Thread: How did you get interested in hunting?

Actually I cannot recall a certain event that got me into hunting. My father being a keen hunter and outdoorsman I grew up with hunting. It was the most thrilling part of my childhood. Consequently I started hunting at the earliest age possible and have never ceased to spend as much time hunting as possible. It's a part of my life.

I was in earmuffs before I could walk, my parents were competition pistol shooters (IPSC) and dad also shot the odd rifle target comp too. I learnt to talk by imitating range officers and grew up smelling that tang of hot brass and burnt powder every sunday for the first 6 years of my life.
Being part of a small town shooting club earnt my old man a few friends with hunting/pest control opportunities, I remember following him around on the odd hunt for feral dogs/cats/foxes but the real nostalgia comes from the moonlight rabbit stalking. Those were the days! A growing family and big gun law changes put the brakes on it all and now its just too bloody hard to go hunting in Queensland without having a land owner in the family. I made the choice to move here almost solely on the hunting/grow your own lifestyle.

A mate who was dead keen on hunting was trotting out a very attractive lady from the local high school. After a while she let slip that her father owned 2 farms up Gisborne. My mate worshipped the ground she walked on. Hammered the farms like a plague. Married her. Bought the farms and gave up hunting some of the best hunting blocks I have ever seen.

Had parents who would not allow their offspring to have toy guns....big mistake, parents out there! Older brother was an apprentice boat builder and used his skill with tools to produce for me (at age 7) a very lifelike 1911 .45 pistol, all in wood. I was hooked on firearms from then. A Diana G2 air pistol (which expelled slugs that had the trajectory of a thrown cannon ball ) brought down many sparrows, and a .22 Anschutz rifle at age 16 got me into goats. Tramping in the South Island at 18 made me aware of deer....I walked past 82 fallow in broad daylight on the flats of the Greenstone Valley. That night in a hut, I read a "NZ Outdoor" magazine advertisement for Parker Hale Standard .303 sporting rifles which were selling at Tisdall's for 10 pounds and five shillings ($21).
Back in Auckland, I purchased one, modified it, left my job and went back to the South Island for a year; living off the venison I shot or trading fresh veni for food off trampers I encountered. Over the ensuing 55 years, I have owned a lot of firearms and shot a lot of animals, both professionally and as recreation. Forty years as a park ranger saw me handling a firearm at least once or twice a week. Competitive shooting (pistol and rifle), firearms instructing, hunting, collecting firearms have been the mainstay of my life. My wife shoots a .22 Hornet and 20 gauge shottie (very well, I might add!) and accompanies me on hunting trips happily. I just never got round to thanking my parents for instilling a love of firearms in me!

From what I can gather; my parents and Uncle related that I started hunting the family cat when I was almost old enough to walk but could crawl pretty good. Used to stalk the cat when he was snoozing in the long grass and bite him on the tail.
I guess I simply progressed from there

Comes down to exposure for most of us I guess. I'm a relative newcomer to hunting (did my first hunt at the start of 2016). Grew up in a city based, but outdoorsy family. Dad owned a .22 but sold it when I was young. Dad & my uncle have always been mad keen fishermen and divers though, so I've been fishing since before I could walk. Started spearfishing with dad when I was maybe about 10 or so, and still spearfish a lot. But even with the fishing, again, it comes down to exposure. Dad was a keen saltwater fisherman, so we grew up surfcasting, fishing off the rocks, and off dads boat. But I never got into freshwater fishing despite growing up about a 5min walk from the Hutt River, as dad never fished freshwater.

I got into hunting and freshwater fishing at uni. The hunting I got into through a mate I met while studying. Oli took me out for my first couple of hunts and showed me the basics (he put me onto my first deer and my first goat). From there I went at it on my own, read a lot online, got myself a copy of Red Deer in New Zealand and Stalking the Seasons, spent hours pouring over Google Earth, and just started putting lots of time in out in the hills. Took me 11 months of doing that before I got my first deer on my own, although I managed to get goats regularly along the way. Put a lot of time into learning one area and now I have a really good success rate in there. Last year I got to take my brother out a few times and get him his first animals, and now he's out there putting in the hard yards himself. & same with an old flatmate. Been cool to be able to pass on a wee bit of what I've learnt to guys who are then happy to put the hard yards in themselves rather than simply expecting instant success. I've just moved from Dunedin to Welly, so now have to put the time in learning some new country- got a goat on my first NI hunt up the Orongarongas a couple weeks before lockdown though.

