One more reason to love hunting!

I would love to learn how to hunt, it's always interested me since I was a kid foraging for wild edibles. I'll be relocating to Tennessee or Texas next year, maybe that will give me some opportunity to start?

Any advice on getting started? I figured I'd get a small air rifle for rabbits after learning basic gun safety and how to dress a rabbit, then try to find a few large farms with rabbit population problems and ask for permission to hunt some (and share the bounty with the property owners of course).

Actually I would start off with a pellet gun or bb gun. Then when you get the jist. If you only plan on hunting rabbits a 22 caliber rifle is small but enough to get rabbits. I would suggest taking hunters ed and maybe a few rifle courses for saftey. Once you feel confident enough with that I would upgrade. Meaning if you wanted to do big game up the caliber of rifle. Most comman here in Montana for big game is .308, .270, 30 ought 6. Anything bigger and it would be for hunting in Africa. So if someone says you need a bigger caliber than that for deer or elk don't believe them. Some guys think bigger is better lol I call that small man syndrome. *wink*

My dad could drop an elk with a 22 in one shot.

Now I gotta tell my favorite story about him and his mountain man shooting skills.

I was home to visit one summer. It was way early morning for me, as I was still recovering from a ten hour time difference and jet lag, and I'm not exactly a morning person anyhow (understatement, as my sis will quickly assure you). As I leaned against the kitchen counter, trying to remember how to brew tea, my dad started cussing and fussing about something he saw out the window.

Out the door he stomped, leaving me mystified about what he saw, and all the more so as he pulled his 22 out of the pickup. He sight up the hill and, as far as I could tell, into thin air. It wasn't until the gopher flew into the air off the rock where it had been standing--not sure how far away, but probably between 50 and 75 yards--that I saw the bugger.

Oh, and that was BEFORE he had cataract surgery.

Nice! If I ever have aim half as good as that, I would be lucky!

Well, he had a bit of a head start on you. I don't use the mountain man thing lightly. My grandparents were homesteaders and he grew up in frontier conditions, so while he wasn't really a "mountain man" in the old sense of the term (whi*****luded aspects of weirdo and hermit and stuff), he had all those skills that you associate with it.

It's a whole different ball of wax when marksmanship is a survival skill :-).

Thanks for the advice! I figured rabbits are good to start with until I felt comfortable with a small rifle and general aiming, and then slowly move on up to larger game. I might take up fishing too

Fishing ROCKS!!!! Hunting is fun but can be cold and tedious. On the other hand, theres fishing, and I cant consider any day spent on the water as tedious lol.

I haven't hunted in years, but used to help process all the game the boys brought in. Chicken fried venison tenderloin ... omg dr00l. The venison meatloaf I used to make was high on flavor and low on grease (not that fat is much of an issue now). I never could reproduce it, but the boys would make a killer slow cooker venison chili to start off hunting season. Good times. Thanks for the memories!

Hugs,
Ratkity

It's funny how one small thing can bring up so many memories:)

You can keep the venison, but I DROOL at the thought of elk. Ahhhhh elk summer sausage...... Where do you get yours processed?