Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game You Are An Old Hunter If....

If you seek a strait power rifle scope.grin

Except in the case of my back-up gun when guiding clients (1x4 Leupold). Otherwise, I'm strictly a 4x rifle scope guy. So, count me as "old".

I have been caught at times and asked,How old a truck is that? Why 1984 you would know that if she still had the grill.

But you are even older if while hunting:

-You have to get-up at night every two hours to pee
-Bring a can of Metamucil with you to the campsite

Just kidding with you.

Kawi, are that your.?.

Your Ben goin skool?

One can remember when hardware stores would break a box of ammo. Used to go in and get maybe 27 cents worth of 22 LR's.

Spell check though I fight it. Got myself a new wuzzel you see just right there.crap

Just drink a tall glass or two of hot water first thing in the am - no need to bring Metamucil.

FC

If you pick your hunts by your ability to pack out the game. If you recruit fellow hunters based on their ability to pack out your game. If soloing I now restrict myself to varmints and wolves. I love to solo hunt but if I finally get a wolf it will get skinned prior to pack out. If you are shopping for a trailer after deciding no more backpack elk hunts you may be aging gracefully.

mike r

Ha. If you used to buy a whole box box of 22 LR for 27 cents.

if you have original boxes of 30-30 silver tips and Remington bronze points.

I remember when 22 LR were .25 cents for a box. yes I am old.

Was that when gas was 25 cents a gallon?

kawi:

What is a wuzzle?

You are an old hunter if you can remember going backpacking before commercial backpack tents were invented.

You are an old hunter if you have to use a scope because your eyes can no longer focus on hard sights.

You are an old hunter if you have forgotten when it was easy to pack out game.

You are an old hunter when you can see more animals on the walls of your game room than you did the last time you went hunting.

You are an old hunter when your hunting partners complain that the cook is getting cranky, and you are the cook.

KC

In mid-Michigan you were excused from school on the opening day of pheasant season by showing your license. Now there are so few pheasants here it's a treat just to see one. I used to sell ammo from open boxes at the hardware store where I worked. We had a sign on the wall over the ammo rack listing price per shell. Fellas would come in and say "Gimmee three 12 gauge high brass number 6's and three number 4's." Same with rifle ammo come deer season. Some guys would bring their rifles in to get cartridges that fit. One old guy accidentally touched off a .30-06 round into the ammo rack. Blew apart a box of shotgun shells and put a hole through the block wall and into the next building over.

When you still have a couple cans of Cordite left.

Several years ago I bought several pack llamas for exactly that reason. I figure they added a good 5 years to my elk hunting time.

You started hunting with a SXS double Parker and a .30-30 lever action!!

I only hunt with a fixed power scope because these damned cataracts make it difficult to use a peep sight.

And, lvmiker if you are going to shoot a wolf, you may want a young helper as they are miserable to skin. And they can stink!

You put on yer camo(plaid shirt), sneaking boots(black converse hi-tops) cover scent(chain-saw mix fuel cause elk and blacktails are always around clearcuts)

Hey! I resemble that remark!

You're also an old hunter if you don't lug half the camp up the mountain in a pack full of rangefinders, spotting scopes, bi-tri-pods, GPS, a roll of TP, walkie-talkies, maps, and the kitchen sink.

Old black man came in the shop Mebbe 30 years ago and wanted to buy six 32
Revolver ctgs. Salesman asked him if he needed 32 longs or shorts he said and I quote, "jez gives me da long ones, iz snips em off til dey fits."

You're an old hunter when even after you've been watching your diet and working out for years, muscles and ligaments often start hurting for no apparent reason--and take four times as long to heal!

JB, I feel that way in my mid 40's.

SO?

Most all the postings in this thread are true of me but I take issue with the term "OLD" when what you describe is what we all do - isn't it?

