I had 3 main influences when I got into deer hunting, Jerry, Bob, and John. They acted the roll of crazy uncle in my late adolescence and early adulthood. A young man needs a crazy uncle in his life-- someone to talk to when bringing such things to your father would not be wise. Dad had been a champion trapshooter, but his last experience with a rifle was in the Battle of Fort Sill in late 1944. He said the armadillos sounded just like Japanese.
Bob had been a gun editor for a magazine. He was friends with Bill Ruger and Elmer Keith
Jerry had been an armorer in the Marines. He had owned a gun store.
John had been in The Bulge.
Jerry and Bob were the guys who goaded me into shooting. John found me places to hunt and camp. Most of what I learned about hunting and shooting in the first decade came from them. Bob was mostly a shotgun and pistol guy. Jerry was into full-auto and military stuff. John was mostly into camping
The main things I learned from them were:
30-06-- once and forever.
If you can keep it on a pie plate, you're good to kill deer
Find ammo your gun likes and stockpile it
Shoot, and keep shooting until you're sure it won't shoot back.
Find a campsite nearest the bathroom
The latter two was John's addition. John's experience north of the Ardenne colored a lot of his advice-- that and his weak bladder.
The rest? I was pretty much on my own, and frankly, I didn't much mind the first 20 years. Jerry and John were both dead when I bought my first rifle that wasn't a 22 or a 30-06. It was a Ruger Mini 14, and the main reason I bought it was that my contacts through John had offered me some opportunities to hunt groundhogs, and the Mini 14 seemed like an ideal middle-ground between 22 long rifle and the 30-06 shooting Accelerators. It was also good enough for groundhogs. It was more accurate than the Rem 742, so for a time, I actually thought about using it as a deer rifle.
That's pretty much where I was when I came to the 24hourcampfire.com. By then, Bob's knees had given out, and he was no longer able to hunt. You all have become my replacement crazy uncles.
