My dad was nearly 50 yrs old when I was born, he had given up on hunting long before I blessed my family with my presence. My brother whose 13 yrs my senior got the opportunities I would have loved, but alas the leather is pretty thin in his palm, and he cried when my dad directed him to wring a pheasants neck on a hunt they shared. That ended the hunting in our family for a good number of years.
I remember as a kid growing up marvelling at the gun counter in the old W. W Arcade, when dad was shopping for other stuff, I marvelled at the guns in the Sears catalog I remember finding my brothers hunters ed manual at some point and remember practicing the different shooting positions with a home made wooden carved rifle . I always seemed to have a fire in my belly towards hunting and guns.
At 13 after a lot of convincing I was allowed to pony up my chore money on a pellet gun, which I set to shooting in our undeveloped basement at home. I also took my hunters ed in grade seven.
Dad had kept his 1952 vintage model 12 shotgun, and I remember him taking it with him once when he went to help one of my moms brothers with harvest, I remember the three boxes of shells he'd bought, Apollo 1-1/8 oz. 6's, Imperial 1-1/4 oz 5's and 2's. I remember the sort of rush I got unboxing and re boxing those shells numerous times.
I joined the rifle club we had at high school, it was located in the basement of Eastglen Comp. it was 1979 or 1980. We shot a pile of paper down there, and we did get some skills along the way.
When I turned 18 I set out to try bird hunting on my own, I mustered up the nerve to ask to borrow dad's Model 12, and at the time my girlfriends older brother had in laws with huntable land by Wainwright. We took a weekend and proceeded to scare ever puddle duck outta the country, save one or two who were dumb enough to turn back to the slough, where I managed to actually shoot them.
It was 1984 and my oldest sister by nearly 19 years was working an office job, and her boss was an avid big game hunter, and it was through this fine gent I set upon my life's quest of big game hunting, he invited me out hunting with him and his family. I set out and bought a used Marlin 336 in 30-30, mounted a 4 x scope on it and one cold November morning I shot my first ever big game animal, it was 1985 and I was just 21 years old.
The rest, well it gets fast and furious from that point on, and a lot of learnings happened, some good, some great, and some that you choose to try and forget.........