Teaching hunting and fishing skills is important

Introducing a young person to outdoor hobbies is perhaps one of the healthiest, most sound choices a parent or guardian can make. Whether it be hunting or fishing, camping, backpacking or hiking, target shooting or gardening, or playing sports … time spent off the couch and outdoors makes for a more productive, rewarding life, I’m convinced.

Someday I might write a parenting book. It’s been suggested before, but I’ve held off until I see how our two turn out before I go sharing any advice. Both are not out of the house – the youngest in her third year at a university – but still I want to give them a few more years to get established in the world before I start making any claims of being a successful parent.

But even though time and circumstances have a way of sometimes detouring, and in some cases completely derailing, a child’s career and life path, there’s one thing I’ve seen over and over … a child taught from an early age to enjoy the outdoors will almost always grow to be a productive individual and enjoy life.

Here’s just one example … Boy Scouts of America, which has produced some of the great leaders of the past century (and a major part of that Boy Scout experience is enjoying and learning to survive and flourish outdoors).

I was a Boy Scout as a youngster and still hold good memories and use skills I learned nearly four decades ago.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, we made it a point to raise our children to be comfortable and enjoy outdoor activities. From sitting around the fire pit in the backyard in the evenings, to camping and hiking, from learning to fish with a Snoopy rod and reel to harvesting and cleaning wild game, from teaching them to swim at an early age and getting them involved in lifetime outdoor sports such as tennis and recreational shooting, it’s about keeping their mind and body active and not letting them sit on the couch staring at a television or computer screen with a video controller in their hands.

I’m not opposed to kids enjoying video games in small doses – yet we never had one of the systems in our house. Hunting ducks or playing baseball on a Wii (or whatever the latest craze is called) is a far cry from the benefits to mind, body and soul that they could experience being outdoors actually playing sports or learning to hunt ducks. I have to think a video duck isn’t nearly as tasty as a real one seasoned, breaded and pan-seared in a cast iron skillet after a long day of hunting afield.

And I won’t even speculate what a digital goose or raccoon must taste like. There’s not enough barbecue or dipping sauce in the world …!

Where I’m headed with all this is that the fall hunting seasons are quickly approaching. If you haven’t already, give some serious consideration to teaching a child how to hunt.

Start with a squirrel hunting outing for an hour or so, or take them for a walk in the woods looking for animal sign. Take along a pair of binoculars or a spotting scope, and a camera to record the outing for future reminiscing sessions. Remember that young hunters likely won’t have an attention span big enough to spend all day scouting or hunting.

Simply dragging them along on your deer hunts come November will only make them tired and cranky, you aggravated or downright mad, and the deer that much more elusive.

My first time of taking my son deer hunting was done when I asked and received permission from a good friend to take my child along on a hunt on the friend’s farm. I’d hunted deer all over Southeast Missouri by that time, often from a climbing stand or while sitting up against a tree and being very still. But my friend had a huge deer hunting “platform” built using three standing trees and a telephone pole. The stand was about 8-by-10 feet, had about three foot tall sides, a roof, and was outfitted with a padded chair and coffee table.

My son stayed awake for about the first 20 minutes, then drank some hot chocolate and eventually settled in for a nap on the floor. Some two hours later when two deer came walking through the woods, I gently nudged him awake in time for him to stand up and watch them walk up beneath the stand and just past a few yards.

He held his ears as I dropped the larger animal in its tracks. We experienced the hunt together, and I immediately began teaching him to respect the animals he harvested for food. After all, they gave their life to help sustain ours … and we should treat that process with respect. He helped me field dress that deer and get it back to the truck. He was in the photos we took with the animal, and was standing beside me when I fried up the fresh venison tenderloin for supper that night.

A couple years later I accompanied him to a Hunter Education class. We sat through the course together, even though my age didn’t require my participation. We reveled in passing the course and planning his first real hunt.

That fall he killed his first deer, and I presented him with one of my favorite small hunting knives to have as his own. When we finally made it home and hung the deer up to cool, we found a file in the toolbox and carved a small notch on the backside of that knife blade. Each year since we’ve added a new notch to that knife … sometimes two notches if he filled a bonus tag that fall. He now considers that knife among his most prized possessions, and can tell the story that each notch represents.

My daughter didn’t show the same interest in hunting. Still I took her along for a couple short outings as she was growing up to see if she’d develop a liking for it. She didn’t, but eventually took to hiking and camping. She counts the two activities among some of her favorite pastimes these days, and is even working toward a career that will let her combine her love of outdoors, planning and management.

If you have a youngster that’s old enough to attend a Hunter Education course, check out the MDC’s website for an upcoming class and complete the coursein time to enjoy this fall hunting season together.

If if angling is your thing, consider becoming a volunteer angling instructor with the MDC. See a story on this page about how to get involved in this exciting new program.

And if your youngster decides he or she doesn’t enjoy hunting or fishing … consider hiking, camping, birdwatching, a sport such as tennis or golf, or some other outdoor activity you can enjoy together.

Life is but a series of seasons, and don’t let this one pass you by while you’re all distracted by the television, game system, computer or smartphone. And, oh yeah, be watching for my new parenting book. 

Doug Smith lives in an old house, drives an old truck, tinkers with old tractors, is married to a young woman, hunts and fishes often, and can be found on any given day wearing his Buffalo plaid flannel jacket and matching Elmer Fudd hat (… unless he’s crotch-deep in a cold spring-fed stream and wearing waders over his jeans, his fishing vest over his ‘lucky’ green fishing t-shirt, and his well-worn fishing cap complete adorned with a few artificial flies.)