How My Father Taught Me To Shoot

Newcastle, Australia is one of the largest cities in the country so you wouldn’t think there were too many opportunities to go hunting. I was in fact, a city kid. I grew up about 100 yards from one of the most beautiful beaches in the country, so surfing was my number one sport, followed by cricket and soccer.

However, my dad was a huge outdoors loving man who liked to go into the bush with his mates, drink copious amounts of beer and Bundaberg rum, and kill a few kangaroos or whatever poor animal was stupid enough to cross their path. It may sound shocking that Australians like to hunt one of the two animals on their coat-of-arms, but kangaroos are in plague proportions in some parts of the country, and they make good food for the working dogs on the sheep and cattle stations.

My dad also liked to fish–beach fishing mostly–with a huge 15 foot long bamboo beach rod, necessary to cast out past the breaking surf. He took me with him on many occasions either to the beach or to the wharf on the harbor, and we spent some of the best times of my life sitting side by side with a packet of smelly green prawns for bait between us and a cooler of sodas and beer. Sometimes he even let me have a sip of his lager right from the bottle. We were MEN!

One year, I guess I was about 12 years old, he decided that he would take me on a vacation without “the girls”. Just us two guys–look out world, here we come. Dad rented a tiny caravan (travel trailer to you Americans), loaded the galley up with cans of tomato soup, and away we went.

At some point we found ourselves on a lonely country road. Dad pulled to the side and told me to get out and get a few of the empty soup cans from the trailer. We then walked a few yards into the bush, him carrying something long and slender wrapped in an old burlap sack. It turned out to be a very abused and scratched .22 rifle that he had borrowed from his mate. He had decided it was time for me to learn how to shoot and kill soup cans.

We set the targets on a fallen log about 20 yards in front of us, and after giving me a few basic instructions about how not to shoot each other, we both were soon scaring the heck out of those cans with shots that flew by them at close distances, but never actually managing to hit one.

I was in heaven. This was the best thing we had ever done together. And I knew then that I would always have a love for guns, shooting, and tomato soup.

Not long after, dad, his mate Bob, Bob’s eldest son and myself went duck hunting together for the first time. We motored down the Clarence River in a very small aluminum boat with an old (very old) 12 gauge side by side, once again wrapped in an old burlap bag in the bottom of the boat as it wasn’t exactly duck hunting season, and we didn’t believe in government imposed permits or licenses.

Needless to say, the safest animals in Australia that day were the ducks flying near the Clarence River. Not one was even slightly ruffled by either of the two fathers. Looks like we were going to have to buy fish on the way home for dinner. My dad, however, thought it would make me more manly if I had a shot or two, so he loaded both barrels and handed me the gun. Being young and stupid, I immediately stood up in the stern of the tiny boat, pointed the gun in the approximate direction of a few ducks overhead, and managed to pull both triggers simultaneously. 

The recoil was so great on my puny body that it threw me clear out the back of the boat into the river. My dad though had the presence of mind to grab the shotgun by the barrels and save it from the water. He knew I was a good swimmer, so he had his priorities right.

I don’t remember ever going shooting with him after that, but I was hooked on firearms and joined the Australian Army Cadets as soon as I entered high school. During the next 6 years I got to shoot some really cool weapons including Lee-Enfield .303 rifles, Vickers and Bren machine guns, and later the new Armalite AR-10s being issued to Australian troops in Vietnam.

I taught my own son how to shoot when he was about the same age as I was when my dad taught me. But we don’t go duck hunting! Thanks Dad.