Mine came from my dad's side. My grandfather was a commercial hunter and fisherman in Louisiana, along with being a carpenter, farmer, and cane syrup maker. I still have the Model 11 Remington he traded a sow pig and six gallons of cane syrup for that he used for his duck hunting.
My dad growing up around hunting kept things going for me I suppose. Both his of brothers hunted as well as one of his twin sisters. Most of my first cousins on his side still hunt.
I don't know of anyone on my mothers side who hunted or fished. They were from Pennsylvania. However, my mom could cook any wild game better than anyone I've ever known and while growing up I never knew wild game could taste bad. Another story, but she even cooked crows my dad killed and he didn't find out until later what they had for supper.
I can't remember not hunting or fishing with my dad. I killed my first deer in 1962 at the ripe old age of six, winning the KTSA radio Youngest Hunter contest. Missed a nice 8 point broadside at about 50 yards, then killed a spike facing me at about 100.
Dad always reloaded both shotgun and rifle/pistol, so that's where I picked that up. My job was to iron the shotgun shells, which led to my first reloading injury about the age of 5 when I grabbed the shotgun shell iron to see if it was hot. It was. I can still remember the smells of ironing shotgun shells, burning feathers stuck in some, the fiber wads, and wax.
I got my first bow at about age 10, and kept with it until I got my dad into archery shortly before he died.
David
