re: Your favorite grandpa/daddy hunting story

My 10yo son and I took our 83yo neighbor “Duke” on a dove hunt. We helped him get to a spot under a small shade tree. We had scouted the field and knew most of the birds were keying on that tree in the middle of the otherwise barren plowed field.
The doves started flying shortly after we got him situated with his chair, ice chest, game bag, 3 boxes of shells and his double barreled 12ga Parker.
My son and I quickly got our limits from a safe distance away. We spent the rest of the hunt trying to help Duke find, see and shoot at birds without being shot. We would call to him from behind the protection of a small hill.
Long story short, that old man had the time of his life. He would take a long sip, laugh, drop his half full beer, raise his shotgun and pull both barrels each time we directed him to an incoming bird.
He burned through every shell he brought, all the shells i had left and never touched a feather.
We could hear him still laughing as we approached him after all was quiet.
We cleaned up the area around him, sat down, cracked open a beer for each of us and watched the beautiful sunset till dark recalling the events of the hunt.
He put his arm over my son’s shoulder as we walked out and thanked us repeatedly for most fun hunt he had ever been on.
Duke passed away a few months later. My son and often relive that hunt and our dear friend Duke :(
My son is now the proud owner of Duke’s 12ga double barreled Parker.

I got a good fishing story.

Me and my paw paw was bass fishing old river in Morganza a couple years ago. We was fishing a run out in the narrows and we’re tearing up the bass on a sexy shad bandit crank, all nice fish too average 2 pounds. He throws and hooks a fish that pops his line so he ties on another bait and continues to fish. Soon we have 19 fish in the boat and needed 1 more, and I get a hook up. I put number 20 in the ice chest and we are sitting there dranking a beer and all of a sudden something jumps in the boat by my feet and scares the shite out of me. When I settle down I look on the bottom of the boat and see a bass with paw paws bait in its mouth. It was the fish that poped his line about a 2 1/2 pound bass. I guess the fish was trying to jump and shake the bait out and landed in the boat. Needless to say we went back to the landing with 21 fish and he got his bait back. People always look at me funny when I tell them that story but it’s the honest truth. I guess it was god saying something because that was his last time going fishing. He passed away about 2 months later. Would do anything to go fishing with him again. Love that old man.

Got one from my first hunt and first deer with my dad.

I was seven when my parents divorced so on weekends when my dad would get us, my younger brother kept us from going as he was still too young. Opening day after my 9th birthday, my brother had a football game on that Saturday so me and my dad sat in a big box stand overlooking a road between two stands of planted pines. About 30 minutes before dark, out steps a spike. I was still a bit too small to shoot my dad’s 30-06 so he was looking over my shoulder, lining up the shot through the scope with me on the trigger. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the rifle shouldered correctly and as soon as the gun went off, it flew off my shoulder and the scope put a 1/2 inch gash above my dad’s eye.

We both went home with blood on our faces that day. Even now he’s still prouder than a rutting buck when people ask him about that scar.

When I was 14 my dad and I joined a hunting club in Mississippi. We were both fairly new to hunting. One Saturday morning while hunting about 80 yards apart he shoots at a small buck. We were dog hunting but the deer had stopped and he missed with a 12 gauge. The deer runs toward me and he yells “here he comes”. He comes by me hauling arse. I unloaded and dropped him. My first deer. Later that evening we go back to the same spot and he killed his first deer. A doe. Later that night he had a massive heart attack. He was 42. He survived and we made many more hunts together. He passes 7 years ago but he did get to see my daughter kill her first

quote:

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He could have caught a lot more fish and killed a lot more deer without us.

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I love taking my son to do both, but boy is that the truth.

My favorite is my first time squirrel hunting with my Dad. By that, I mean the first time I was allowed to carry a gun. I had been with him a couple times but had never actually hunted, just followed him around.

Well when I turned six he let me carry his old bolt action .22, a Stevens 66-B. For a six year old kid that gun gets heavy after a while.

I traipsed after him all morning, me with the .22 and him with his old Lefever Arms 12 gauge double barrel. He got a few squirrels and then decided I should get a chance to shoot. There was a squirrel's nest in a tree so he helped me set up and shoot at it.

Nothing was in the nest, but I will never forget it. I can still picture the whole thing in my mind's eye, 52 years later.

Not a hunting story, but a fishing story about my grandpa. I've never posted on this board but this topic got me. I'll apologize in advance because this is a little long.

Fishing was always our favorite thing to do together for as long as I can remember. He taught me how to cast a bait-cast, took me out of school to play hooky several times a year, and we would go to Bassmaster University every year to celebrate our birthdays that were only 4 days apart. Obviously as I got older girls, sports, and other things occupied most of my time and I didn't make as much time to go fishing with him through high school and college.

Then at Christmas 3 years ago he was really sick and he couldn't shake it for months. By April we found out that he had stage 4 liver cancer and was given 6 months to live. Before he started chemo we went fishing twice and tore it up. We got into a school of largemouths and he even caught two bass on one crankbait. It was an absolute blast and I was sure that was our last time fishing together.

He had a truly terrible experience with chemo and it took months for the doctors to come up with a combination that would allow him to keep food down. But he's one of the toughest men I've ever known and he kept telling me that we would get out on the boat and go fishing again.

Sure enough we did. I remember it was a perfectly clear July morning and I helped him into the boat since he had lost nearly half his body weight. We rode up the lake to our favorite spot, and I could tell that he was struggling physically. Neither of us got a bite and we weren't able to stay long because his medication made him extremely sensitive to the sun, but on the way back to the dock I told him that I loved him and some of the best moments of my life were in the boat fishing with him.

He passed away less than 2 months later and my grandma told me that some of his last words were that he just wanted to go fishing with me again. We didn't get any fish into the boat that last time, but it is without a doubt my most memorable fishing trip with my grandpa.

My dad was never a hunter but he liked to fish just because I did. He was a city boy from Houston so the idea of outdoors stuff just never really sounded too fun to him. I grew up hunting and fishing and loving the outdoors. Reading all these posts of everyone’s stories makes me really excited for the future, whenever I have kids and am able to make some great memeories hunting and fishing with them.

I love reading threads like this one because these are the things that it’s all about. It’s not about killing the biggest buck, or shooting limits of ducks every single day, but the memories that we make with the people that we love. Those kind of things are what make me want to have kids and to be able to have the same kind of memories with them that all of you have with your kids, your dad, and your grandpas.

The OB is also a board I love to read because it’s a peaceful board where everyone gets along with each other and just talks about their love for the outdoors. No arguing and bickering like we see everywhere in the world today. So I just wanted to say thank you guys for all that you do, because it excites young people like me for my future whenever I have my own family.