What age did you start

What age did you start deer hunting? What age did you kill your first deer?
CJ (6) has been going with me and wants to shoot. We have been practicing with the AR15. I just ordered a Bog DeathGrip to help with his shooting and once proficient, we plan to swap out the 15 with a 10 and let him shoot a deer. I doubt he’d notice it too much when the deer goes down. He rocks the 15 like he owns it and would keep shooting if I didn’t limit him, lol. Wanting to keep that desire going. The fact that he’s 6 and has older brothers and dad (me) that live to hunt doesn’t hurt either. I have never forced any of my children into hunting or fishing, always told them that this is what daddy does and if you want to go then you are welcome to come along. Afraid I’ve created a monster with this one though. Every day he asks if he can shoot the “sniper rifle” lol.

Started at 12 because that the youngest legal age in NY. I’d say let him have at it if he’s exited about it!

20. Late starter.

I was allowed to make deer drives since 8 years old. Carry a BB Gun

I helped my dad Gut deer since 9 as dad had one Polio arm. ...But we had to wait to Shoot deer until age 12

Minnesota State law at that time.

7 or 8 first deer at 14

I was 12yo for both. Was 1972 and the next year was the start of the NRA’s hunter safety program. My dad had me take it even thought I would have been grand fathered in.

Was like 12 or 13, archery only deer, got first deer at 14 and a few after that during high school. I quit deer hunting though later in high school and just trapped and fished only for last 35 years.
Jim

I was 12. Not state law but dad's law. 14 for first deer. Small 6 point.

Killed my first in 1980 at 15 yo....wasn't a ton of deer around like there is now.

16 back then that was the legal age to deer hunt in NYS.

I think I was 45 or 46 when I killed my first deer and that was 20 years ago. No one in my family hunted or fished when I was growing up. Dad had duck hunted before getting married, but not after. We shot from an early age, BB guns and .22s. I shot on a high school rifle team and we won a national championship in our division. No lack of shooting, but no hunting or fishing and no one in the family to mentor us. Mom refused to even consider cooking wild game. Regardless, I watched "The American Sportsman with Curt Gowdy" as a kid and knew I wanted to be a hunter and never let go of that desire. I hiked and backpacked and developed outdoor skills that I shared with my kids when they were growing up, but we didn't hunt. I didn't really get a chance to pursue hunting until the kids were off to college. Then it took time and determination to boot strap my skills to the point where I could take deer every year. Now wild game is about the only red meat the wife and I eat. Eventually I went out west and took pronghorn, elk, and bear, but unfortunately my kids are not interested in learning what I have worked hard to learn and now want to share.

Does holding the spot light count?

Wow...a state law that dictates when you can hunt?

EdP, I read your post with admiration and sadness. My dad raised me the same I raised mine. I can’t imagine life in the outdoors without my boys. The two oldest (23&21) still have time for hunts with ole Dad.

Wolfie, spotlights definitely count down South, lol!

18 years old in 1977.

Grew up in an anti-gun household,
but my college buddy I rented
a house with got me started.

Got my first buck in 1979,
a nice wide nine point.

walleyed

Your family went anti-gun after the whooping they took in 1812?

9 or 10. I'll be 66 in March.

Started at 9 which at the time was the age limit in Oklahoma and killed my first one at 10. Since then Oklahoma has lowered the age restrictions I believe. I know my cousin has 3 sons that harvested thier first deer before 8 years old. All shot with a bolt action 223 with a shortened stock. I say if the boy loves to shoot the AR 15 and is proficient with it let him have at them! Use the 223 if your state permits. If he shoots it accurately it will be be deadly.

MN state law, I started deer hunting at 12. That season I missed a doe with five shots and told myself I would only shoot a buck for my first deer. I hunted eight more years before shooting a spike buck for my first deer at age 20. The very next day I shot an 11 point buck while party hunting. I'm not that picky anymore, a freezer trophy to me is a 1.5 year old doe!

Started deer hunting at age 15. Gun hunting. Went with my future brother-in-law. Got my first deer at 16... a doe taken with a 30-30 model 94 Winchester. Still have that gun, locked up in my safe. That was back in 1972 and 73. Since then many many deer have kept the freezer full, but the best part is having memories packed tenfold in my mind.

