Funny things you pick up from a book when reading it, hence this thread.
If you had the ability to go back to the point your hunting/shooting obsession began, what is the one and only thing you would you say to your younger self?
I know it will be hard to narrow it down to just one, there are so many.
For me, buy components even if you don't need them.
I would tell myself to buy certain parcels of land.
A few decades ago in the South, there was an 883 acre parcel of river bottom farm and wooded land that was owned by an out of state farm coop, and my brother and I often hunted it with no one else caring to hunt there. It had several acres of hardwoods with squirrels and deer, some swampy flooded timber and field in winter with mallard and wood ducks, plenty of great rabbit habitat, fall dove migration, quail and other.
During a downturn in bean and cotton prices, the land came up for sale and set for a couple of years with the price plummeting from $500,000 to $300,000. I pleaded with my older brother to join in buying the land and turn it into a hunting sanctuary, for deer hunting was just beginning to take off in our area with populations growing. Since he was making much more money than I at the time, and I was still raising 2 kids, I did not think I could single handed swing the loan for the property. However, at the time, there were government programs called CRP that would pay farmers to take their land out of crop production and plant pine trees. The program paid up to $50 per acre for ten years and assisted in the tree planting costs.
Just as I thought I had my brother ready to join in the purchase, he back out and went another direction into housing real estate. Fearful of taking on the debt myself and even after I did all the calcs showing it was doable, I too backed out. After a couple of more months on the market, a friend of mine and old school buddy decided to purchase the property and commenced to do exactly what I had discussed.
Under CRP, he planted several hundred acres in trees, repaired the old dirt road and culvert drainages, planted various food plots, created shooting lanes, etc, etc, and in a few short years, it became a wonderful private hunting preserve. Shortly thereafter, he built a nice home on the front entrance and had paradise. At least as I saw it.
Over the years, there were other parcels of small farms that sold for rather low prices, but at the time, I was not forward thinking enough to see what those properties would become worth.
If I could only go back and convince that kid to take the risk.
