Thread: How did you get interested in hunting?

A bit of nostalgia in another thread made me think about how I got into hunting..... For me it was a bit convoluted.... It was about 1976-77 (I was 13-ish) and mum went to New Plymouth for the day. We lived on a Stratford dairy farm and mum only went to NP about once every 3-months, if that!

Each time she went to NP she would buy me and my younger brother a Disney comic each. Well mum returned and gave my brother a comic and me an NZ Outdoor mag. She figured I was too old for a comic. I was highly pissed off with the mag and put it aside for a few months. Anyway; one wet weekend I was bored and read the mag which was full of stories from NZ hunting icons like Rex Forrester. I was hooked!

I think mum regretted buying the mag because from then on all I wanted to do was go hunting. Dad had an old .20 pump up Sheridan slug gun. Due to Muldoon's import restrictions you couldn't buy the odd-shaped slugs. .22 slugs were too big to fit and .177's dropped out the end of the barrel if I pointed it down. So to shoot a rabbit I had to stalk to within about 5-metres, not point the barrel below horizontal, and head shoot it. I shot rabbits, hares and even a stoat with that old slug gun.

And; it's probably why even to today that stalking is my favourite part of hunting.... Last time I went hunting I stalked close-in on a couple of goats and just watched them for about half an hour.

I got my gun licence at 16 and mum and dad bought me a new Stirliing .22, If you were under 18 your parents had to approve your getting a licence. They let me do so because I'd been in the ATC and had received gun safety training.

So now; over 40-years later I'm still hunting. all due to my mum thinking I was too old for a Disney comic!