np307
Well-known member
I don't remember where I read the adage. I've never had a hunting dog, though I have been interested in a squirrel dog at some point. Somewhere along the way, though, I came across the saying: "When you're training a squirrel dog, you have to decide whether you want to train the dog or hunt squirrels. You can't do both." The better part of a decade ago, when I was still serving as the youth pastor of a small country church, I realized that saying applied to kids as well. There was a handful of teen boys who wanted to tag along with me (or, in their minds, me to tag along with them) on some squirrel hunts. We rarely killed squirrels but every now and then I could convince them to sit in one spot long enough for the woods to calm down. Last year I repeated this venture a few times with one big difference: I was training my 3-year-old. I took him on a few squirrel hunts, mostly working to teach him to walk in the woods and sit still. I don't think he ever saw a squirrel on any of those hunts.
My dad and I never had the chance to share the woods. He grew up when there weren't any deer in this part of the state and by the time the population had returned he was already feeling the effects of years of dock work. This meant I ended up teaching myself how to hunt as a college student, so I can't really reflect on the lessons of my youth to navigate handing this sport down to my son. The paradigm I'm following at this point is basically "encourage and cultivate what he shows interest in." Over the summer, his interest in hunting has really increased. He asked several times if he could go with me to hunt deer this year, not just squirrels. As the season opener approached, I carefully considered which of the spots I hunt would be best suited to walking in with a 4-year-old. I settled on a few different places that I've seen deer, mostly in early season.
On opening morning, I went into my boy's room and woke him up well before daylight. He excitedly put his hunting clothes and boots on and we loaded up. As we pulled into the gamelands entrance, I saw another vehicle already at the gate. No worries, it's a pretty big place. We start walking down the trail and as we get to where I want to turn down into a holler, a headlamp flashes at me. Classic public land scenario. The only real downside here was I didn't know if the trail had been maintained at all or if it was going to be overgrown. With daylight rapidly approaching, I just pulled him up onto my shoulders and away we went. A few hundred yards down the trail, we settled into a spot about 10 minutes before first light. A group of coyotes across the cutover called out until the sun started to backlight the morning.
My son listened to the coyotes and the birds for a little while and watched the sun start to come up. After just a few minutes, he opened up with his first question of the day: "when do we get to see a possum?" "A possum?" I said, "We're deer hunting buddy." "I know, but I wanna see a possum cause they live in the woods too." He answered. I explained the difference between when deer and possums move and told him it wasn't very likely that we would see one. His focus turned to other things and we sat there for just shy of 2 hours. "We" saw nothing but I saw a couple squirrels in the distance. He was moving too much for them to come closer. I took the opportunity at the end of that sit to go explore what the rest of the trail looked like so that he could practice sneaking. We got a biscuit on the way home and I wondered how the experience would live in his mind.
A few days later, I got another request to go hunting again. This time we went in blind to an area that I had hunted near several times and always been curious about. We settled in and I gave him a blanket as things were a little cooler this morning and he settled in to lay down beside me. No deer were sighted this morning but he did stay still enough to see a couple squirrels up very close. He was pretty excited about that and then almost as excited to see the deer sign we found when scouting around after we finished sitting. From that point on, he had pretty well figured out how he needed to sit in order to be able to see animals. This is not to say that he stayed still and quiet every time we hunted, but he at least had a reference point for when I told him to settle down.
As we got into gun season, the frequency of our hunts slowed down a little bit. Gun season pressures the deer pretty heavily and they move back into places that aren't suitable for taking a 4 year-old. We did go on a couple squirrel hunts though and finally got a couple for him to experience his first "successful" hunt. He was very excited to tell everyone about those squirrels but still he said that he liked deer hunting better than squirrel hunting because "deer are bigger than squirrels so they're better."
Gun season began to draw to a close and I decided to call in a favor for a private land hunt. The spot I wanted to go had only been hunted once or twice since bow season. It was a pretty small piece of private with a blind on it. During the early part of the year deer were constantly in there but the rut had moved things around quite a bit. As winter approached though, the deer had started to return to a more consistent feed pattern and I knew the chances were much better there than anywhere we could go on public land.
