My son just turned 8 and he is fascinated with hunting, fishing, taxidermy and the outdoors in general. So far he has brought all kinds of skulls / mounts to school for show and share and does a little explaining on them for the class. As he gets older he does more and more to help me in my taxi shop. For his 8th birthday I asked him what he wanted to do for a party and he said that he wanted a hunting theme / taxidermy presentation party. At first I didn't know what to say then he told me that he already told the kids at school that is what we were doing. So I thought it out and said okay. I took them down to my shop and explained how it was done. I passed around antlers and tanned specimens to the group and you should have seen the amazement in there eyes! I asked them who in their family hunted and only two kids out of 8 raised there hands and he said his dad doesn't go much anymore because of work and the others one's cousin hunted. Then I asked who goes fishing and all of them raised there hands. I then asked who played sports and of course they all raised there hands so I explained that archery was actually a competitive sport and they even have archery in the Olympics. I took questions for about 10 minutes then one boy asked where I keep them until they are to be mounted and I told him the freezer and the group screamed please, please please and wanted to see something so I said okay sure and showed them one heck of a big red fox. Man you should have heard them howling how cool it was! Then we went in the house and I took all my bows, calls, gear and laid them out on the living room floor and explained to them how I and my son hunt with bow and arrow. The look on those faces was amazing as they passed around my custom recurve and my compounds. I took out about a dozen calls from deer, turkey and predator calls and explained what each one does. They couldn't believe the climbing tree stand either. They were so attentive while passing them around. Then we did all the other stuff like eat cake and demolish a piñata. After all was said and done one boy screamed lets hunt Jordan's (my son) dad and I proceeded to get pummeled by 8 second graders, ouch! As the parents were picking up the kids I had 2 of them ask me if I would take them hunting sometime. I didn't know what to say? So I told them to pal around with my son and maybe in the near future I would take them to the indoor archery range when they get older. I heard one boy say to my son that I was a cool dad. I hope I don"™t get flak from the any of the parents. Here is a group photo from the party. Instead of saying cheese I had them say HILLBILLY! LOL
My sons hunting/taxidermy 8th birthday party