My deer "camo" is a Johnson Mills red/black wool plaid coat and Malone wool pants. My favorite deer rifle is a model 64 Win. in 32 Special.
My compass is a Marble brass (new 1948), my boots are Chippewa, my Montgomery Wards green/black plaid wool cap has ear lappers. No it doesn't match my coat.
I wear my belt three holes larger than when new because leather shrinks as it dries. (Made two of those holes myself)
The woods are amazingly quieter than they were 20 years ago.
I don't use a cane, it's a "walking stick," so at age 75 I'm not old and don't you dare call me that. I do, however, have many a memory.

Jim

So that's why!!?! I always thought wool did that too because my Woolrich coat and pants have shrunk some in the past 40 years.
That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

Classy rifle there Jim, you post a picture on the Winchester 64 thread?

You're an old hunter if......your hunting buddies go sit by the gutpile because it smells better than you do......

Hey, I resemble that remark...lol

Cheapest I remember was 49 cents in the 'fifties.

if after the first couple times you get up to pee you start checking your watch because one of those times you are just going to stay up and get started.

if your hunting gear includes some combination of cholesterol meds, heart meds, pain killers, glasses, bi-focals, reading glasses.

if your landmarks are something like "up past where X, killed Y, back in 19XX"

if you recall when the plastic shot shell hulls were all the rage because they were waterproof.

BTW - I'm still using that 4x fixed-power scope too.

VernAk, I would love to get close enough to a wolf to smell it even if it stinks! Why are they harder to skin? I saw a tube skinned pelt in Salmon Id. and it didn't look different than a well done coyote. It would be a lot heavier and I would probably skin it on the ground if alone. I almost said do it on the ground but that could cause some interesting responses w/ this crowd.

mike r

You are an old hunter if you keep a "Butt Out" tool handy in the bathroom.

And, if you can't remember chitt. I may have been paying 35 cents for a box of shorts. I couldn't afford the high dollar stuff.

Wasnt it 3 cents for a pop bottle, 7 cents for a good Winchester high brass paper 12 ga shell? Maybe old man Maxey gave us kids a break.

He got our business because he was the first store we got to on our walk to town.

Growing up in the 50's we paid 25 cents for a box of shorts and 35 for longs. Never had the 50 cents for long rifle.

We bought our ammunition from Ace Auto, but every gas station had 22 ammo and some small mom and pop grocery stores did too.

My father had an Ithaca sxs, but all the rest of us had single shots. 22's or those H&R Topper shotguns.

Yea, that's what it was. We used shorts unless we were going to the river bottom where there were deer, in which case we got the high powered longs.

I remember being a kid in PA in the 1970s and seeing trucks
with rifles in the racks sitting outside taverns and bars when it was deer season.

If you know what Maximum Point-Blank Range means.

Maaaaan, you boys are givin me a senior moment.


With regard to fixed power scopes, I was born old.

That oldtrapper is grovie thank you!

Scott, it ain't the years, it's the miles...


Winter time is the worst, damn that can make a guy feel 'old' and achy.

And I better shut up and stop whining now, only 36, really be crying in another 36 years....grin




And for Kawi.

I would say you are an old hunter when you pass on the big buck in the bottom of the coulee and shoot the forkhorn up by the road.

Good point but how come the old codger is in the bottom of a coulee? If not to standout.

I'll ask him next time I'm down there.

Old for most is more a problem of the mind than the body.

Of course it is going to hurt. Accept it.

You may not go as far as you once did. Nor as fast or often, but you go.
When you stop going, then you're old.

Ted didn't get old until last year when he didn't show at either 91 or 92.
Can't remember him at least not getting a Doe for years. There were hills he couldn't climb, but he was on the hill somewhere.

I remember the day my uncle (4 years older than me) turned me on to long rifles!!! Wow! I never knew they existed!!! Longs were a treat! Shorts were always available! Or as some of the old folks here called em "shoats". LOL! Like the little pig!

You're an old hunter if you insist that your hunting camp _NOT_ be within cell phone range.


FjLee Denver CO

I must be old, since I never take a cell phone with me in the woods, and when I fell deer hunting last season, thought it was just a sprain only after dark did I figure it was broken, and its still aches some.

