Yea dude, but you cannot bare that cross. Theres genetic instincts and behaviors that are ingrained that we cannot control. You could have done everything as you say and get him a filled tag book and he may have lost interest anyways. Don’t wear that hat bro, there’s no way you can guarantee you faulted your boy into stepping away. Maybe deer wasn’t meant to be his thing, maybe ducks and pheasant would peak his interest ya know. The crappy thing about life is we can’t go back and prove our hypothesis right or wrong, it sounds like you care and took time to show the ropes, if that didn’t get his goat so to say, maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.
Parents, let's discuss the ethics of our kids' first kills...
- Thread starter IN_Varmntr
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Jpsmith1
WKR
I'm not upset about it or anything. He's an adult. He shared in the joy of my first archery buck this year. We've had these conversations. I know his reasons for not hunting. A lack of game is a part of it. Weather was another.
I think that, had he gotten that "thrill" earlier, he'd be more inclined to endure the weather and the early mornings and the boring sits and thats the variable I can't go back and change.
Q_Sertorius
WKR
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- Jun 1, 2024
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- 3,592
Hunting is hunting, not killing. I was addicted to hunting long before I killed anything. I can’t look anywhere without seeing the world through hunter’s eyes.
I think the instinct is in most of us and just needs to be awakened at the right time and in a positive way. Take your kid hunting with you. Focus on their experience. Teach them, patiently, how to move quietly, look carefully, etc. Kids want to learn. They get real enjoyment from doing well and receiving parental attention.
At the right age, kids just want to do stuff with their parents. Get to them at that age and nothing except hormones will sway them away from it. And even if the hormones distract them, the instincts will have been awakened.
This poem from the end of Rudyard Kipling’s “How the Leopard got his spots…” really speaks to me as a father.
I am the Most Wise Baviaan, saying in Most wise tones,
"Let us melt into the landscape, just us two by our lones."
People have come, in a carriage, calling. But Mummy is there....
Yes, I can go if you take me Nurse says she don't care.
Let's go up to the pig-styes and sit on the farmyard rails!
Let's say things to the bunnies, and watch 'em skitter their tails!
Let's'-oh, anything, daddy, so long as it's you and me,
And going truly exploring, and not being in till tea!
Here's your boots (I've brought 'em), and here's your cap and stick,
And here's your pipe and tobacco. Oh, come along out of it, quick!
I think the instinct is in most of us and just needs to be awakened at the right time and in a positive way. Take your kid hunting with you. Focus on their experience. Teach them, patiently, how to move quietly, look carefully, etc. Kids want to learn. They get real enjoyment from doing well and receiving parental attention.
At the right age, kids just want to do stuff with their parents. Get to them at that age and nothing except hormones will sway them away from it. And even if the hormones distract them, the instincts will have been awakened.
This poem from the end of Rudyard Kipling’s “How the Leopard got his spots…” really speaks to me as a father.
I am the Most Wise Baviaan, saying in Most wise tones,
"Let us melt into the landscape, just us two by our lones."
People have come, in a carriage, calling. But Mummy is there....
Yes, I can go if you take me Nurse says she don't care.
Let's go up to the pig-styes and sit on the farmyard rails!
Let's say things to the bunnies, and watch 'em skitter their tails!
Let's'-oh, anything, daddy, so long as it's you and me,
And going truly exploring, and not being in till tea!
Here's your boots (I've brought 'em), and here's your cap and stick,
And here's your pipe and tobacco. Oh, come along out of it, quick!
Hahahahha, I can assure you I was the reason for my dad’s slump in deer harvest for a while. He’d always look at me and tell me to pick my feet up, walk on my toes, look where im
Stepping, hahahahaha. Teach me to move w the wind, I know for a fact my loud ass dragging my 30-30 through the woods following my dad was the reason he had a slump. Hahaha, but I tell ya what, best times of my life
Stepping, hahahahaha. Teach me to move w the wind, I know for a fact my loud ass dragging my 30-30 through the woods following my dad was the reason he had a slump. Hahaha, but I tell ya what, best times of my life
Jpsmith1
WKR
I was never taught in a way that I understood how to move quietly. How to do those things and it's something that even today, almost 40 years into this journey, I struggle with