The freshwater fishing I started around 8yrs ago due to the limited saltwater options around Dunedin- started out spinning and softbaiting as those were techniques I knew from saltwater (still had no clue initially though- first trip me & my mate did to the Twizel canals we were out there tossing 25-30gram lures around, but still managed to nab 4 fish). I got taught to fly fish by an older guy who was a regular customer at the retail store I worked in while studying. I'd known him as a customer for a couple years before fishing ever came up in conversation. He took me out to Central Otago, showed me the ropes, and hooked me up with my first rod & reel. My main fishing buddy started getting into fly fishing at the same time, so we spent a lot of time together just figuring it out. My first season I fished about 4-5 days per week (benefits of being a student) for about 3 months before I landed my first fish on the fly.
Interestingly, my little brother independently started fly fishing up north about the same time as I was getting into it, and subsequently, dad has started getting out for a lot more freshwater fishing due to exposure to it from me & my brother.

Like others was a late starter. Growing up in the outskirts of London there was no hunting at all and I never even contemplated it. It wasn't till I moved to this side of the world and the deep south when I got into it because of my then flatmate. He took me rabbit shooting couple times and then for deer. Once I got my license at 28 I started doing more and finally shot my first deer a year later. That was 5 years ago. Since then I have got more into it so that it is now all I do outside of work. I still hunt with my old flatmate and we've had some great times in the bush and I've got him to thank for it.

always been a bbgun or air rifle here we shot cans etc then dad got grandads .22 semi voere with no mag which he shot possums with as single shot for years b4 getting another mag we were allow to target shoot with as a reward when we had be safe with bbguns n air rilfe (lost my 22lr rewards a few times &#129296 then got my licence at 16 got 22 etc did nt really hunt til i join forums like this one and founds peeps willing to take me under there wing and take me hunting regardless of my quadbike
had my pig hunting addiction since i was 12/13 after i read a reg carr pig hunting book
now hunting allows me to spend time in the outdoors with dad (72) which i never did heaps cause couldnt tramp like he loves doing etc
to provide for friends n family the biggest buzz i think hunting/fishing and one can have in nz

@bigred how do you find the attitudes/public acceptance towards hunting here compared to at home? I lived just outside of London in Oxford for 2yrs (2017-2018) and generally found people to be far more anti-hunting than over here, even those that actually eat meat (I get that there's a bunch of major cultural differences between NZ and the UK which facilitate those differences- I started to list a couple of reasons but my comment was in danger of devolving into an essay). I'm just curious about your personal experience- having not been exposed it before were you hesitant or concerned when you first started hunting? Did your family back home have any objections etc? Now that you've become a keen hunter, how would that impact your lifestyle if you were to return to living in the UK?

Sorry, just a very interesting topic to me, as I moved to the UK expecting (perhaps naively) a relatively similar experience to living in NZ (not just in relation to hunting, but in general)... it was not what I expected... Had a couple of great years for sure, but it's nice to be home.

Started out with the old man shooting rabbits and hares as a wee fella. At uni I wanted to get into deer hunting so got my firearms licence and started my 'apprenticeship'.
It's still going years later but love it.
Had a go at duck shooting but far prefer the bush.

I grew up in Auckland so it definitely wasn’t easy , my parents were very keen trampers and we did a fair bit of that , know one in the family were hunters , I had a definite interest in wildlife though as we had a set of animal encyclopaedia books I would spend hours thumbing through , funny I used to watch Grizzly Adams and wanted to live like him or his old trapper mate .
We lived on the fringe of Auckland so it was only 10 minutes on the bike to farmland where me and my mates used to catch eels in the creek and I started to try and trap Rabbits and possums with varying success , my bedroom walls were wall to wall fur, skulls , feathers you name it by about 14yrs old , my Mum was good enough for this not to bother her and as much as I asked the old man would not let me get a air rifle.
I used get books out of the library on all things hunting and read one on falconing , so managed to get a hawk out of a nest and hand raise , that was a disaster , the guy asked me one day what I was doing with all the mice I regularly brought of him and when I told him I was feeding to my pet hawk the shit hit the fan and the Hawk was gone hahaha.
Similarly I got a ferret for shoving down rabbit holes , that got out one day and killed the neighbours cat ......not good ferret had to go hahaha.
No guns allowed so I got a recurve bow and joined the local Bowhunting club at 12 and shot everything that moved every night after school and all weekend that’s what we did .
When I turned 16 a bloke I knew joined the NZDA and thought I should join up , after a few months I got my FAL and I have never gone back to my bow , met some lifelong friends through that club and the rest is history .