Like father, like son

Bud reminisces with pride about teaching his children to enjoy the outdoors

By Bud Fields

Outdoors with Bud

Like any father, we are all proud of our children, and I am certainly no exception. I feel secure in saying I believe I have two of the best kids a person could ever dream of raising.

Yes, I wanted them both to achieve things I could only dream of and have things I always wanted and to eventually have happy lives and have healthy families. And, for the most part, they did. They both graduated high school. One graduated from college, and they are both happily married, with wonderful families.

Both of our children enjoyed camping, fishing, and hiking, and even today, they still enjoy spending time with their own children and grandchildren, and of course that is just another reason I am extremely proud of them.

When we have the opportunity, we still enjoy spending time together. Our daughter lives in Zionsville, and we get together for cookouts and fishing in the retention pond behind her house. We spend time camping whenever we can.

Our son lives in Utah, so you can imagine the difficulty we have spending time with him. But our son really took after his father because he also enjoys hunting.

I started taking him squirrel hunting before he was old enough to go to school, and he started rabbit hunting with me when he had trouble walking in the snow. He liked to play with the beagles I had raised, and many times when we returned to the truck, I was carrying him on my back as he would be sound asleep.

As he grew older, I was fortunate enough to be one of his Indiana Safety Education Instructors, and at the time we were allowed to conduct the classes in school. He passed the course with a fantastic grade, and he wanted to go deer hunting.

I took him out scouting a number of times, teaching him how to see and interpret deer sign -- like droppings and tracks -- the anatomy of a deer, where to aim for a high percentage shot, ethical harvesting, what deer liked to eat, how to find deer travel trails, and all the things that would be important to become a safe, ethical deer hunter.

I taught him how to shoot a bow, gun safety, and everything I could to make his deer hunting as much fun as possible, and whenever we could, between his school classes, school sports games and practices, we spent time in the woods. He became quite efficient as a hunter and angler.

Recently, he sent me a photo of his personal best fish he caught on Payette Lake in McCall, Idaho. It was a 35-pound Lake Trout that was 37" long and had a 27" girth. He said he and his friends were trolling a purple, long-billed crankbait in 60 feet of water when the fish hit. It took him approximately 35 minutes to get the trophy landed, and it was totally exhausted.

You might say he has bested his father in so many ways. He lives in a paradise for hunting and fishing. He has the opportunity to hunt elk, deer, antelope, bear, and all the dream animals I never had the opportunity to pursue. He has access to some of the most pristine waters that I dreamed of only seeing during a few brief visits. Am I jealous? Well, maybe just a little, but I am truly happy for him.

By the way, I often sit back and remember those hunting trips of me carrying him on my back and teaching him as much as I could in the woods and on the water and how to operate the boat motor. I will admit it would be much tougher carrying him on my back today. He grew much taller than me, and at 6’ 4”, his long legs would be dragging the ground.

But we sure managed to catch a lot of crappie, bluegill, northern pike, musky, carp, catfish, and largemouth and smallmouth bass. We brought home several hundred rabbits, squirrels, quail, foxes, coyotes, and whitetail deer. Several years we both combined and filled a couple freezers with six whitetail deer.

I guess the apple didn't fall far from the tree. The old adage is true: Like father, like son!