I couldnt hunt until I could shoulder, hold and aim a gun. So I was 13 killed my 1st deer at the age of 14. I'm like that with my son he is 8 can't shoulder and hold up a gun, he can't hunt. I did go buy him a 20gauge turkey season maybe different situation only smaller stock gun we have. I've been tempted to buy a field pod but I really want him to learn how to free hand before he starts using anchors and what not. I doubt we can wait until then, I'm sure a field pod is in his future.. right now he is more interested in trapping then deer hunting the 2 seasons start at the same time so we do more trapping anyways.

14 (1994), I believe...the first year I could legally hunt deer. Was a different ballgame then, no deer here til the 70's, so it was still pretty regulated. My son shot his first last season at 12, I wanted him to be able to handle the gun with absolute confidence, and understand what he was about to do.

I’m thinking 12-13. Dad and mom had a appointment at Cornell university and we got to stay home by ourselves for the week while they traveled to New York. Opening day was a Wednesday and we skipped school to hunt. Not particularly well thought out and we suffered the consequences

I started tagging along with an unloaded BB gun or 22 during pheasant hunting when I was 10. Started pheasant and small game hunting when I was 12. Deer season is during my birthday so I'll say I started deer hunting in 8th grade. Got my first deer in 9th grade. As I look back I really appreciate that slow progression.

started deer hunting at age 15 shot my first deer at 15 (or may it committed suicide)but it walked up to the truck as we stood there talking about what we had seen

Ha!

Hunting at age 12 , kill first at 14

12 was the legal age when I started

it changed the year my son was 11 with mentor hunting

he didn't shoot one till he was 12 but hasn't not shot one since 13 14 15 16

when he was 15 he shot 2

one he shot mid drive , gutted it quick and drug it to the end of the drive

I didn't get my first till 16


set up as realistic a senario as you can and have him practice a day of sitting or how ever you hunt

my sine could not sit still when he was 11 , fidget fidget

try him squirrel hunting maybe first ifyou can get the squirrel to calm down and hop right close , deer should happen also

Got my Alaska hunters education certificate in 1982 at 10 years old and started following my father in the woods immediately afterwards. I was carrying a rifle, but not allowed to shoot at a deer until 12 years of age.

8
12

Started deer hunting at 14, when the law allowed me to gun hunt. Missed an honest whopper that season with my Winchester single shot 20 gauge....got two shots off! I killed my first deer the next season with a .32 special model 94. I didn't bow hunt until 17. I followed my Pappy during deer season, doing drives, etc. That started when I was 7-8 yrs old. He let me tote my BB/pellet rifle as we hunted. By the time I was old enough to legally shoot a deer I'd already been killing small game with my air rifle and bow for years. I shot bunches of cottontails, squirrels (reds, greys, and fox sq.) woodchucks, etc. I hauled every one of them home and cleaned them for the table. My folks made a big fuss of eating them. I felt like Jan'l Boone. The old man loved to pull a cork, so on more than one occasion yours truly was the game processor in the family....including deer. Of course they fussed over that too. I had a swoll up head about it and was made to feel proud about it. There was a U.P. boot-jack buck the old man brought home one November that I skinned and quartered in our basement while the great hunters stayed upstairs drinking. My one uncle was notorious for tossing his cookies while gutting a deer. I made it a point to cut the antlers off the head, then show uncle Fish the brains (that was his real lifelong nickname). He made an awful fuss retching and gaging. I have those antlers as door-pulls in my old taxidermy showroom yet today. Both men have been gone for years, but I think of them often while going through that doorway.

12 for both, learned a hard lesson about buck fever in a very effective double whammy sort of way. Shot at a young three point, my dad asked me multiple times before i shot “ are you sure thats the one you want “ I shot, I missed, reloaded shot again and killed it. Out of the trees ran a nice mature 5 point, two vital lessons in the reality of patients and persistence.

I was twelve when dad let me carry on my own. 870 20g. I did kill one that essentially ran over me after being shot by my father. I counted it but actually I killed my first deer actually with a way to short PSE bow at 15 a doe. Dad joked it was a fluke and I killed a six point the next day out of same stand and proved it wasn’t. I still remember every minute of those hunts and I will be 42 in a few weeks.

... I jumped out of the womb prematurely and gummed a nice ten point to death

I thought it dropped dead from seeing your weird eye and uneven ears?

... maybe.... hard to recall... it happened fast

Age 10 ...with a knife.

Age 5. Shot my first deer at 13 with a 12 gauge Winchester 1300.

