I began hunting with my father as a very small boy, following him puppylike through dense woods and acting as his retriever when he shot rabbit and squirrel. He gave me my first rifle at the age of eight, as I did with my son. From age five he took me fishing, cutting a branch off a tree and tying fishing line onto it so that I could pull in sunfish while he went for bass. At about the same age he taught me how to both follow and lay a trail in the woods, and how to make an "Indian fire," large enough to cook over by small enough not to be noticed at a distance. When I was ten he gave me my first bait-casting rod. To him, bait-casting was an art form. At his direction, I spent untold hours in the backyard casting a dummy lure into an old bicycle tire, putting a handkerchief between my elbow at my side to keep me from "throwing" the rod at my target, so that I could learn to snap a rod using only my wrist. ~Born Fighting, p. 331-332
Thanks, Josh.