Last week a nice thread was started with a excerpt from the book The Old Man And The Boy.

I bought a copy to give to my nephew next week. In the mean time I'm reading through it and underlining important lessons and a note here and there, creating an customized annotated version for him and his life.


Curious....what's your favorite story or quote from the book?

I think when the Old Man gives him his first shotgun. And when they go off to camp on a turkey hunting trip.

This is one of my favorites and I’ve used it on new hunters hunting with me for the first time:

“What you got in your hands is a dangerous weapon. It can kill you, or kill me, or kill a dog. You always got to remember that when a gun is loaded it makes a potential killer out of the man that's handling it. Don't you ever forget it!"

Read it for the first time when I was fifteen, this is my seventy third year and I have read it many times. It is a great book and very enjoyable to anyone who reads it.

I read it as a teenager and hadn't picked it up since until now. Its interesting how my perspective has changed from that of the boy to that of the man. I didn't remember any of the old mans advice on women or their temperment. Now that I'm going through it again I keep saying to myself "ain't that the truth " and chuckling.

Every dad needs to read it, then have his son read it at the appropriate age. It is so much more than a hunting book.

Ruark wrote a sequel to The Old Man and the Boy titled The Old Man's Boy Grows Older. It is another good one.

I think my favorite story in it is "All He Left Me Was The World" (last story in the book) many of the stories in it reminded me of my Grandfather "Pop" DiSalvo and the lessons he taught me. I like Ruark after the Old Man's funeral went and set traps, why? Because he'd of wanted me to!