But you stay warm because the wood stove stays stoked.

......the horse you take to elk camp is more than half-broke.....

The horse I elk hunt off of is less than half broke, but he's old as hell. Perfect.

I'm 34 and am slowly changing all my scopes over to Leupy 6X42s, 6X36s, 4X whatever or 2.5X20s. I am convinced variables change their POI with power change or I hold the rifle slightly different.

I hit on high school chick though. That keeps me young.

Sam. You are right.. One of my neighbors replied when I ask if he got a deer, and if it was a nice one: He said, "yes but my idea of nice has changed over the years.. Now it is nice if it fat and close the road."

Ya know yer an old hunter, when you'd rather go squirrel hunting than deer hunting, cause they're easier to pack out by yourself. Ask me how I know, mad that decision a couple of times last season!


maddog

Man, some of you guys are OLD regardless of your age.

When I don't feel like going up the mountains and seeing what is on the other side of the next ridge, then I'll feel old. And I've used variables for all of my rifles since I started hunting in the 60's and plan to keep using them until I give it up. Never missed a shot due to a problem with the variable scope, but a lot of guys want to blame it on something.....

At only 61, I've got a long ways to go before I start feeling old- regardless of the Cholesterol, Blood pressure, Thyroid, medications and aspirin I have to take along..... A lot of the young bucks in camp still have a tough time keeping up with me and I intend to keep it that way for a while longer if I can.

To add to the OP's title-

You're old if you can remember buying a tag and being able to hunt the whole state with it! And seasons were 3 weeks to a month long....

Bob

Wait ten more years and come back with your reply. Age has away of changing perspectives.

If your first "commercial" treestand was a Baker.....with NO climbing aid....you just had to "bear-hug" the tree to climb. Hey and the first ones were just that....a treeSTAND, cause you had no where to sit. I remember using an old baseball uniform stretchy belt as my safety belt. Boy oh Boy what a dumbazz I was. Somehow these are still some of the best days of my life!

Ha, probably been more fatted hogs killed in the barnyard with a short between the eyes than anything else. I wonder if that's why....

you have killed dove and ducks with cardboard paper shotgun shells.

If you have a Browning Auto-5 bought from Pfiefer-Blass (precursor to Dillard's) in Little Rock

If you've ever killed anything with a Bear Kodiak Magnum...........

..... you think that 500 yards is still a "long" shot.

-You remember when Colorado and Saskatchewan had two buck limits.

-You bought your Colorado mule deer license when you got there.

-You remember when "BC" stood for "Bonded Core".

It's called fixed power, hello! lol

...you drop down in cartridge size to get away from recoil.

You're not getting old when your hair turns grey,
You're not getting old when your teeth decay,
But you're getting old when you start to creak
And your mind makes dates your body can't keep.

I remember taking a 20 gauge paper hull and sliding it into a 12 gauge paper hull, with some strike anywhere matches inside. You could take each of the hulls, slice down the sides in 4 places and make a hell of a fire starter.

Many times in SW PA when I was a youngster and hunting ended at five PM, a beagle was on a rabbit and we would sit and build a fire that way for awhile until the dog came around

That's old.

When a LYNCH box call was just about the only box call readily available, and an U-Haul trailer was not needed for the "Absolute Must-Have" equipment to kill a Spring Gobbler! Not to mention the Camo pattern selection was limited to whatever our military was using. Hell, Vietnam "Tiger Stripe" was a game changer back in the day!

Damn! That brings back memories hunting in NC. My first tree stand was a Baker. Never heard of a safety belt back then. Just wrapped your arms around the tree and bear-hugged your way up. I remember once I climbed a big slick barked elm tree. It wasn't long before me and the stand came sliding down. You're right, there was no where to sit. You stood on that little platform until it was time to come down. Crazy I guess.

