ambush style wearing leafy gear and sitting on Tripod stool. (Later on switched over to FlexLite/Helinox style chairs for greater all day comfort) It was a location I was very familiar with so I knew where the rabbits would come out to sun themselves in the AM. So with the .22 LR I bought specifically for him... and the Kwik Stiks (which we'd practiced with on Ground Squirrels first a lil bit) he took his first rabbits at 12yo. Which seems quite on the late side. But when you consider that we live in a much more Metro area and have to drive significantly just to get anyplace. And the gas cost, you can see why I didn't try to push it until I felt he was mentally grown enough and ready so it wouldn't be a whiner-fest that would make me wanna claw my eyes out.
Oh also... sorta near to the rabbit spot, on a prior occasion I'd taken him out to do clay pigeons with a shotgun I'd gotten for him. And we got the shotgun for him because at a child-centric Event they host at this Shooting Complex... Son of a B*tch if the first time...ever.... that he shot a shotgun.... he hit a clay pigeon being thrown away from them like Trap-Style. Definitely take em into the area you're planning on hunting ahead of time, on a trial run, to see how they do on the hike-in.
Actually now that I think about it. after those first rabbits I then hazarded having him come with me to this one deer spot that's 6mi each way. And he was fully loaded in terms of pack and carrying his shotgun the whole time, so ya know, they'll kinda at first dig on that aspect, (before they realize how much of an exhausting hike it's going to be, hehe)
In the end.. I think a lot of what will govern how soon you can bring your lil guy with you depends on where you have to go and how physical it is to get to the place. That was another thing that was great about that rabbit spot I knew about. It's not far at all from where you park your vehicle. So no "How much farther?" BS to deal with.
