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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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
Guy we used to hunt with lost his kid. The guy was quick to criticize others so I assume he gave his kid some crap and kid said this isn't what I signed up for. Example - guy shows up at a bear camp, one fellow is skinning a young bear. Dude asks him if he's gonna make a hat. Funny part is that this guy ended up with a little bear too. Asked him if he had a hat. All these years later, he's made up with his son and is a wonderful grandfather to some good kids.
Another guy on a forum. Big bad deer hunter type - 24/7 and then some. His kid turned 12 or 13 and suddenly it was okay, now you gonna hunt. He put kid on a deer and kid missed, so he punished him. You are my son, you can't be screwing up. Kid wanted to please him but it was impossible after being left home his whole life. Kid was also afraid of the gun - didn't have much range time. Daddy was too busy being the great white hunter that he neglected his son. There is a great side to this story - the guy realized the error in his ways. He totally vanished from social media and is spending the time with his son. Good stuff there.
Been hunting with my dad over 50 years. It's to the point where I take him and we don't worry about getting him up early except for some duck hunts. My wife and I are building a camp - dad is helping. We hunt there in the fall, out of the camp building. See some deer - have a couple acres of food plots and legal corn within about 250 yards of the camp. It isn't about the challenge, it is about drawing the deer onto the property and keeping them coming. I'm "hunting" with an upper 80-yr old. It isn't about the sport or a challenge - it's about time together. Dad got all happy over last year's buck. His last deer was about 5 years ago - I made him shoot it - go thru all the work of keeping him comfortable and lugging him in and out of the woods, etc. and he's got 15 deer feeding around him but won't shoot any. I come around a corner in the trail and there is a buck about 5 feet away from the box blind with dad in it. Dad said deer walked right up to it and looked in...
My stepson does hunt a little (his father said no when kid was 5 - had to wait til he was 15 - even now he gets motion sick when we take him out in the boat - have some pictures of him with some big old fish but that didn't stick with all the barfing.), hoping he and his wife will pop out a grandbaby soon - when my dad decides he's had enough, I'm gonna need a new hunting & fishing partner.
Another guy on a forum. Big bad deer hunter type - 24/7 and then some. His kid turned 12 or 13 and suddenly it was okay, now you gonna hunt. He put kid on a deer and kid missed, so he punished him. You are my son, you can't be screwing up. Kid wanted to please him but it was impossible after being left home his whole life. Kid was also afraid of the gun - didn't have much range time. Daddy was too busy being the great white hunter that he neglected his son. There is a great side to this story - the guy realized the error in his ways. He totally vanished from social media and is spending the time with his son. Good stuff there.
Been hunting with my dad over 50 years. It's to the point where I take him and we don't worry about getting him up early except for some duck hunts. My wife and I are building a camp - dad is helping. We hunt there in the fall, out of the camp building. See some deer - have a couple acres of food plots and legal corn within about 250 yards of the camp. It isn't about the challenge, it is about drawing the deer onto the property and keeping them coming. I'm "hunting" with an upper 80-yr old. It isn't about the sport or a challenge - it's about time together. Dad got all happy over last year's buck. His last deer was about 5 years ago - I made him shoot it - go thru all the work of keeping him comfortable and lugging him in and out of the woods, etc. and he's got 15 deer feeding around him but won't shoot any. I come around a corner in the trail and there is a buck about 5 feet away from the box blind with dad in it. Dad said deer walked right up to it and looked in...
My stepson does hunt a little (his father said no when kid was 5 - had to wait til he was 15 - even now he gets motion sick when we take him out in the boat - have some pictures of him with some big old fish but that didn't stick with all the barfing.), hoping he and his wife will pop out a grandbaby soon - when my dad decides he's had enough, I'm gonna need a new hunting & fishing partner.
The potential problem with that is if he had everything set up for him to basically "slaughter" a whole pile of does at a bait pile right away in his hunting career, he could just as easily still turn away from the sport, thinking that it is too easy and there actually isn't any thrill to it because it was all just "dropped in his lap".
Jpsmith1
WKR
Certainly a thing to consider.
This falls more to knowing the child, reading them and having conversations with them.l to evaluate where they are and what their needs and wants are. There are grown adult men who still hunt in a blind over corn piles and are perfectly happy with it. Everyone is different and we should consider that, of course.
I am firmly in the camp that early success is vital to keeping people engaged in the sport.
Obviously, if every pitch is a meatball over the plate, baseball gets boring but you can’t put a major league pitcher in the little leagues and strike out every 4th grader either. I'd think the same kind of gradient would apply to hunting. Get em a couple easy deer, get them a taste of the excitement and thrill then introduce the chess game as an ever deeper challenge.
Balancing the challenge to the child is key.
KurtR
WKR
I dont think there is any magic way. Take them hunting for all kinds of different things doves, ducks pheasants deer rabbits and go fishing make it fun they will decide if they like it or not
