My dad was an accountant and used to put hand lotion on his hands to keep them soft lol. Luckily we lived on the edge of town with two paddocks between us and a river full of brown and rainbow trout. My brother and I taught ourselves to fish, first with worms and grasshoppers under floats, then spinning with celtas and small rapalas and then fly fishing when I was 15.
Funnily enough, it was university that got me into hunting. I was doing a post grad degree (Environmental Science) on European carp and we had to head out west, in the middle of summer, to catch them. It was so hot we knocked off at 2:00pm and while out uni lecturer went back to snooze, my mate and I went walking down the river and saw pigs coming off the river to feed on the flats on dusk. So on the return home, I went and got my firearms licence, went down the police station and straight to the gun shop, all in about one hour and bought my first gun, a Ruger boat paddle in .243. The next trip out west, we shot our first pig each. And that was it.
My mum never liked guns and I always joked that at least I got something useful out of uni. I remember though that I'd only been hunting for about three months before I got interested in reloading. I remember being fascinated with cases, powders and different bullets while my mates just wanted to shoot stuff. They all sold their rifles within two years while I've been into it ever since. I was the only person at the rifle range with a chronograph and I was only 25.
But my dear old dad didn't really have much to do with our outdoor education. We taught ourselves.
