• If you are being asked to change your password, and unsure how to do it, follow these instructions. Click here

What is the one piece of hunting/shooting advice you would give yourself if you could go back in time

Just Go! If there's a hunt you want to do. Just go do it. You'll figure it out weather is the money or time or logistics of it all. You will run out of health and time before you run out of money. And buy tags not gear. Ive ran into so many guys that will buy a new bow every year but claim they don't have the money to go on a western hunt. I'm 45 and go on my first western hunt till is was 35. If I had it to do over I would've moved west when I was 18.
 
To play devils advocate I don't regret any rifles I've sold, life's too short to waste component money on rifles I don't use or love.

I don't sell heirlooms or gifts, but anything I've bought is a tool and if it's not what I want or like to use it gets axed
Agreed. My dad has always told me never to sell a gun, period. But some guns weren't worth keeping. I have one that I've regretted selling, as I was young and dumb. I'll never get that one back. But for the most part, of the dozen or so guns I've sold, they were forgettable enough I can hardly remember some of them. Sell the guns that don't mean much to you so you can put the money into guns that work better for your goals.
 
I would tell my young self,
I eat three times a day. Perty is, as perty does.
Never marry crazy, and use a buddy's name for the fun
Plastic surgery can fix a lot, but there's no fixing stupid, although dumb can have a certain quality at times.
The deaf, mute, gourmet chef, nympho? Don't let that one go. Just fricken learn the sign language. She is serious about investing in a chain of liquor stores.
 
Forget the hot rod cars and trucks, they are a waste of money and they will make you deaf. Profoundly deaf above 2,000 hertz in my case. Buy land!
Take note that most self made millionaires made their money in real estate. Buy land!
I agree wholeheartedly on buying real estate. Especially in a growth area. I had my own construction company and worked my *** off. Now I am retired and selling of parcels of real estate that I bought while working. Making more money than I did when I was working 6 days a week and one hell of a lot easier.
Just wish I would have bought everything I could when it was cheap.
 
Funny things you pick up from a book when reading it, hence this thread.

If you had the ability to go back to the point your hunting/shooting obsession began, what is the one and only thing you would you say to your younger self?

I know it will be hard to narrow it down to just one, there are so many.

For me, buy components even if you don't need them.
I would tell myself to buy certain parcels of land.

A few decades ago in the South, there was an 883 acre parcel of river bottom farm and wooded land that was owned by an out of state farm coop, and my brother and I often hunted it with no one else caring to hunt there. It had several acres of hardwoods with squirrels and deer, some swampy flooded timber and field in winter with mallard and wood ducks, plenty of great rabbit habitat, fall dove migration, quail and other.

During a downturn in bean and cotton prices, the land came up for sale and set for a couple of years with the price plummeting from $500,000 to $300,000. I pleaded with my older brother to join in buying the land and turn it into a hunting sanctuary, for deer hunting was just beginning to take off in our area with populations growing. Since he was making much more money than I at the time, and I was still raising 2 kids, I did not think I could single handed swing the loan for the property. However, at the time, there were government programs called CRP that would pay farmers to take their land out of crop production and plant pine trees. The program paid up to $50 per acre for ten years and assisted in the tree planting costs.

Just as I thought I had my brother ready to join in the purchase, he back out and went another direction into housing real estate. Fearful of taking on the debt myself and even after I did all the calcs showing it was doable, I too backed out. After a couple of more months on the market, a friend of mine and old school buddy decided to purchase the property and commenced to do exactly what I had discussed.

Under CRP, he planted several hundred acres in trees, repaired the old dirt road and culvert drainages, planted various food plots, created shooting lanes, etc, etc, and in a few short years, it became a wonderful private hunting preserve. Shortly thereafter, he built a nice home on the front entrance and had paradise. At least as I saw it.

Over the years, there were other parcels of small farms that sold for rather low prices, but at the time, I was not forward thinking enough to see what those properties would become worth.

If I could only go back and convince that kid to take the risk.
 
Last edited:
If you had the ability to go back to the point your hunting/shooting obsession began, what is the one and only thing you would you say to your younger self?
Just buy a .223 and .308 Win, .270 Win, or .30-06. I could've hunted anything in NA with a .223 or one of those other three. Don't chase specialized cartidges, and worry about African DG rifles when you hunt Africa.
 
Yeah, land and primers. One of my friends owned a pretty impressive gun shop. When Obama came in office I was in his store and he said come in the back to the loading dock. there sat a pallet of primers. Mostly large rifle, but enough small rifle and pistol to last a while. One million primers. It was loaded onto the bed of a dodge dulely and it squatted. The guy had to wait four months to get them. I was never told the price. one customer bought a million. Think what that is worth today.
 

Recent Posts

Top