How many of you grew up in a shooting/hunting family?

My biological father owned a chain of gun shops, was a professional big-game hunter, former Marine Corps sniper who bunked with Carlos Hathcock, owned his own bush planes, and wrote for Field & Stream.

My stepdad was a former rancher, turned cop, and avid hunter.

I've been around guns for as long as I can remember. Neither of my two kids is into guns. Both are libs. Sad legacy. Hopefully I can save my grandkids.

I grew up with a brother who was a gun nut and family that hunts. I’ve hunted since I was 13yo and guns since 15yo.

I grew up with both sets of granparents, aunts and uncles, and parents all gun users. Both parents meat hunters just to keep us fed. My first memories are of the 12 GA beside the front door in almost every realitives home and then at about 4 years old shooting my grandfathets M1 Carbine with his help in the back yard. Just got better from there.

My father started me out with a .410 single shot at age 8. We hunted rabbit, pheasant and quail. In the off season we shot trap almost every weekend. We reloaded constantly. My mother had no interest but was happy to see us spending quality time together. We started duck hunting in my teens. My favorite memory of my father was watching him sit in a duck blind, Browning 12 gauge in his lap and a fishing rod in his hand, God bless him. To say dad had a passion for guns would be an understatement. He planted a seed in me that has grown for 50+ years.

I am.

My first Pronghorn antelope at age 14...

I did not. I grew up in the city and my Dad wasn't a shooter. Providentially, I married well. My father-in-law was a great outdoorsman. He helped my wife buy my first firearm 30+ years ago ... a Mossberg 500 combo that I still have. I attribute my hunting and shooting interests to him. He died three years ago this month; I miss him.

My dad and grandpa as well as an uncle and 2 cousins were the only hunters in my entire extended family. That is really saying something when my dad had 13 siblings and my mom had 6. I have 37 aunts and uncles and 42 first cousins from a rural area and just 5 of us grew up hunting.

My dad isn’t a great outdoorsman by any stretch either. He hunts during gun season and doesn’t much think about hunting otherwise. I showed interest so he took me with him when I was younger and it stuck.

I would pester him to go out squirrel and rabbit hunting too which I suppose he reluctantly did because he never seemed to care about it otherwise.

When my cousins got older we all would go small game hunting in the months before deer season.

My mom and dad’s families both hunted and fished and stuff, but didn’t really shoot recreationally otherwise. My dad had given up hunting by the time i got interested but never denied me an opportunity to go with an uncle or cousin. So, yeah, I grew up around it but was never “guided” to it.

doubled

Father was a career military officer. WWII, Korea, Vietnam. Same thing for my father in law BTW. Father never had any long guns and wasn't a hunter but he had his service 1911 and an Iver Johnson in .38 SP and one in .32. I believe the revolvers came from my mothers side of the family but not sure.

No mater where we where living, we moved every year or two, my father had my two brothers and I involved in shooting sports. 4H, police youth league, something. Started with .22 then clays which was my favorite. My older brother bought a bolt action .22 when he was 13 but when he went off to college it went with him. All my friends had bolt action .22's and there I was without. Father told me if I wanted one I had to work for the money. I hustled that summer cutting lawns and baggin' groceries for tips. Picked out a .22 Glenfield auto loader and it was a proud moment when I gave my father the money to buy it for me. This was 55 years ago. My bolt action friends were just a little jealous.

My uncle, fathers younger brother, had a fairly large piece of property just north of the Rio Grande near Valentine, Texas. Spent at least four weeks there during the summer months. I learned to hunt rabbits and dove there. Deer hunting is during the winter months so I had to wait until I was out of school to hunt the elusive mule deer. My uncle had two families that had a deer lease on his place. Every other year my cousins, uncle and my two brothers and I would build blinds for the deer hunters. Sometimes we would camp there. It was awesome. My uncle was an engineer during the Korean war and was particular about concealment and fields of fire. I saw my first mule deer from one of those blinds and one day way off in the distance a Mexican bear with two cubs. Also saw my first illegal aliens from one of the blinds. My brother and cousin saw a big cat by a creek one evening. Uncle didn't believe them at first until he saw a couple of prints. Big thrill for an eleven year old.

Here
Both Grandpas, Dad, and a couple Uncles were all fowl, small and large game hunters. Got my first shot at deer hunting at 15 years old with my Grandpa's (soon after mine) Browning Auto 5 12 ga. Got a small buck at about 40 yards through some fairly dense thickets. Anyway, after that my main hunting Grandpa passed, my dad kinda stopped hunting, and that meant none with my Uncles either. So after that I would hunt alone or with a friend or two, and also got into handgun hunting. I can say I'm the first in several generations to own/use/hunt with any type handgun. None of my relatives (recent ancestrally) ever owned or used a handgun.I actually taught my Dad how to shoot handguns in his later years.

