Take Your Kids Hunting, So You Don’t Hunt For Your Kids*

Take Your Kids Hunting, So You Don’t Hunt For Your Kids*
When I started this blog, I was going to write about my two passions, hunting and cooking. This blog then turned into a little more about the whole hunting and cooking lifestyles. When you ask a hunter to name someone famous in the hunting industry, they may tell you, “Ted and Shemane Nugent,” “Lee and Tiffany Lakosky.” They may mention Mark and Terry Drury, or Don and Kandi Kisky. Well my question is what do all of those names have in common? If you said the last names, you would be correct. Now why do I bring this up? I want to show you that hunting is a family-oriented sport. Ted and Shemane, Lee and Tiffany, Don and Kandi, are obviously spouses. Mark and Terry are brothers. Of course all of these names are successful hunters, and T.V. personalities. How does this all relate to you and me? I will tell you about myself and we will see if your story isn’t quite so different than theirs or mine.

Our stories may all be the same. Our father, or maybe even our grandfathers taught us how to hunt. My first years hunting were not even hunting. I was sitting in the blind learning the “ropes.” Now as I said before, I have two true passions in my life, cooking and hunting. Hunting happens the same time every year. For some in Michigan, it starts on October 1st. Others wait until November 15th. It happens without fail, the same time, the same dates, same reactions, and if you are lucky, you get the same results. I learned to hunt from my father, who learned to hunt from his father, who in turn learned from his. When I was very young there was one date circled on every calendar in the house, and that date was November 15th.

November 15th meant that my father and grandfather were gone well before sun-up and wouldn’t be back until well after dark. November 15th was opening day of the firearms deer season, and in northern Michigan, it was a national holiday or it might as well have been. Schools were shut down, business were closed up. And why were they closed? Firearms deer season was so guys and ladies in bright orange hunting suits could set their sights on filling the family freezer full of venison. Fathers, sons, brothers, sometimes daughters and mothers all hit the woods in search of the ultimate prize.
Now as I said, some wait for November, but if you are an archery hunter like myself, then October 1st is like the 4th of July and December 25th all rolled into one. October 1st is the opening day of archery season. When I turned 11, my dad bought me my first set of archery equipment. I practiced for over a year so that when I was 12 I would be ready to go for the bow opener. I went out on that first afternoon of my first season opener, and I was hooked. Why? For the simple fact that I was so close to nature-make that really close.

You see, opposed to the firearm deer season where you can be 100 or more yards away from the deer and still are able to shoot them, archery you have you be closer than 40 yards. Sure there is always the exception to the rule, where some hunters practice up to about 65 yards, but your target range is 15-30 yards away. I think that the whole outdoors and communing with nature appeals to me. I love getting up in the pre-dawn hours. I also love heading into the woods. When the sun makes its early morning debut over the horizon, I love watching and hearing the woods start to wake up. I am sitting there with my oldest son, or my oldest daughter, and he or she is still half asleep sitting in their little camp chairs. Then there is a scuffle of leaves, a snapping of a twig, the pounding of your heart in your chest, and then there it is. It materializes out of the woods like a ghost. I lean over and nudge the youngsters. They see and their eyes light up, and their faces are aglow. Now if they could see more then just a stupid squirrel. I want to see their faces when a nice majestic 8-point buck walks in with-in bow range. To watch them seeing deer every time makes me light up with laughter on the inside and, I remember how I was when I was 7 or 8 waiting with their “papa” also known to me as “DAD.” I look forward to the days when we are sitting in the blind waiting on a deer in their own hunting adventure with their own hunting equipment.

I remember the first deer I shot when I was 14. It was with my rifle. Opening day November 15th, and dad told me, “Here comes two deer!” “The back deer is a buck,” he said excitedly. Then I get the buck in the cross hairs of my rifle scope, flipped off the safety, and squeezed the trigger. Ka-boom! I missed. I racked another shell into the chamber and got the buck back into the cross hairs. Ka-boom! Missed again. Racked a third shell in, and had to step outside the blind. Thinking to myself that running deer are hard to hit, I got the buck in the crosshairs one last time. Ka-boom! Then the buck went down, I GOT HIM! I heard my dad say to me that I had made a good shot. When we went to look at my first buck, rather my first deer at all, dad was brimming from ear to ear with a huge grin on his face. I could tell he was proud. He told me that his first deer wasn’t until he had hunted for 4 or 5 years. As we were admiring my deer, grandpa had come down the hill from where his deer blind was located. He was just as proud as dad was, and he said now the hard work was about to start. I had to gut my first deer. I got my knife and the whole time grandpa and dad was right there telling me what to cut, what not to cut, where to cut, where not to cut. All the time they had never lost that big smile from their faces.

When my grandpa died in October of 2005 my dad broke down. The first was for the obvious reason of losing his father. He also broke down for the simple fact, that for over 50 years, grandpa had been dad’s hunting partner. I took that for granted. Dad had said that he wasn’t going to go hunting. I convinced him otherwise. I knew that the way grandpa was, he wouldn’t want us to miss out on opening day which had been a tradition since before I was old enough to hunt. Opening day meant we, as the Schindel household, would be in the woods pursuing what we love. So if there is any doubt that hunting is not a family affair, I invite you to come up to my deer camp this year.

Deer camp is another experience all together. I also invite you to watch the Outdoor Channel. You have husbands and wives, father, sons, daughters, nieces and nephews, all taking part in the hunting and outdoor experience.
* Quoted by Ted Nugent