Hunting with my Son

Hunting with my Son

As a kid growing up in Oregon, my father used to take me hunting every season. Sometimes we would wake up really early and head out for a day of hunting in the mountains. We would dress from head to toe in camouflage and we even used scent patches with skunk smell or another masking scent so that we could get close to our prey. It was exhilarating to carry my Bear Archery compound bow and hunt our deer in true sportsman fashion.

Other trips included duck and pheasant hunting into the fields and ponds of the valley near where I grew up. These trips were similar in that we donned the usual camouflage from head to toe, but we also were accompanied by our two golden retrievers that were our hunting companions on these trips. I was especially fond of these outings because my father had given me his Remington Wingmaster 12 gauge shotgun when he bought a new one. It was a beautiful shotgun that I had shot many times practicing while trap shooting.

I really got a lot out of these hunting excursions, they taught me many lessons about life and also helped to form a great bond that I still have with my father. Unfortunately, work and my family had taken me in a different direction and I found myself going hunting less often. So when my son recently showed an interest in hunting, I jumped at the opportunity to take my son out and pass on what my father had taught me.

I soon found out that things have not changed much since the days I was sitting in my father’s double bull blinds waiting for theMontana decoys we had set up to attract some whitetail deer or some turkeys that our Moultrie Game Cameras had taken pictures of the day before and I luckily had inherited from my father many of the same hunting gear that I had used as a kid. It made our planning quite easy since all we needed to do was to choose a spot to take our first hunting trip.

We are now counting down the days until we leave for our big hunting trip, both of us eagerly await the events that are about to unfold. I am very excited that I get the chance to do something with my son that is, some might say, a rite of passage into manhood. I just hope that the trip builds the same bonds that I experienced with my father.