2008 was when I started. Nothing has really changed for me personally. I get a couple deer in the freezer every year.
Back in the day...
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Bigcountry40
Member
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I second this, I truly enjoy deer camp and everything it was about,I believe crossbows have ruined it, oh well.
p.s I hunt with a crossbow and compound, I hold no hatred toward crossbows
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I would've said 2005-2015 normally. But the last couple years of hunting with my son and removing expectations has been therapeutic. And my annual November bowhunt/guys weekend is really special too.
Wiley E Coyote
Active Member
I have over 50 years of chasing deer with gun and bow with so many great memories and friends made. It's all been the good old days! Things have just changed. Some for the better and some not. I just know that I still have that same passion I've carried with me since being a 11 year old boy stalking though the Highland county hardwoods with my kodiak magnum, micro flite arrows and Bear razorheads! It's been a privilege! I hope to continue deer hunting for many more years. So what I'm trying to say is any day you get to go is the good old days because you never know it may be your last. Good Hunting everyone! Have a fun safe season!!
Bowhunter57
Senior Member
I remember doing that, but it was also to see how horrible of a field dressing job some guys performed.
I swear I seen more than one guy come in with some small doe that look like it had been field dressed by a drunk with a chainsaw. 
Some chick at the gas station was gagging the entire time she was checking it in and doing the paperwork. 
All this while the guy that shot the deer was standing there in a sweat soaked t-shirt, smoking and telling the story of how he had to run it down after the shot. 
Stressless
Well-Known Member
The innocence of being in your mid teens and heading to the woods, sometimes alone, sometimes as part of the orange army with the old guys, a generation ahead of you, you know, old like their mid 40's
No ghosts in the woods for me then, just exuberance. Now when I sit, I remember the ones that've been called home and their memories.
Good ol' days for me.... Freedom hunting small game in the mid 80's. Running a trap line before school, getting off the bus and grabbing my single shot, breaktop 20ga, a vest with brass showing in every shell loop with #6's and lacing up Redwings I bought with yard mowing
they had so much mink oil rubbed into them, had to be 4lbs a boot.
Our farm butted up to 3 1/2 square miles of undeveloped Industrial land, some farms I worked on and had permission to hunt. I'd let Fred my beagel off his run and we were off. No cellphone, no camera, no watch, just off to explore and hunt with a good dog. Bunnies were the mainstay with a glorious rooster once in awhile. Watch the sun and try to make it home for dinner. Get maybe 3 hours in.
Saturday (no hunting on Sunday) same routine but pack a pb&j and a canteen, no water bottles back then and head out with the buddies, 3 to 5 14-15 y/o's they'd bring their hounds, some were pups from my pair, Fred and Maude...
Joshing and laughs the entire day, ribbing about misses, hollering about hits, being young men, figuring it out.
No ghosts in the woods for me then, just exuberance. Now when I sit, I remember the ones that've been called home and their memories.
Good ol' days for me.... Freedom hunting small game in the mid 80's. Running a trap line before school, getting off the bus and grabbing my single shot, breaktop 20ga, a vest with brass showing in every shell loop with #6's and lacing up Redwings I bought with yard mowing
they had so much mink oil rubbed into them, had to be 4lbs a boot.Our farm butted up to 3 1/2 square miles of undeveloped Industrial land, some farms I worked on and had permission to hunt. I'd let Fred my beagel off his run and we were off. No cellphone, no camera, no watch, just off to explore and hunt with a good dog. Bunnies were the mainstay with a glorious rooster once in awhile. Watch the sun and try to make it home for dinner. Get maybe 3 hours in.
Saturday (no hunting on Sunday) same routine but pack a pb&j and a canteen, no water bottles back then and head out with the buddies, 3 to 5 14-15 y/o's they'd bring their hounds, some were pups from my pair, Fred and Maude...
Joshing and laughs the entire day, ribbing about misses, hollering about hits, being young men, figuring it out.
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These days are pretty good.
