re: Best outdoor memory with dad or grandfathers

Walking out to the duck blind on Catahoula Lake before daylight and the ducks get up in front of you by the thousands. Something I will never forget. My dad loved to duck hunt. I remember killing my first duck that was flying. It was a big old greenhead coming in against the wind. Good times.

My father became disabled due to a degenerative disease at 42. I was still young and my years fishing and hunting with him were short. 10 or 12.

He still never failed going to his friends camp with me and laying there hurting (his back) just so I could go hunting. His friends would take me, they are pretty much family. He'd stay at the camp but himself waiting our return.

I'm so blessed. It taught me a lot. I deal with a sometimes debilitating issue but I still make it a point to bring the kids camping and outdoors and suck it up. If he could do it then dammit so can I.

He was a fantastic outdoorman. Fish and hunt. Great duck Hunter. Lost his right eye and just picked up shootin left handed. Helps he ambidextrous.

Our last hunt was a marsh down big pasture road. He was wearing his green goose down jacket. Tons of water in the blind. Cold. We killed 13. 9 were green heads. I remember sitting there looking at his silhouette and him asking me what the hell I was looking at and to pay attention if i wanted to kill.

I never did tell him I just wanted to look at him and appreciate everything he did for me and how much I just wanted to enjoy the time with him and could give a frick about killing anything. He hurt so much and I knew how hard life was with him out of work and in constant pain.

Somehow my young self just knew it'd be our last duck hunt I guess..

Sorry for the diatribe. Great thread.

Dad didn’t hunt but my grandfather my moms dad and my uncles his sons would take me like I was their sons.
Best memory is sitting in the floor of a pirogue with my uncle pushed up in the rosceauxes next to my grandpaw. The smell of fresh community coffee just poured waiting on the sun to rise.
I had strict instructions that by all means I would only sit and shoot and only could shoot the ones that landed or were crippled I was 7-8 at the time. I can remember them not bringing me any water to drink and by around 10-11 they would break down and give me a sip of beer like they were trying to keep a prisoner alive lol.
Man I would give 10k dollars to make one more hunt with them two and shoot pooldeuxs on the water and have a sip Budweiser.

Toledo Bend fishing trips with my Dad. We'd usually stay for a week at a RV park lakeside. We'd go bass fishing early every morning, then he'd usually take a siesta and let me take our bass boat out on my own during the day. It was magical. We used to catch so many fish we would use a automated fish cleaning device. It was magical.

Was fishing with my dad and my two younger sisters probably 15 years ago when I was 12ish. He caught a sheepshead and flipped it in the boat and the thing was flopping all over the boat and my sisters were screaming bloody murder and one of them was up on the center console and the other one ended up damn near on top the t top. One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

This isn’t the best actual memory, but it’s the most memorable thing my grandfather ever did for me.

We lived in New Mexico when I was in grade school so my grandfather flew in to make a deer hunt with us, I was about 11. We were crossing a river bed between ridges and I hear my grandfather get excited. I turn around and I had just walked over an indian spear point. This thing was made out of chipped rock obviously and about 4-5 inches long and immaculate. It was huge and awesome especially for a boy of about 11. I asked if I could have it and he told me something appropriate about me missing it and him finding it and it being a lesson to look where you step. I was pretty freaking bummed, and the hunt sucked we didn’t see shite so that’s all I thought about. 3-4 months after the hunt I received a package in the mail, my grandfather had a plaque made for me with his and I’s picture together on the hunt and the spear head on it. It’s in my office today.

My father passed after a long bout with cancer when I was 12. Took me fishing a few times, didn't have the patience but did take me duck a few times before he died. After he died my grandfather became my fishing buddy. He loved to fish and even bought a camp on Toledo to the she grin of my grandmother. He lived in DeRidder and would stop at the local sporting goods store there and buy whatever lures the guy behind the counter told him they were biting on. Never once did he show up without a brown bag full of shite we never caught anything on. Once he hired a guide to show him and I how to catch bass on a Texas rig. We would fish and fish with worms but after half hour or so with no luck, back to the tried and true. Top water, spinners, crank baits and the such. Didn't catch a whole lot on those either but a little more action than the slow presentation of worm fishing. Any who, we meet the guide one morning and my Granddad explains our trials and tribulations of fishing plastic and would he help us gravitate to become better worm fishermen. The guide explains he could, but if you want to catch numbers, send your grandson across the street to the bait store and buy a half dozen of these top water baits called "Boy Howdy's". They were a top water bait with two treble hooks a small weight and spinner on the end of the bait. Silver and black. Granddad gives me a twenty and I buy as many as I could. We head out in the guides boat and catch over ten before a thunderstorm run us off the lake around lunch time. So we eat and Granddad takes a nap while the storm passes and meet the guide around 1 back at his boat. We pick up a few here and there, but right about 5 we get into a school or schools and commence to start tearing em up. Five times we all had fish on at the same time, and I caught seven in seven straight casts. Back then 15 was the limit and we were keeping the bigger ones and throwing smaller ones back into the water. We laughed all the back home on our ill fated Texas rig fishing excursion.

3/31 will mark four years since my dad died, ironically enough I was wading two guys on a donated trip when my wife called me. I could write a book on our hunting and fishing trips from New Mexico, Mexico, Texas & Louisiana.

Wow. Too numerous to count. Dad used to take us crawfishing in the old rice fields somewhere near Ponchatoula. It was probably a two mile walk to get back there. You could set out your nets on the high side of the levee, and stand on top of the levee and fish for bass on the other side in a canal.

There were feral cows that lived back there. One of them died in a small pond and there were a billion crawfish eating on it. We would catch a washtub full of crawfish and a bunch of bass. Then poor Dad used to have to carry most of the load because we were just little kids. Those days there were always an adventure.