Yep. Life is long. Mentor someone else later.

Spend time with your son now. If that means less hunting/fishing, so be it.

If you do still do any hunting/fishing with him, do it in a way that makes it fun for him, even if it doesn't meet up to your standards. I.e. shoot more. Smaller game. Shorter sits. Bring a friend. Let them have an iPad while they wait. Whatever.

But if it just doesn't take, do what he likes. He'll be gone soon, and you'll have plenty of time to hunt and fish on your own or with friends.

I don't know, my dad didn't have to do anything to get me or my brother interested in it. We always wanted to go, I do think 10 is late to get them started. At 10 I had a seasoned lease I paid for by setting bowling pins, me and my brother switched off hunting with my dad when he still carried us to the blind.

Bout the same for me. Starting sitting when I was 3. My oldest daughter is 5 and this is her second season to go with me. She already wants to shoot. Probably 3 years til that happens.

I inherited 3 kids 2 1/2 years ago, two boys 10 and 8

Neither had been hunting before in their life


We are in deer blinds as I type this.


It will depend on the kid. The now 12 year old is eat up with it. Already planning on out of state trips, etc.

Younger one cares less about it but is still active, and is the better hunter in actuality.

Can't force them. Some kids just don't want to do it. My brother and sister had/have zero interest in it.

They may not be deer hunters either, but like wing shooting, etc.

LOL may get banned for this statement, but hunting is not the most important thing in the world. I got married and became step dad at 38. Sometimes they would want to go to lease to hunt sometimes not, but the invitation was there. Being that they are preteen and teenage girls the want to go got less and less frequent. So I just got off the leases and now spend more time doing what interest them. Then at 46 I was blessed to have a son that I hope wants to hunt and go to the lease when old enough (he is 8 months old now). If he don't I guess I will learn to love what he is interested in. Because of the life choices I made I was able to do pretty much what I wanted (hunting and fishing) for 20 years as a single man. Now I am father and the time to pursue my interest has passed.

Well atleast you have a boy who is hopefully into other outdoor things you enjoy as well. I have two daughters. One is a little one still, and the other is getting in that I want to do what the other girls are doing like cheer, tumbling, little dribbler(which I enjoy watching that) She'll go hunt with me and has killed some nice deer but she's quick to say "Nah, dad, I don't feel like going anymore." I understand that though at her girly preteen age...she likes to do what her friends are doing which isn't much outdoors stuff. I'm okay with it...as long as I get to see her happy doing what she likes.

big mistake to force a kid to hunt. or to play sports ect....

Took me 3 years for my son to decide to come out and shoot the rifle . This past saturday was his first hunt and shot a spike today we are sleeping over at the lease he wants a bigger buck now . Im so glad he came around to joing me . Been waiting for this moments for a long time .

Keep em off the pole. That goes for boys too if you catch my drift. As long as you do that, your'e good. If they don't like to hunt at the very least they'll save a good bit of money.

Try going hunting with him and not him going with you.