I’d trade a weekend from today to spend it in yesteryear with the men that took me hunting as a kid. I thought they knew everything. In relation to what I think I know now, I still think those guys were a lot brighter than I am now.
I’d trade a weekend from today to spend it in yesteryear with the men that took me hunting as a kid. I thought they knew everything. In relation to what I think I know now, I still think those guys were a lot brighter than I am now.
I am with Wiley on this one, anytime I can get out in the woods is great
These are the good old days!
And @Stessless you brought back some great memories!. I got my first shotgun when I was 11 a break down 20 gauge. We always had a beagle and you could get permission to hunt at almost any farm.
I still get out and rabbit hunt at least once a year. I also get out with the .22 and squirrel hunt at least once a year.
These are the good old days!
And @Stessless you brought back some great memories!. I got my first shotgun when I was 11 a break down 20 gauge. We always had a beagle and you could get permission to hunt at almost any farm.
I still get out and rabbit hunt at least once a year. I also get out with the .22 and squirrel hunt at least once a year.
Mickey Merrie
Junior Member
The "good old days" were when I could knock someone out with a volleyball from half court in the gym class dodgeball game. I once blew out one of those gym door wired glass windows across the gym. Now I can't hit the waste basket next to my desk without ibuprofen...
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You brought up a memory;
Dad stopped at a farm one day a few miles from our home with my older brother and me waiting in the car. He trotted up to the farmhouse, knocked on the door and secured permission for the three of us to walk a couple of likely fields. We flushed pheasants and rabbits with no dogs suitable for either. I remember my brother and I sending warning shots but I don’t think we killed a thing. We did not know those folks nor did they know us. My grandpa and his neighbors considered it plain rude to tell someone no when they asked to hunt. They viewed it as a way to eat and for a lot of the folks around them it was.
Knelly
Junior Member
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Mid to late 90's for me
Our group mostly gun hunted the week long season after Thanksgiving with most of them showing up that evening to camp. Sighting in their slug guns Sat and Sunday. Remington Sluggers were $1.99 for 5. Everyone took the full week off but I was only allowed the first day, damn school... I'd finish up school on Wednesday though and rush out to our farm looking for our group putting on the next drive. Threw my orange on, grab the 12ga 1300 out of the trunk and head out to meet up with them.
Prime time November days were spent hunting rabbits with our beagles instead of rut hunting and always rabbit hunted during the muzzleloader season. I did not start bowhunting until 99' which I bought an old Horton xbow with a simmons scope. No bait, cameras or gadgets, and mostly hunted from he ground.
It's funny sometimes while showing my 13yr old son pictures from camp back in those days when I was his age and him asking all sorts of questions. Wish I could take him back to that week just one time to show him how fun that was. Not that it isn't now, but how much has changed over the years and he still gets to hunt the same property today that I grew up hunting.
Our group mostly gun hunted the week long season after Thanksgiving with most of them showing up that evening to camp. Sighting in their slug guns Sat and Sunday. Remington Sluggers were $1.99 for 5. Everyone took the full week off but I was only allowed the first day, damn school... I'd finish up school on Wednesday though and rush out to our farm looking for our group putting on the next drive. Threw my orange on, grab the 12ga 1300 out of the trunk and head out to meet up with them.
Prime time November days were spent hunting rabbits with our beagles instead of rut hunting and always rabbit hunted during the muzzleloader season. I did not start bowhunting until 99' which I bought an old Horton xbow with a simmons scope. No bait, cameras or gadgets, and mostly hunted from he ground.
It's funny sometimes while showing my 13yr old son pictures from camp back in those days when I was his age and him asking all sorts of questions. Wish I could take him back to that week just one time to show him how fun that was. Not that it isn't now, but how much has changed over the years and he still gets to hunt the same property today that I grew up hunting.
Mickey Merrie
Junior Member
The "good old days" of rabbit and deer hunting look to be this fall from what I am seeing here in NW Pa. For example, there are so many rabbits here they hang out on my front porch!
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