Well we had a post like this a few months back where I asked guys to give their stories. Here is one that I posted then.
The biggest influence in my hunting and fishing lifestyle comes from my grandfather. Ever since I can remember he's taken my cousin Greg and I out fishing on Lake Erie for Walleye's. At age 12 he bought me my first deer rifle. It was a Savage 30-30 bolt action with a Weaver 4X scope. It was used by a friend of his Phil's wife for a few years and was mint. Hehad me get my hunters education course the summer before my 12th year, so I could hunt that winter. He taught me how to pull the rifle to my shoulder and find my target in the scope without losing the target. He taught me how to sight in my rifle and how to shoot it for 1 1/2 groups consistently at 100 yards. Hitting a pie plate at 100 yards wasn't good enough. "We owe it to the deer to make clean kills" he'd say.
Thedrive we'd make to Ridgway evey year would teach me alot too. I'd listen to those deer hunting stories of his year after year on those trips. I think I can tell them as good as he can now. I never got tired of hearing them. I could tell by the passion in which he spoke of those times that they were very special to him. He loved to hunt deer in the big woods. It came out in every story he told.There were a few things about PaPa that make me laugh when thinking back on those trips. How he and my dad would get Charlie Horses in their legs on the long ride back to Erie after a long days hunting. We'd have to stop and strech and Greg and I would laugh because they looked like a couple cowboys who just got off a horse, hobblingaround in a parking lot of some resturaunt on the way home.
The up side was we always ate well coming home. There was something special about stopping at those strange resturaunts along the way too. Seeing all those other hunters and overhearing their stories of the day was exciting for me. I also learned from my Grandfather how to try and be the best person I could be. Be honest, obey game laws, be respectful to others and to love God.Being aPastor in a Nazarene Church for most of his life, he gave me strength in troubled times. He never pushed me into religion like you'd think mostPastors would of their Grandchildren, but accepted my decisions with a little guidance along the way.
Well grandpa has since retired from deer hunting. At 84 years old it's hard to make those trips to Ridgway at 2:00 in the morning. He has since returned to fishing the waters of Pennsylvania for Walleye's and sometimes Yellow Perch.He needs help now doing some of the things he used to do himself and Greg and I will be there for him now.
If I could tell him one thing today. It would be that I love him for who he is and what he's done for me in my life. He's been a wonderful teacher of both how to hunt and fish.I'd tell him Thank You for being both my Grandfather and filling in wonderfully as my Father too. And thanks for all the loans I never had to fully repay.
As if I ever could!
Thanks PaPa! Love Ya!