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

Max 401k, Roth IRA and put what you can into other investment vehicles every year even if it means not buying all the toys. I'd be retired by now if I saved more sooner.
You are correct. I left the DOD civilian job as a Paramedic because the military base I worked on shut down, and became an employee of a company in Birmingham Alabama called Southern Research Institute. I was chief paramedic of a anti terrorist training facility. with a big bump in pay. I put 20% of my salary in high yield investments. In four years it grew to $285,000. Then 2008 happened. I also got hurt crashing on a Mt. Bike that forced my early retirement. Crap happens, still had money in a fers account, so forced retirement at 54 didn't hunt to much. Plus, every thing we owned, home, land and vehicles were paid for.
 
Mine will sound stupid, but go for the kill! I spent way too many big game seasons "waiting to see what happened".

When I learned to go after the animals and started to finally fill tags it was a game changer. You have to learn to kill before you'll be able to kill big ones. There's a reason a lot of the successful trophy hunters have pictures of little animals they tagged out on in their youth, they learned how to kill and then focused on killing mature animals after that.
 
Stay with the first wife! The opportunity cost of the next 3 divorces.....sure cuts into the hunting budgets!
Still with the first wife. The six kids probably cost more than the three divorces. After I figured out what caused the kids, I started hunting more. It costs less. My advice to my younger self would have been to use more patience. Problem was that I had none to use.
 
So true! Kill does whenever you can or even bucks that maybe later in life you pass. You have to learn all the nuances to pull a shot off which in the moment of a shooter buck becomes "muscle memory".
I agree also. I ask a friend who is a biologist and an avid, experienced hunter who has hunted all over the world what it takes to be calm, collected and confident when shooting an animal. He said you need to shoot a lot of animals, 200-300, in all different kinds of scenarios before you can do that.
I'm not there yet.
 
Still with the first wife. The six kids probably cost more than the three divorces. After I figured out what caused the kids, I started hunting more. It costs less. My advice to my younger self would have been to use more patience. Problem was that I had none to use.
My Brother...no truer words ever spoken! ( or typed)
 
I don't really have any advice for my younger self. I did the best I could with what I had, not that i did everything right, but that's the journey, the learning process, that's what's memorable, stupid mistakes and all, that's what I appreciate now. Still trying to do as much as I can when I can. But I mostly regret not having a family deer camp every year in the same location. Most of the men in my family died young, including my father, and my son never took to it, although he did join me on my only antelope hunt. But I've had a lot of fun and adventures considering. If I could just go back and buy a crappie cabin to start a family tradition. Luckily, I have few family members who like to join me in the mountains as often as possible, and this is one of those years!!
 
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