Article written by agent Jack Fauntleroy who resides in Throckmorton, Texas and represents ranch buyers and sellers in its surrounding counties. Read more about Jack Fauntleroy.
There is a short period of time in a child’s life when they go from not being able to do anything without their parents, to all of a sudden not wanting to do anything, at all, with their parents. I call this the “I love you daddy” stage.
My daughter, Olivia, is 9 years old. She loves her daddy more than anyone. However, having friends with older children, I came to realize that there is a very short period of time for parents to form a lasting relationship with a child and I needed to act quickly.
Since I am the parent and not into Minecraft, at all, I picked the hobby that we would try together. I remember my father taking me hunting when I was younger. It was something that my father did with me…not my brother or sister…just me. It offered us great time together and formed good memories that I still have to this day. I knew that father-daughter hunting was the perfect opportunity to give us quality time together.
Now my father was not, by any stretch of the imagination, the “great northern hunter” and neither am I. However, because I went dove hunting my whole life, I figured this would be a great place to start. I called up my friend Mack that has a complete arsenal of weapons and told him I wanted to take my daughter out shooting. I wanted to see how she liked guns and if she would take to shooting a gun. My friend Mack was, of course, totally on board with this idea. Olivia and I went out with my friend and shot a couple hand guns and a couple shotguns just to get a feel for what she liked. I started to notice, however, that the noise was scaring her. Even with ear protection, the loud bangs and the raw power of a gun was too much for her. On the drive home we talked about the different guns and the noise and she told me it was just a “little too loud for her”. I knew she really didn’t want to tell me that because she was looking forward to hunting with dad just like I was….but there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
The next week I was in a sporting goods store and came across a compound bow and the light bulb went off. Talk about great timing. The sales guy walked up and said “you into bow hunting?” and I answered “I am now!” It was great all the way around. I found a store, Corky’s Huntin Country, that was exclusively into bow hunting and got us both set up right away. The people that own the store were excellent to work with and got my daughter the right size compound bow, the right size arrows (pink camo of course) and set us both up with lessons.
Since bow hunting was all new to me, Olivia and I got to take lessons and learn about this type of hunting together from the start. Several nights last fall, we would take off together and go to the bow shooting range at the store and practice. Finally this past spring we were able to go out turkey hunting together for the first time. Man what a sight… Camouflage from head to toe, face paint, turkey caller…we were both totally in! We didn’t get to shoot a turkey but that’s probably because we were talking and laughing most of the time…. but wasn’t that the point anyway.
Jack Fauntleroy-Agent
Hortenstine Ranch Company, LLC
jack@hrcranch.com
940-550-4432
I want to thank:
Corky’s Huntin Country- Throckmorton, Texas 940-862-3321