Getting Old

[Michihunter]

Last year I never even touched my bow. It was the first bow season I missed since I was 12 and I'm now 57. Just couldn't get excited about it and I live for deer hunting. Gun season I hunted my butt off sitting 8 days straight before daylight until after dark in all kinds of weather. Never saw a buck. Like you I tried the blinds and just don't care for them, feel like I'm always missing something. I wear my Gore-tex and take a 12 foot piece of camo to wrap around a couple of trees as a blind. Works for me. This year I can't wait for bow season to get here. Got my new Excal and there is a buck with my name on it. Thank God you are able to get out and hunt. I know several young guys with disabilities who would trade places with you today if they could. These dog days of summer tend to make us lazy and bored but when that first frost hits you'll get the itch. Pick up a few deer hunting DVD's, that will get the juices flowing. Hang in there and enjoy every precious minute you can in the Northwoods. Take care.

[Big58cal]

As I said, the best medicine for not wanting to go is to get a kid and take them with you.

Last year, I didn't hunt hardly any at all. Haven't turkey hunted in 2 years, only went squirrel hunting once last year, and deer hunting 3 times. My step-dad passed away in '07 and after that, I just wasn't really into hunting. Anything that I got, I always more than split it with him, giving him the better cuts of meat. It seemed like I didn't really have a "reason" to hunt anymore.

Now, with that being said, I started taking my son with me last year. Some of the stuff he did, I'm still laughing about! He has got me excited about actually going hunting this year! I've got him a little youth model .22 rifle that he has been tearing the target up with. I'm dying to see what he'll do on the squirrels. I'll still carry my guns along squirrel and deer hunting, but he's going to probably be the one taking the shots this year.

BTW, here's a video clip of 'The Mighty Deer Hunter' from last year. LOL! The volume is low, so make sure you turn it up so you can hear everything.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j4hBnQmbw4

[VixChix]

Awesome clip Big58cal! There's a lot of hardcore, serious deer hunting going on there!!!

Have had my 4 yr old out and those are certainly the most memorable hunts! lol

[Cossack]

Last year I had the best time ever...hunting from the ground. No blind, just burrowed into a little hollow, up against a log, on a deer trail to a food plot. Had 6 deer - within 15 FEET - walk through the reticule of my Vortex proped up on a forked stick. Just painted them with the 10 yard aimpoint and whispered "You're dead."
Quit? HELL no!~ In fact I'm planning on taking mine with....hear the pearly gates are plenty wide for the Excal. If they don't have deer hunting there, I may consider another spot if it does.
I'm soon 69, a recent visit to the assisted living facility my mom calls home (she's 97) convinced me to do as much as I can for as long as I can.....they don't allow bows, guns or dogs there. Just sitting and grinning at one another until the next meal is not my cup of prune juice. Last week I made a new elevated, heatable, deer stand...with bow shooting windows. Plan on hunting into December this yr. Sitting by that log hereabouts (northern Minnesota) would be a bit 'brisk' then. (Nice way of saying -10 F).

[Old Buck]

the planing for and hunting gives us oldtimers a reason to get up in the morning. I still hunt with my sons and last year had the pleasure of the oldest grandson hunting with us. He was present when I got my largest deer( from the ground, you don't have no where to fall this way)
As long as I am able to walk in I hope to keep going out each season even if I don't get anything.

[Limbs and Sticks]

Welcome aboard, you'll be alright, just need a little jump start,I'm 61 but I got 3 geezer hunting buddies I wouldn't trade for a life time hunting trip to Alaska, 72, 74 AND 77YRS of age. one will climb so I made him a tree house, the other two want to hunt out of a cabin I didn't build any how ever they went to gander mt. and each got a tent big enough for cot, stove, card table, they actually take a leaf blower in and clear the trail of all leaves to their stands, they only hunt gun season, so the woods are peaceful until then, they fight friendly about who knows what and I surely don't know nothing. I hope I make it to their age and got a geezer or two to argue and hunt with, so you get ready for your hunting season and enjoy it to the max.


Wes

[Undertaker]

I am quite sure that if I don't go this year, I won't go again


I took a hiatus from hunting for a season. That made it so very much easier to skip the next one, too. I think I watched TV or something instead. Looking back, I wasted those precious years, all the while assuring myself that it didn't matter.

As long as you can walk into the forest, and get situated, you will be better off than sitting on the couch.

[Real McCoy]

Sometimes the older we get the more precious life becomes (any life) and we learn or relearn that the objective is not the thrill of the kill but the thrill of the hunt. I am 68 and sucess is no longer defined by filling all of my tags, it is the joy of being in the woods. And I do love to sit in the woods, especially when it rains, in a dry spot of course.

[Mike P]

If I didn't spend 100 days a year in the woods there is a better then 50/50 chance you might see me on America's Most Wanted.

Either that or I would be a Washington Politician.

There really is a fine line between the two don't you think?

[mikej]

If I didn't spend 100 days a year in the woods there is a better then 50/50 chance you might see me on America's Most Wanted.

Either that or I would be a Washington Politician.

There really is a fine line between the two don't you think?

i don't think there is any difference whatsoever mike