Thanks for the question OP, I hadn't really ever thought about this...

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Hunting since 9yo. Nearly 50 years later,, still have that old 19teens single shot 12 gauge. Family always had gardens, fished and hunted to put food on the table. In the freezer and in the root cellar . Still do.

Pop was Ex-Navy WW2, deer hunted when he could. I went along most times, and he used a stock .303 No.1 Mk III with Remington 215gr soft points (no longer available).

He had only bought the one box, and it yielded 7 deer over the years; I treasure that box, with a couple rounds left he didn't need.

I still have that rifle, and the .22 Savage 29B he bought for me in '60 when I was 7. He passed in '80, and miss him every day.

Conelrad

My Dad was a cop. His dad had a .22 for squirrels, and a 16 ga. Single shot H&R for pheasant hunting. Luckily for my Dad he was taught how to shoot pistol by the PD pistol team champ, and shotgun by a good friend that he eventually talked in to joining the force. That guy also taught me to shoot shotgun. Dad had me shooting a Ruger MkI in the basement at 5. He had another good friend on the force who was on the NG RIfle team, who taught both of us how to shoot a rifle well. Needless to say both my sons grew up in a shooting family:


My dad and my older son a few years ago on a pheasant hunt.


My Dad trying out my Norinco SKS, and my younger son shooting a friend's dad's S&W .32. His brother (in the BDU shirt) is loading something, don't remember what.

For many years my dad hunted ducks, doves, quail etc.. The first time I ever fired a shot gun was on my first dove hunt around the age of 10. The noise hurt my ears , so dad actually stood behind me and held my ears. Dad took me hunting quiet a bit growing up.
Though he had a couple pistols , he never shot them much. I got addicted to those all by myself.
David

Fine Figure of a Man said:

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Same.

Pops was a PPC shooter and did a fair amount of hunting.

We started at an early age.

Shooting clays was a pretty important family event. Pops always made a day out of it. Fond memories.

By the time I was 12, I was trusted with my own .22 for the entire day to hunt squirrels. I carried that little rifle everywhere.

I didn't really get into handguns until I was 16 or 17 but started on a model 19 smith and gravitated towards Pop's Sig P220 shortly after that.

My dad owned pistols, rifles, and shotguns and taught me to shoot, but wasn’t a hunter; he primarily owned guns for defense, and actually had a “save” late one night in the Croatan National Forest (no shots fired) when I was very young. My sister and I are both shooters to this day, and we both have CHLs (as does my dad).

In Jr. High, our school had a club where we shot 'rental' Ruger 10/22 rifles at Hodgdon's range in KC. Fun stuff!

My father taught us to shoot my GF's .22 with those iron sights. My brother has it now, and I've got the beautiful, restored 12 ga. It was my first real bird gun.

My family are fishermen all around, dad learned to hunt from his dad.
That's what happens when you're one of seven kids born in the depression, then come back from Korea trained as a barber and open a shop just in time for the 60s and 70s. He needed to hunt just to afford meat on the table.

My dad had guns when he was in the navy, but they were stolen well before I was born. My grandfather on my mother's side hunted, but while she was familiar enough with firearms she didn't hunt or shoot much till I got interested in it.

Dad always had guns and hunted, my brother and sister hunted some but only a season or two. Mom never hunted but has shot guns and taken some classes. I have shot guns very early we went shooting most weekends, I always went with my dad hunting, I've been every year since I was old enough for small same.

My grandparents on my dads side hunted, but they farmed so never did any shooting apart from hunting. Funny thing my grandfather would get the license but grandma did most of the hunting, and held the state record buck for a few years in the 50s. My mom's parents as far as I know did not have guns, grandpa died when my mom was young, he was from Luxemburg mimi was from Wales both left after wwii to N.Y..

My dad was a farmer. Only shot at pest animals. Brother and I had BB guns and hunted sparrows and starlings a LOT.

Dad was a WWII PT boat gunner's mate, so he understood firearms just fine (and actually shot well) but was sort of indifferent to 'em when it came to himself and owned none of us his own. That said, he was fine with his 3 boys owning 'em, but all choices when it came to acquiring a new one were run through him. He also insisted on early training and, at first, shooting/hunting only with him, the two older brothers or one trusted neighbor dad.
By about the time I was 16, I was free to go hunting or plinking whenever I liked.
The 3 boys still hunt birds together, and two of us and one nephew are pretty active recreational shooters (shotgun, rifle, pistol).
Dad wasn't a harsh man by any stretch, but we did things by his rules. After hunting, for instance, you took care of your game and your gun pronto. Game went straight to mom for the pan or the freezer.