I didn’t start hunting until I was in my early to mid-forties. My parents didn’t hunt, I had few friends who hunted and therefore, I was teaching myself. Luckily where we live the Colorado Parks and Wildlife department has many novice and youth hunter programs. I have taken advantage of many of these opportunities, however, in my opinion, only the experience of a fellow hunter can truly develop the knowledge and skills you need to be successful.
Two weeks before Christmas we visited family in Northern California. While we were there to visit family the focal point for me was waterfowl hunting with my brother-in-law. He is CalFire fire fighter, but in the winter months he runs his own waterfowl guide company. (Fowl Weather Guide Service)
The type of service he offers; two blinds with guides, a dog, and expert calling, can cost a pretty penny. In fact, many of his clients are business men coming to the rice fields of the upper central valley of California. It is part of the Pacific Flyway and excellent for ducks and geese. Later in the season he will also set up hundreds of decoys in fields for dry hunting of several species of geese, mostly Snows.
The first time I went out with my brother in law and his other guide buddies I couldn’t believe their exceptional knowledge and eyesight. Little specs of black, barely bird shaped were called out for their breed, spec, snow, widget, pin, teal, wood, etc. I honestly didn’t know how they were doing it. Overtime, as I became more accustomed to the shapes the subtle differences. I still couldn’t tell which was which, but I could see the wing set slightly back on one, the elongated neck on another, the way one had a unique cup to the wing, how the back ends were all almost indiscernibly different. He’s been hunting waterfowl since he was in high school, I had to give myself some grace that a couple seasons would never match his depth. I was learning though.
This last season, I took my boys out with my brother-in-law. There was a riotous scramble the day before the flight due to our gun safe running low on the batteries that control the electronic locking mechanism. There is of course a key for just such an occurrence, which I had hidden in a safe place, so the kids didn’t find it. I had hidden it too well and couldn’t find it. Luckily my shotgun had been kept in the other lockbox held over from fall turkey season, but I couldn’t get to the boys’ guns. Luckily, we were able to sort out loaner guns from my sister-in-law and my niece for the days they wouldn’t be going, but it took a stressful day to get it all together, wondering all day whether they could actually hunt or not.
I had put a lot of weight into this trip because my older son had stopped hunting with me several years ago. He had said it was boring and didn’t like it. I found out though that he just found it hard, you see he, just the same as me, was an overweight child. In the last year he has had a total body transformation, one I was never able to accomplish. He has shown a dedication to his food intake and his gym routine that I could only ever imagine. In light of this, he realized that with his newfound body and strength the walking, hiking, scrambling would be much easier and decided to give hunting a try again. I was afraid that his first commitment to go back into the field would be met with disappointment.
I was less concerned with the hunt itself as I was with spending time with him. He is getting older, in fact turned eighteen shortly after this last trip. He’ll possibly be leaving the house soon, and I have a very limited time to know him at this age. Those of you that are parents will understand, in each phase of your child’s life you must find new ways to be present with them. For some it’s sports, for some video games, others the outdoors or music. For him it was a little of all of them at different points in his adolescent years. I miss him when he was my little buddy but have tried hard to know him as a young man, however often I fell short.
We were able to go, and each son harvested their first bird. The days were long, started early, were cold, and on at least one of the days we sat for hours in a constant drizzle. I was a proud father, seeing my sons tolerate the weather with little complaints. I’ll never really know if they suffered for me, knowing that I wanted to be there with them, or if they were truly enjoying being there, but I choose to believe that they were there because they also wanted the hunt and the time together with me.
You see, there are always multiple option of what we believe in the internal realm. We are not talking about spiritual belief or scientific belief, but emotion belief. I can believe that the boys were there just for me, sitting silently suffering, but where does that leave us. If it is true, I should act on it and find out so I can do better to not repeat the situation. If it isn’t true, I’ve subjected myself to inner turmoil for no good reason (is there ever a good reason for inner turmoil?) and deprived myself of the joy of having spent the time with my sons. I choose the option that benefits my mental health the most, making sure that I am building trust enough in them that they will tell me if they don’t care for an activity.
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