General hunting season is almost here and I’m reminiscing about hunting as a youth.
Looking back, by the end of my first season I was only 12, but wandering in the middle of nowhere doing roughly 6 mile remote treks, in pretty deep snow, and didn’t really think much about it. My dad was generally ”in the area”, but we didn’t have devices to communicate or a GPS, just a crappy photocopied map or the area.
If we were lost or in trouble, our system was to build a bonfire, then fire a signal shot every 5 minutes until your out of bullets (we all carried 20 bullets so about 2 hours of signal shots). I don’t know what we would do if we ran out of bullets and no one came? We always found each other if we had an animal down or something went wrong.
I’m curious if the increase in predators (wolves and grizzlies) has changed how young youth hunters go at it alone in the greater Missoula area. We would only maybe see one wolf/griz track a season back then. Now it’s pretty common.
What’s an appropriate age to send a youth hunter off on their own now? What age were you when you were capable to get dropped off in a fairly remote area by another hunting party and able to confidently make a rendezvous, and deal with an animal in the event you are successful on the way?