Like alot of guys here, I was introduced by my father, but also my mother. I shot my first deer sitting on a stand with my mom. I like to say I was born in July, and my mom toted me to the blind in November... hehe... maybe it wasn't that quick, but there's a picture somewhere of my mom changing my diaper in a blind. My dad tought me how to hunt. Where to look, what to look for. He tought me patients in the field, and respect for our quarry, and the land we treaded. We would go out as a family, and hunt as a family. My mom was a rifle hunter, and killed many bucks that would make us all weak kneed.

Bowhunting, she left to me and my dad, but my mom would sit in a box blind nearby when I started bowhunting at 10(legal age to hunt alone is 12 in Texas). Even as she was battling the cancer that claimed her 2 yrs later, she refused to stay home, and wanted to go with my dad and I. The next year she was truely too sick to go, but insisted that Dad and I go. She passed away in October, 1999, my senior year of HS.

Since I graduated, paying rent and gettin by have replaced hunting, fishing, and recreation. (I've been Hunting twice, fishing once, and sold my bow to put supper on the table when I was out of a job)But now that I'm married, and my wife and I are looking to start our own family, I look back on those years spent outdoors with my mom and dad, and hope Rachel and I can do that for our children.

My dad and I havn't talked much since high-school. Me being the prodigal son and all. I've been making a concerted effort to make sure we go fishing and hunting as often as possible, even though we live 5 hours apart, and he works crazy hours.

Sorry for the longo-tello guys... didn't mean for it to be that much.

I think I speak for most folks here when I say that hunting is more than a sport. More than killing... its relationships... Hunting is a spectacular experience to begin with, but it's the time afield with parents, children, friends, and neighbors, in God's outdoors, participating in nature... that's what defines hunting memories...