View Poll Results: A poll
Voters: 20. You may not vote on this poll
How many times do you take a youngster hunting ?
10-31-2005, 11:42 PM
#5
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location:
Posts: 260
RE: How many times do you take a youngster hunting ?
I voted for 4-6. I have a 6 year old son who is kind of interested in my deer hunting hobby. He's a bit too young to really be interested in it, but I'll take him along any time he wants to go. I just took him out last week. He was really only interested in getting to see some deer in the wild. It was an interesting hunt to say the least. We got out there just before sunrise and got set up in one of those pop up ground blinds. We had not been out there 20 minutes when I thought I started hearing some deer near by. I kept telling him to be quite since I was bow hunting, the deer needed to be close for me to get a fair shot. Well, let me tell you, 6 year olds are kind of restless....he kept moving around and making a bit of noise. I told him that if he wanted to see some deer that he need to sit still and wait, they'd be along shortly. I took him to a place that I knew we would at least get to see something. Anyway, he fell down, shook the blind and make a bunch of noise, but he got to see some deer. The noises I was hearing were deer only about 35 yards away from my blind and about 10 yards inside a tree line...when he fell, they bolted and he jumped up and got to see 5 deer running off. The look on his face was priceless!!! Then he turned to me and said "why didn't you shot one?" Even though I was a bit disappointed about him spooking them off, I was happy that he got to see deer like he wanted. After that, he was ready to go home. I'd still take him out anytime he wants to go. It's great bonding for us and it give me the chance to teach him about the thrill of hunting.
11-01-2005, 12:22 AM
#6
Typical Buck
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Southeast Missouri
Posts: 968
RE: How many times do you take a youngster hunting ?
I voted 4-6 times.
I have 3 kids but my oldest is only 6. She would go way more than I take her, but my theory goes a little like this: I don't want to burn her out, or myself for that matter. I know when I take her, my chances of harvesting an animal go way down. It's hard enough for me to get one by myself, much less with a restless 6 year old. I think because she only gets to go a few times in a season, she really looks forward to it. When she goes, if we see deer, she's totally satisfied. I have taken her twice this year, and once we saw a small fawn. She wanted me to shoot it, but I used the opportunity to teach her a little something about deer biology. Once she understood that the fawn we were watching might be a buck ( I'm almost positive it was ) and that if I let him go, next year he'd have antlers, and the year after they would be bigger and so on, she was totally ok with just watching. I also try to make the outings short. Generally it's only in the evening. We'll head out about 2 hours before dark and then she never gets to the point that she loses interest. That works for her.
GH
I have 3 kids but my oldest is only 6. She would go way more than I take her, but my theory goes a little like this: I don't want to burn her out, or myself for that matter. I know when I take her, my chances of harvesting an animal go way down. It's hard enough for me to get one by myself, much less with a restless 6 year old. I think because she only gets to go a few times in a season, she really looks forward to it. When she goes, if we see deer, she's totally satisfied. I have taken her twice this year, and once we saw a small fawn. She wanted me to shoot it, but I used the opportunity to teach her a little something about deer biology. Once she understood that the fawn we were watching might be a buck ( I'm almost positive it was ) and that if I let him go, next year he'd have antlers, and the year after they would be bigger and so on, she was totally ok with just watching. I also try to make the outings short. Generally it's only in the evening. We'll head out about 2 hours before dark and then she never gets to the point that she loses interest. That works for her.
GH
11-01-2005, 03:51 AM
#9
Typical Buck
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Illinois
Posts: 950
RE: How many times do you take a youngster hunting ?
I voted 1-3 times....maybe it's b/c I'm a bit of a "youngster" myself as I'm only 22 but honestly I don't know very many youngin's. I've been bird hunting a few times on other peoples ground that accompanied me with his kids but other than that...it's pretty slim to none. Back in the "old" days when I was about 15-16 yrs old on youth hunts and me and my dad had our limit, we would take my GSP out and help the younger hunters out and help them try to get them a pheasant or two. I would be more than happy to take young hunters out but I just don't know of any....it's actually a little discouraging.
11-01-2005, 05:47 AM
#10
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Wadena, MN
Posts: 4,701
RE: How many times do you take a youngster hunting ?
I have a 8 and a 10 yr old they already have been in the woods 25 times between turkey grouse and pheasent hunting. Not to mention the 5 times each i have had them in the bow stand. My 10 yr old has 2 squirrel,1 rabbit, 3 grouse and a ring neck this year. My 8 yr old has 1 grouse and a rabbit. Hell thats more than dad has shot this year