Bob

Bobcape,
Thanks for the reply....I was beginning to think I bought the only Baker ever sold! Every time I get restless in my Ultra Luxurious Millennium ladder stand, I pinch myself and think of that dreaded Baker stand. Killed a pile of deer using it, lucky as heck I didn't break my own neck!

I guess I'm old.

Paper shotgun shells were standard and the plastic hulls hadn't even come out.

Scopes were newfangled items and hunters debated about whether to get one or not.

Tree stands were "discovered" and came into use well into my hunting life, and everyone in the east seemed to change from still hunting to tree standing.

Whitetail scrapes were "discovered" by the hunting mags well into my hunting life.

No one jigged for salmon.

The Mitchell 300 spinning reel was the new fangled way of the future but nobody in my teenage fishing group could afford one at $20.00.

The compound bow was a new and weird device that came on the scene well into my hunting career. I talked to Jennings several times at his shop in California about his strange new bow but wound up buying a Bear Grizzly - couldn't afford the Kodiak Magnum!

Killed my first archery deer with a Lemonwood bow and cedar arrows. Aluminum and then fiberglass arrows were just coming in.

... you ever owned a see-thru scope mount.

Heck yea.......How Bout one of the Old "Tip-Off" rings where you could flip the scope over when needed? My memory tells me the were possibly Weaver, but I can't be for sure.

I have a set of Redfield Tip Offs ,I had on my Win 88 for quite a few years.

I had a set of the raskels on a savage 325 I think in 22 hornet. Well it works most of the time till you feed loose hay in the wind. Just try flipping field mice with open sights then to have a coyote bust out just so fast, Well flip it!shoot then pull half a bail out from under the contrapsion.

There were no one piece plastic shotgun wads....you used a nitro card wad and two felt wads and topped the shot with a over-shot wad and a roll crimp all in a paper case.

Hercules powders (Unique in my case) came in a nice square can.

Hodgdon 4831 was $1.98 a pound in oval paper and tin containers.

No blaze orange.

No commercial tree-stands at all, and I think tree stands were not legal in Wisconsin at one time?

Your an old hunter when you recalled how you walked 1.5 miles to a one room school in 7th and 8th grade with a rifle, and the teacher put it in a closet behind her desk until school was out for your journey home.

That's a great one.

I can recall a very young cowboy missing the school bus.
A few miles down the road his big brothers car caught up to the bus.
To get the bus drivers attention the older brothers fired their six-guns out the car window into the air and the young fella was transferred onto the bus.

Your a old timer if you remember what wool,leather and wood was used for hunting

With notice given I have road the bus to and from with a 410. in the 5th grade.Camp over deal.

When blue jeans were the only high tech hunting pant on the market red hats meant you were a hunter. magnumbs were not on the market The only packs we carried were a apple and peanut butter sandwich in your pocket. Open sights were as common as scopes. Boots were leather gortex was not invented yet

I am not aging gracefully. Nor is my wife. At her insistence, a few years ago we got a good used pickup with camper (good deal, I must admit). Last year, I got me a new Cabelas tent...

Them hot showers are nice tho....

An old hunter remembers when an 870 was new on the market, and a Ruger 77 was looked at with skepticism....

When you could buy 22shorts for a penny apeice outta the DoubleBubble jar at age 6..but had to be 6 to buy'em in Midland but not in Odessa ...and you could get a dozen handmade tamales for a whole dollar to feed the family with for dinner in Big Spring

These may be a little too Dallas or Texas for most of you...
When 7-11 Conveneince Stores were only open from 7am to 11pm and sold any kind of shotgun & rimfire shell you wanted...and could hunt squirrels with a 22 using shorts in the City Parks year round...

When a 5 year old could buy a chaw of tobbaco from the Cabells Milk & Ice Cream store 'cause the clerk could see your grandaddy on the porch across the street waving at him...

When Johnny the owner of the Gulf Gas Station swept out your family car, wiped the windshield, checked the oil and belts while he filled the tank with that 20cents a gallon gas...

Getting a choice of Free kitchen drinking glasses or a box of Fab detergent, but only if you had Pink Air put in your tires at the Fina gas station ...