I started wandering aimlessly through the woods when I was eight or ten. Back then you could carry a gun when you were twelve and no one thought much about it. I could go to the local gas station/hardware store and buy individual shotgun shells for .25 apiece. My budget usually allowed for three at a time.

I was thirteen or fourteen when I first got interested in deer in a big way. Wound up killing my first when I was eighteen or nineteen. A doe. Had a love affair with them ever since and still haven't figured them out.

16 was legal age. Got two that year. A doe on our "party permit" and a 4 pt.

9-10 shot deer with 4:10 slug

Dad let me tag along on deer and elk hunts the first time when I was 6. I had a new single shot 22 but didn't carry it deer hunting. We did family drives a lot back then. I stayed right with my dad. Dad gave me an old bolt action 30-30 on my eleventh birthday.

Dad let me tag along around 6-7, shot my first at 12 because that was WI law at the time. My older boy shot his first at 8, and my youngest, 7, wants to shoot one this year, and i'll probably let him try. I have mixed emotions about it. Some of the boys friends have some super prime ground, and dad is a hunting nut, so along comes Johnny and he don't even know what end the bullet comes out of, but he can shoot a deer. My boys know hunter safety, gun safety, trapping, survival skills and when their goof ball friend gets a deer and they don't, it makes them feel inferior to some dingbat kid that can pull a trigger. And lately our deer ground isn't producing like it used to so we have to work our (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman)es of to get a shot, and with little kids there are a lot of varibles to overcome, and I dont mean getting cold and keeping them entertained, my boys are over all that already. But they are not as fast finding them in a scope, and they need shooting sticks, and so on. Like I said i have mixed emotions. I'm starting to enjoy trapping more over deer hunting especially with them, we can bring home a trophy everyday, instead of once in a blue moon.

I started at 15 and got my first one at 16.

Dan

I was 27 hunted for 4 years before I saw a deer got one on my 6 year of hunting. The season open here in 1967 I got my first deer in 1973. I probably have more deer on my farms now than was in the whole county back then. One of my farms was within a half mile of the first release site and was where I got my first deer.

I was 12 years old when I started. We had a farm pond that had some muskrats and I caught 6 the first year of trapping.

Started going with my dad when I was 9 or 10. First hunt was at 11 for squirrel and I got 2 pine squirrels with the .22. Had to wait until I was 12 to deer hunt and I shot a decent 6 point at 1pm on the first day with my grandpa's .222.

16,
I was alone shortly after getting my drivers license. I killed a 5x5 buck that would be lucky to make 130” but at the time I thought I killed a giant.

8, shot a mule deer buck at 9, whitetail at 11, also 2 mulie bucks with one shot at 11 (1 was about 20 yards behind the buck I was aiming at)

I started when I was 13. Killed a spike buck when I was 14 in 1967.

Moosetrot

12 years old got a 4 point first day with the old man's 222 at 150 yards. Remember it like it was yesterday.

Started as a young teen myself. No deer within 60 miles of my hometown in my youth. My son shot a buck at 10 and my grandson got a doe at 8. No minimum age in N.C. Proud grandpa.

Have to add that my son started hunting with us around 10, albeit without a gun because it would have been illegal then. He sat in the stands, walked along, etc. and he learned an awful lot about hunting without being able to shoot and I think that developed him into the fine hunter he is now. He nailed a nice 9 point on opening day of his first legal year at 12 years old. I had already killed two doe that had come up on my side of our side-by-side ladder stands. When he got his buck we were completely filled up by 8:30 in the morning and packed up to head home.

I looked at him and said "Dan, it's not always like this!"

Moosetrot

When I first started hunting and trapping there were no deer in our area, or almost no deer. I saw my first deer when I was 12 years old, had one rin across in front of me as I was driving a tractor from one farm to another. I was so excited to tell my Dad what I saw. When I did I was told "There ain't any deer around here."
I started hunting deer, bow hunting, when I was 17 and killed my first one 5 years later.
Since then the deer population has exploded. I can't tell you how many I have killed since, but it is several.

Started at 10 killed my first deer at 11, with a Win. 94 30-30. I've saw more deer out the living room window in the last 1/2 hour than I did the first 2 years of deer hunting.

I started deer hunting at 10 or 11. To see a deer and you was the talk at school. Actually killed a deer at 11 or 12 and the pastor at church even recognized me, lol. Deer numbers have sure changed since then. One property they want 100 does taken and another property we’re shooting for 30-50.

Sorry!! I did not read the OPs first post. I thought the thread was about trapping! My Bad!