Hunting With Dad

Some of the earliest memories that I have are spending time in the woods hunting with my dad. I grew up in Dallas County in central Alabama in one of the Whitetail meccas of the southeast

I started hunting around the age of 10. Dad belonged to a club in south Dallas County called Little Foote Hunting Club. It still exists today some 40 years later. We mainly hunted out of tree stands in the beginning but switched to elevated box blinds later on. When dad would take me with him down there I thought it was the greatest thing in the world. We’d stop at that old store outside town to get us a cold drink and head to the woods for the weekend.

My earliest memories of hunting with dad were centered around that old sharecropper home turned weekend getaway. It wasn’t much as hunting cabins go with bunk beds in two rooms with a store fireplace at one end and a pot bellied stove at the other. I remember as a kid that place being so full of love, not only from dad but from his hunting buddies as well. Friday nights were Steak Night and we feasted like kings. But come 5am on Saturday morning that place became serious. Everyone would gather around the sign in book and want to know “Johnny, where you going?”

There are so many stories I could tell. Some like killing my first deer from a “training” stand for us kids called “The Pigpen” I remember my dad came running after I shot because he figured I fell out of the tree and shot myself. He was proud that day. And so was I.

It’s the simple things that I remember. Walking into a stand together early one foggy morning through the clear cut, the fog was so thick you couldn’t see 6 feet in front of you. At just about daybreak we were walking a ridge out to the stand and there stood two silhouettes of deer. I’m sure they saw two figures in the fog as well but couldn’t recognize us as a danger. Everyone just stood there for a good minute staring.

One time dad and I were hunting from two separate stands not 10 yards from each other. Watching two different hollers with our backs to each other. After climbing in the stand I guess I spooked this little spike and he took out across the clear cut. I was fairly new to using a rifle and had someone’s old 30-30. Hell I started throwing lead at that poor deer and had almost emptied the chamber when dad hollered at me to stop. To say buck fever hit me was obvious. Of course when we got back to camp everybody wanted to know who shot. Not us, we said.

I remember going to my uncle and cousins properties after I went off to college with dad. Those were special times. My mom had passed away and dad was just getting used to being a widower. I remember us not going to really kill a deer but to spend time together in the deer woods. I would be looking hard for deer and dad would be over there snoozing away. Every now and then he’d open one eye to check everything out. We would walk out in the early afternoon and he’d tell me how much he enjoyed the morning walking into the stand together “just one more time”.

Dad’s older now, just turning 80. We live far away from each other with me in Tennessee and him in Nebraska living with his second wife he reconnected with after working together in the insurance industry years ago. We don’t see each other much but this last December he flew down and I was able to take him on my 40 acres of hunting property. We sat in the UTV together and looked at food plots, tree stand locations and just spent time in the woods together again. It was a great time.

The things he has taught me over the years about hunting and the outdoors have been invaluable. From how to shoot a gun, track a deer, see and recognize sign, and just be a good steward of the outdoors. I am now starting to take my 6 year old daughter out into the woods. She is helping me put up stands and plant food plots.

I hope I can be just half the father to her like my dad was to me. They just don’t make dads like that anymore. I’ll never forget those times together in the woods.

Shon Ingram is a Tennessee-based trapper and outdoorsman who shares practical, real-world knowledge and products for hunting, trapping, and fur handling. He is the creator of HuntTrapTN, where he focuses on keeping traditional skills alive. Learn more at HuntTrapTN.com.