So on a December Saturday morning I woke the boy up and we loaded up in the truck to go do the type of hunting I have very little experience with. It felt so odd to walk in without a frame pack to a blind that was less than 100 yards from the truck. To sit in a lawn chair with cover from multiple directions. But there we sat. The sun came up and the chilly morning had sent my boy into my lap with the blanket over him. Just over an hour after sun up, I saw movement to our right. We were in a holler between two steep banks and a small doe was starting to descend the bank to cross in front of us. I told my boy to stand up and get ready but he interpreted that as "scramble to go hide on the other side of the blind." The doe looked our way and blew and turned around. She only blew once though and I didn't hear her bounding through the brush, so I was hopeful.
Sure enough, a few minutes later she returned with another doe, much bigger. As the lead doe crested the hill, she was staring directly and the blind. She slowly stomp-walked and head-bobbed toward us and we remained frozen. She tried to wind us but the weather was cooperating perfectly. I whispered to my son which direction to look as I anticipated she might walk the ridge around behind us and he watched her slowly start moving that way. I only had a shot directly in front of the blind and I had pretty much resigned that if she moved behind us then we wouldn't have an opportunity. Just as she got parallel to the blind, she turned to walk back uphill with her tail up. She blew a couple times and then the squirrels started chattering.
This whole time, my son had been glued to my leg. Watching with wide open eyes and very quietly letting me know what the doe was doing. He had really locked in to what needed to happen and was executing perfectly. As soon as those squirrels started chattering, it was like a switch had flipped. The doe either resigned that her fawn had mistaken the squirrels for danger or she crossed the point of trying to investigate any further. In any regard, she gathered the other doe and they descended the hill. I warned my son that he was going to lose sight of them for a minute but they would reappear directly in front of us and I would have a shot. He patiently waited until the big doe came back into view and started walking toward us. She had come down the hill about 40 yards away and was closing in on the blind, still a little suspicious but eating. The second doe came into view and started eating. I knew that I wanted to shoot the lead doe but she was refusing to turn. Eventually she had closed to 20 yards and I wasn't willing to risk her getting any closer and figuring out what the deal was. I warned my son I was about to shoot, aimed for a frontal chest shot, and squeezed. The impact knocked her to her knees and she stumbled for about 30 yards before crashing.
My son was so excited and after we had loaded the truck to head home, he looked at me and said "Daddy, we finally got one! I'm so happy." It's funny to hear his recollection of the story. He doesn't understand how close we were to being busted or what the doe was trying to do, so in his mind she was just wandering around on the hill. When explaining to a friend what happened on the hunt, he got to the point of the shot and said "and then my daddy shot her in the FACE."
I don't know what the future holds for this kid and hunting. For right now, he's understandably pretty excited about it but in a few years, other things may hold his interest. Regardless, I'll enjoy every moment I've had getting to show him the woods and teach him about hunting. He's already asking about when we can go turkey hunting.
My dad and I never had the chance to share the woods. He grew up when there weren't any deer in this part of the state and by the time the population had returned he was already feeling the effects of years of dock work. This meant I ended up teaching myself how to hunt as a college student, so I can't really reflect on the lessons of my youth to navigate handing this sport down to my son. The paradigm I'm following at this point is basically "encourage and cultivate what he shows interest in." Over the summer, his interest in hunting has really increased. He asked several times if he could go with me to hunt deer this year, not just squirrels. As the season opener approached, I carefully considered which of the spots I hunt would be best suited to walking in with a 4-year-old. I settled on a few different places that I've seen deer, mostly in early season.
On opening morning, I went into my boy's room and woke him up well before daylight. He excitedly put his hunting clothes and boots on and we loaded up. As we pulled into the gamelands entrance, I saw another vehicle already at the gate. No worries, it's a pretty big place. We start walking down the trail and as we get to where I want to turn down into a holler, a headlamp flashes at me. Classic public land scenario. The only real downside here was I didn't know if the trail had been maintained at all or if it was going to be overgrown. With daylight rapidly approaching, I just pulled him up onto my shoulders and away we went. A few hundred yards down the trail, we settled into a spot about 10 minutes before first light. A group of coyotes across the cutover called out until the sun started to backlight the morning.
My son listened to the coyotes and the birds for a little while and watched the sun start to come up. After just a few minutes, he opened up with his first question of the day: "when do we get to see a possum?" "A possum?" I said, "We're deer hunting buddy." "I know, but I wanna see a possum cause they live in the woods too." He answered. I explained the difference between when deer and possums move and told him it wasn't very likely that we would see one. His focus turned to other things and we sat there for just shy of 2 hours. "We" saw nothing but I saw a couple squirrels in the distance. He was moving too much for them to come closer. I took the opportunity at the end of that sit to go explore what the rest of the trail looked like so that he could practice sneaking. We got a biscuit on the way home and I wondered how the experience would live in his mind.
