Next fall will mark 30 years of deer hunting for me. You can’t spend that much time in the woods without accumulating a lot of special memories. I still vividly remember the details of my first successful deer hunt, my first turkey, and my first good buck with a bow. But none of those accomplishments mean near as much to me as watching my 8-year-old son squeeze the trigger on his very first deer or my 9-year-old daughter harvesting her first buck.
This past season, I never even got to draw my bow back on a good buck, but my now 15-year-old son was able to harvest one his first time hunting “away” from me. Hearing his shot and getting the text that he had just killed a buck was more exciting than if I had pulled the trigger myself.
Like most fathers who love to hunt, my hope has always been to share my passion for deer hunting and enjoying the great outdoors with my children. That dream became clearly evident to my wife when I brought our son home from the hospital in little Mossy Oak bib overalls. I know too many hunters, however, whose kids have grown up with little or no interest in following in their parents’ footsteps when it comes to pursuing shooting sports, and I have often wondered what separates those kids who develop the passion from those who don’t. While there’s no guaranteed formula for getting and keeping our kids involved in hunting, there are certainly things we can do as a parent or mentor to increase the odds of them developing that lifelong passion. Let’s take a look at five of those things.
GET THEM INVOLVED AT AN EARLY AGE
From my experience, and the experience of others whom I have talked with, kids generally take a very early interest in their parents’ passion for the outdoors. For me, that was when they were around 2 years old. It started with questions about where I was going and what Daddy was doing. Then, when I actually brought home some type of critter, they were out there watching me cut it up, looking it over closely, and, of course, poking and prodding on it in amazement. All of this youthful curiosity builds over time until the question is finally asked, “When can I go hunting with you?”
Initially, this was a very tough question for me, because I have a tendency to take hunting very seriously – often too seriously. I wanted to get them involved, but the selfish side of me knew that taking them would require me to change the way I hunt, to get past the usual expectations and just plan on having a good time together. I soon realized that hunting with a young child means making the trips short, being ready to answer lots of questions, lowering my hopes of actually harvesting anything, and most of all, keeping it fun for the child. Continue reading – https://www.qdma.com/articles/5-tips-to-getting-and-keeping-youth-interested-in-deer-hunting