How long have you been a hunter?

[Grouse]

Going through my old hunting stuff, I found my hunter safety card.  It was earned in October of 1970.  This year will be 51 years I've been hunting. 

I couldn't help remembering all of the different hunts I've had and all of the good years and bad years.  I wish I could go back in time and do it all over again, especially the hunts I fouled up and didn't score on some really nice bucks.  It dawned on me I have been hunting longer than I have been doing anything else in my entire life.  I'm thinking whenever anyone asks me what I do for a living, instead of my current reply of "Whatever I want", I should be more specific and say, "I'm a hunter".

It saddens me to think I will only get to hunt for 34 more seasons, since I plan to live to be 100 before being murdered by a jealous husband.

[ny hunter]

This year we’ll be 41 for me..

[Nytracker]

I have been a hunter all my life . 41 years since I got my first hunting license . Tag along with family bb gun kills .. not sure when I got the itch or what you consider starting . Think my case was genetic at birth perhaps ..  

Edited September 21, 2021 by Nytracker

[Grouse]

I also prowled the woods much earlier in life, probably since 1960, but I actually became a licensed hunter in 1970. 

My first hunt with my license was for duck with a Stevens 12 gauge SxS and lead shot.  No need for steel back then.  It was a sunny day and I only saw two ducks withing range and missed both of them.  The man who took me with him that day is long gone but I will always remember him.

[rob-c]

35 for me ..

[jperch]

I also took my hunter safety course in 1970.  It was taught by one of my teachers (Thank you Mr. Sinowski) at my high school on weekends.  He brought some guns to class (A 22 and a single shot 10 gauge).  Part of the class materials back then involved some photos of a hunter who had been shot squarely in the forehead.  That would be a "trigger" today.  My how things have changed.  By the way, me and a buddy went rabbit hunting many times with that teacher and my math teacher, good times and good guys.

[SilentStalker]

This fall will mark my 20th year (40yo). I shot my first deer in '03 with a Mossberg 500 in Onondaga County with my father and older brother and first buck in '04 at camp in Lewis County. I remember both vividly to this day.

    

[Jeremy K]

30 years this season for bow and probably 20ish for gun

[First-light]

42 years. 

[2012_taco]

I took my hunters safety course in 1968, and I've hunted every year since. I hunted pheasants behind my house at 15 years old. My older brother and I are the only ones in my family that hunted back then. My Dad was not a hunter and really didn't like us having guns in the house. Probably because we had 10 kids and he worried about the young ones playing with the guns? He didn't mind when my brother and I would share our pheasants or fish!!

[Arcade Hunter]

36 years for me this year.  I have only missed one opening day of gun season.

[Steuben Jerry]

35 years.

I got a late and different path to start hunting. I didn't start until I was 28 as I had no hunters in the family. I was a fisherman since I was a toddler though. And a boy scout til the "uncool" age of 16 with lots of camping and outdoors time. Around my mid 20's a couple of co-workers I was close with were bowhunters and used to practice at a local archery shop indoor range. I used to tag along with them, trying their bows and eventually bought a used Bear whitetail bow from the same archery shop. When deer season came around they were off doing that.

After a couple of years of shooting with them, they talked me into taking the course and getting my archery license. I tagged along with them and was hooked. Didn't get a deer (missed the same deer twice as I recall) so the following year I bought a Remington 870, and got my first deer (spike) that I absolutely made a mess of by having to shoot the thing way too many times.

60 or 70 deer later, I don't have to shoot them so much, lol.

[mowin]

This will be my 44th season.  I actually got my first deer during bow season, a 4pt. Following yr I got a spike with the rifle. 

[G-Man]

36 years hunting bow and gun. 

[Pygmy]

Damn KIDS  !!!..., hehehe  ...

I got my first small game license  in 1962,  but by that time  my Old Fat Father  had been letting me roam our 200 acres  for a couple of years with his .22, so I  already had a few woodchucks, rabbits, squirrels and coons under my belt....

[Swamp_bucks]

22 years with having my license however I was chasing small game on my grandparents property 3 or 4 years before that.

[grampy]

50 years having a hunting license for me. Roamed the farm even earlier than that.

The fire that once burned so bright, for so long, is now slowly fading to a flicker of what it once was. But I'm still in the game. 

[Daveboone]

I was probably pre-kindergarten when I became fascinated by dads hunting coat, and its pockets contents, constantly badgering him to take me hunting. He would take me for walks in the woods, he toting his shotgun. I remember picking up acorns, pinecones, feathers, whatever else we came across. Listening to geese flying overhead, the fall night sky with the clouds ghosting across the moon...

I have a modest camp in the north woods, that hopefully I will always own, and into my old tottering age be able to hobble into the woods to sit with a rifle, until I cant hobble no more. 

It has never stopped. So I guess...regardless if I could carry a gun, all my life. Closing sixty years, not including the cradle years.

[Robhuntandfish]

Chased red squirrels with a BB gun when i was 8 up at camp.  My mom tells my Dad when i was 12 that she was thinking about getting me a BB gun for xmas.  LOL So my dad wrapped up my current hidden BB gun at camp for Xmas and then actually gave me a new .22 at camp. 

Hunted from an early age and got away from it and did a lot more fishing and working in my younger days.  Hunting only on occasion.  Got back into it a lot about 12 years ago.  

[josephmrtn]

12 years this season. I still remember my first youth turkey hunt that started the addiction.

[Hunter76]

34years for me!

[Culvercreek hunt club]

Took My hunting course in 1976 at 12 years old. Been hunting since carrying a gun but had been tagging along with my father in the woods for small game and deer since I was 8. I'm 56 now so this will be my 48th season. 

[Einsamer Krieger]

Took my Hunter Safety in 1962, hunting ever since.  Bow Hunting course in 1981.  When all is said and done, my first kill on the farm was a squirrel with a .22, I was six years old.

[GreeneHunter]

Jesus .... 48 years (hard to imagine)

[ApexerER]

Jeez, 32 years. Thanks for making me feel old.....