A few days later, I got another request to go hunting again. This time we went in blind to an area that I had hunted near several times and always been curious about. We settled in and I gave him a blanket as things were a little cooler this morning and he settled in to lay down beside me. No deer were sighted this morning but he did stay still enough to see a couple squirrels up very close. He was pretty excited about that and then almost as excited to see the deer sign we found when scouting around after we finished sitting. From that point on, he had pretty well figured out how he needed to sit in order to be able to see animals. This is not to say that he stayed still and quiet every time we hunted, but he at least had a reference point for when I told him to settle down.
As we got into gun season, the frequency of our hunts slowed down a little bit. Gun season pressures the deer pretty heavily and they move back into places that aren't suitable for taking a 4 year-old. We did go on a couple squirrel hunts though and finally got a couple for him to experience his first "successful" hunt. He was very excited to tell everyone about those squirrels but still he said that he liked deer hunting better than squirrel hunting because "deer are bigger than squirrels so they're better."
Gun season began to draw to a close and I decided to call in a favor for a private land hunt. The spot I wanted to go had only been hunted once or twice since bow season. It was a pretty small piece of private with a blind on it. During the early part of the year deer were constantly in there but the rut had moved things around quite a bit. As winter approached though, the deer had started to return to a more consistent feed pattern and I knew the chances were much better there than anywhere we could go on public land.
So on a December Saturday morning I woke the boy up and we loaded up in the truck to go do the type of hunting I have very little experience with. It felt so odd to walk in without a frame pack to a blind that was less than 100 yards from the truck. To sit in a lawn chair with cover from multiple directions. But there we sat. The sun came up and the chilly morning had sent my boy into my lap with the blanket over him. Just over an hour after sun up, I saw movement to our right. We were in a holler between two steep banks and a small doe was starting to descend the bank to cross in front of us. I told my boy to stand up and get ready but he interpreted that as "scramble to go hide on the other side of the blind." The doe looked our way and blew and turned around. She only blew once though and I didn't hear her bounding through the brush, so I was hopeful.
Sure enough, a few minutes later she returned with another doe, much bigger. As the lead doe crested the hill, she was staring directly and the blind. She slowly stomp-walked and head-bobbed toward us and we remained frozen. She tried to wind us but the weather was cooperating perfectly. I whispered to my son which direction to look as I anticipated she might walk the ridge around behind us and he watched her slowly start moving that way. I only had a shot directly in front of the blind and I had pretty much resigned that if she moved behind us then we wouldn't have an opportunity. Just as she got parallel to the blind, she turned to walk back uphill with her tail up. She blew a couple times and then the squirrels started chattering.
This whole time, my son had been glued to my leg. Watching with wide open eyes and very quietly letting me know what the doe was doing. He had really locked in to what needed to happen and was executing perfectly. As soon as those squirrels started chattering, it was like a switch had flipped. The doe either resigned that her fawn had mistaken the squirrels for danger or she crossed the point of trying to investigate any further. In any regard, she gathered the other doe and they descended the hill. I warned my son that he was going to lose sight of them for a minute but they would reappear directly in front of us and I would have a shot. He patiently waited until the big doe came back into view and started walking toward us. She had come down the hill about 40 yards away and was closing in on the blind, still a little suspicious but eating. The second doe came into view and started eating. I knew that I wanted to shoot the lead doe but she was refusing to turn. Eventually she had closed to 20 yards and I wasn't willing to risk her getting any closer and figuring out what the deal was. I warned my son I was about to shoot, aimed for a frontal chest shot, and squeezed. The impact knocked her to her knees and she stumbled for about 30 yards before crashing.
My son was so excited and after we had loaded the truck to head home, he looked at me and said "Daddy, we finally got one! I'm so happy." It's funny to hear his recollection of the story. He doesn't understand how close we were to being busted or what the doe was trying to do, so in his mind she was just wandering around on the hill. When explaining to a friend what happened on the hunt, he got to the point of the shot and said "and then my daddy shot her in the FACE."
I don't know what the future holds for this kid and hunting. For right now, he's understandably pretty excited about it but in a few years, other things may hold his interest. Regardless, I'll enjoy every moment I've had getting to show him the woods and teach him about hunting. He's already asking about when we can go turkey hunting.
