Hunting Inheritance

Phil Hardman passes on his hunting wisdom to the next generation

- Phil Hardman

This month’s feature started with a conversation with a reader who I had the pleasure of meeting in my local gun shop. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch his name, but the question he asked me really stood out, and it forms the basis of this month’s piece. The question was a fairly simple one, ‘What lessons would you give to yourself about shooting, if you could go back to when you were younger?’

It might have been a simple question, but the answer it provoked in me was anything but simple. You see, I am a self-taught shooter. I didn’t have anyone to coach me on the basics of marksmanship, to zero my first telescopic sight for me, to explain trigger technique, breathing, or follow-through. All I had was trial and error, and a determination to succeed, to improve, to learn. That is why this question in particular resonated with me; just what do I wish I had been taught? What advice would I give a younger version of myself?

THE PERFECT CANDIDATE

As it so happens, I do have a younger version of myself these days. I have a few – my children – so I dragged my eldest son, Chris, away from his university studies for an afternoon, to discover exactly what advice I would give to him. Like all of my children, Chris has not shown a huge interest in hunting. Of course, when he was younger we had the odd plinking session and he would join me on a couple of hunting trips, even accompanying me on a weekend survival hunting trip that was featured in this very magazine almost a decade ago, when he was still a young lad, but it’s fair to say, for the most part, hunting is something Dad does. It’s Dad’s thing, and so, probably very uncool to my kids. That is a bit of an advantage for the purpose of this article because Chris doesn’t already know how to shoot – he is a bit of a blank canvas.

GUN FIT