Paying 9 cents to get in the movies ...

Looking for metal scrap and taking it to town for the Korean War Effort....

When your dad could put his S&W 45 in it's Gun Belt with the ammo loops & Holster that hung out of a paper lunch sack to take to work on the bus so's he could take it to the gunsmith at lunch walking thru downtown Dallas with it...

Yadda yadda yadda
Ron

Sir. You have to be close if not pushing. Thank You!

If you've dragged deer for 4 generations, and are looking forward to the fifth...

Close..... I started with a SxS double Damascus off-brand (apparently a quality piece!!!!) and a .30-30. Shot, at times, baby magnums in the 12 ga. SXS.. Scares the hell out of me 45 years later to even think about it now that I know better!

But I still hit better with a SXS than any other shotgun.

Yeah Vern - them water falls can do that.... )

I was cussing my Cabela's Binocs fpr having uneven coatings.. One side was noticeably more yellow-than the other. I went to the eye doc.

Two plastic lenses later, the binocs work just fine.... AND my long distance vision is just fine since the new lenses programmed in that way. I do use 3 different pairs/powers of glasses from arm length in however..... But I seldom encounter game at that range...

My 1st was a Warren and Sweat with marine ply platform. Spent a few uncomfortable hours on that one

How about a J.C. Higgins 16ga bolt, red wool coat and hat. Added a Ted Williams single shot manual cocking .22, which I carried in a case on my back on my bike to the farm we hunted, until Mom found out. And I was a city kid.

When we used to hunt in the Quebec Laurentian mountains for deer or moose with iron sighted guns, mostly Winchester 30-30 or .32 special lever guns, and some Savages, usually in .300. We used to see bolt actions in .303 or 30-40 Krag since lots were available in the stores.
we wore red or green checkered wool jackets and green wool army surplus pants. Footwear were felt lined rubber bottoms and leather tops called pacmocs. Long Johns were often the cotton white coverall types with a rear flap. Headgear Elmer Fud type red checkered hats or a red togue.
Hunting knives were mostly fixed blades with handles of compressed leather washers. Popular were those with either Sheffield or Solingen steel.
We hunted on foot often doing deer drives but often just still hunting on the beech wood ridges. No ATV for hauling out deer, all hand power.
I broke some tradition one day by buying a newfangled Ruger semi auto carbine in .44 magnum which worked well for that type of hunting, still using open sights.

You wake up in the mornings with everything stiff except what should be....

You used buckle artic rubber boots over tennis shoes to hunt in.

Your first hunting bow was an ultra-modern Ben Pearson 50 lb'er. Everything hurts in the morning.

You remember 45 gallon barrels of army surplus 303 British in the Army & Navy department store. You seem to remember 3 barrels - $5.95 (choice), 9.95 & 14.95 based on use and condition........but you can't be sure on those details

I do, but I flavor mine with coffee. miles

Down in Forsyth GA I used to buy 16 ga slugs one or 2 at a time from the hardware store.

If your sled had runners.

i remember .19 cents for a box of 22 lr. .22 cent for reg. leaded gas. hunting cottontails in the snow, baked cottontail with stuffing,fried cottontail,hunted mule deer and elk, with a worn out 44-40, got a big up grade when grand dad gave me a really used 30-30 94 win.i hunted every thing that had hair or feathers within 50 miles of Meeker, Colo. first shotgun was a savage single shot .410 paid $3.00 for it. if it would fly it would die from then on,started hunting by myself in 1946 till today, still guide hunters every year, and will as long as i can.rio7

I still have mine, but it is a 55 lb'er !

Everything hurts in the morning, and very little works in the evening...

I was the cool Browning Stalker guy...

one can remember when hardware stores would break a box of ammo. I.e. If one only had $2.00, they'd piece out 2 bucks worth of cartridges and put the rest back on the shelf.

Every unit in the safe has a walnut stock on it.

Your scopes were made with steel tubes,

and every rifle came with sights attached.