Over nighter...

[GregB]

Thanks for sharing your learning experiences with us and letting us give advice to help you on the path you're following. You might not realize it, but you're giving a lot of us older guys the opportunity to remember back to our youth and maybe relive a bit of it through you as well as pass it on to you. Many of us have followed the same path you're now venturing down...it's obvious that your father has traveled this path as well.

I have two son's myself, age's 15 and 20, and neither of them show the interest in the outdoors. I've tried to explain the feeling of sitting on stand on a frosty cold morning and watching the sun come up. Hearing the red birds make the first bird songs of the morning. Seeing the mist rising above the foilage as the sun warms and starts melting the frost. Watching the leaves falling and fixing your gaze on one in particular and watching it travel to its final destination on the forest floor. Maybe even seeing a good whitetail buck easing through the woods and noticing the steam of his breath escaping from his mouth...that's the good stuff!

[stickbender]

     Like Greg said.  I am so thankful that my Father took my Brother and I hunting at an early age.  I was five yrs. old and when we would all pile into the truck with the jeep with airplane tires, and loaded down with bedding, homemade ice coolers, which actually worked better than the Igloos I have now.  My Dad, Mom, Grandfather, Brother, and myself, and two dogs.  We would stay in a big ol home made canvas tent with a metal (EMT) electrical tubing frame, and old army cots.  But the times we had were just phenomenal, and the food, just the smell of the woods, the damp soil, the swamps, the Owls in camp, and having a hoot out, to see " Who" was the dominant Owl, and my Grand father cussing at them and getting up a one in the morning to chase them away, because he was going turkey hunting before daylight, to get to the place where he and my Dad had roosted some turkeys.  The thrill when he would come back with a Turkey, and my Dad would come back with a Buck.  And the Food! Did I mention the Food?!! My God, my Mom could cook.  She would make Squirrel stew, or Squirrel and dumplings, or fried squirrels, fried quail, doves.  And when My Dad, and Grandfather came back with a couple of ducks Oh, Man!  My Brother and I were in charge of getting squirrels, with our .410's.
The frost on the ground, the smell of the grass, the sound of a Hawk, squawking as it flies overhead, The crows, and ravens, frog hunting in the edges of the saw grass near the camp at night.  The naturalness of it all.  It is just something that will stay with me the rest of my life.  Oh how I wish I could be that age and do it all again.  So by all means enjoy, and thank your parents for the priceless gift they have given you, and enjoy it to the fullest.  Like Greg said, just study everything around you, the leaves, the insects, the plant life.  You'd be surprized what you can see, and learn.  Like what really IS important and what is just decorations, in life.  And by all means pass it on to your children.  If your wife won't have it, trade her in for more compatible model!

                                                                                Wayne

[GregB]

Wayne, very well said!

Some of the best times and experience's in my life have been spent in the woods. Like Wayne said, much of the equipment they used camping was homemade and very inexpensive to make I'm sure. My family when I was growing up didn't have a lot of money, but looking back on it now and all the good experiences we shared...like Wayne's family, we were rich! Not financially, but a much fuller kind that makes for good memories!

It is so obvious with the events going on now in our country and around the world that so many people are driven by greed. They just don't get it! The experiences that Wayne shared with us concerning his family trips to the woods as a child were great times then, and are priceless memories for him now. Both my parents are gone now, and often I wish I could go quail hunting or trot-lining again with my dad, or have some of my mothers homemade biscuits with sorgum molasses! I wish my dad could have had some of my homemade wine, and see some of the bows I've made...maybe he can...

Time in the woods, selfbows, homemade cane arrows, camp fire's complete with dutch oven's cookin', bottle of homemade wine, cold mornings in a stand deer hunting, these experiences shared with family and friends are the best things in life. How do you define a successful life? 

[Sparrow]

 Hey Huntertrapper   I heard you was headed to Alaska for a hunt  I live in Hoonah (About 30 miles from Juneau)  Good luck on that hunt !  I got something I'd like to send you to add to your outfit.  Bring it up to your Pa  and let me know.Send me a mailing address if all is good.  Frank