Let’s hear hunting stories with the kids

[rtraverdavis]

My kids are too young to actually hunt with me yet—my daughter is three and my son is one—but last year I started taking my daughter scouting with me and did again this year. My son will get to come next year. Mostly, I’m just trying to get them out in the woods a bunch. It’s tough living in a city, but we’re close to plenty of great places.

Last year:


This year:


Up and Comer:

 

[Sawtooth]

When my son turned five, I took him along on his first big game hunt. I had tags for both a mule deer buck and a bull elk. After slowly climbing up to a small bench that often held both deer and elk, we stopped for a brief rest. Even though he had already walked about a mile of pretty steep game trail my son was "chompin at the bit" to keep going. To slow him down a little, I asked him if he wanted me to shoot the first legal buck or bull? Or if he wanted me to wait for a big one? His response was, "I don't care how big he is. I just want to see you get one!" At about that time a small forked horn buck stepped out of the trees about fifty yards above us. I asked him, "Do you want me to shoot that small buck?" "Yesss," was his reply. As I was setting up for the shot, he then says, "Wait Dad, there are elk higher up!" I take my eye off the deer and sure enough there was a small herd of elk crossing the same opening as the deer, and one of them was a spike. I then asked my son, "Well, now which should I shoot, the small buck or the spike elk?" He replied, "Shoot the elk!" After a quick adjustment, I got a good double lung shot on the spike and he took two steps, before sliding down the mountain to a small group of trees. My son went crazy and started to run up the hill towards the elk. I slowed him down, but as we were making the 100 yard climb to the spike he kept talking a mile a minute. When we finally got up to the young spike, my son's eyes got big and he said, "Dad, he is huge! How are we going to get him home?" I explained to him how we would quarter him up and pack him out in my backpack. My son was all excited and continued asking questions as fast as he could. After filling out the tag, I told him, "Son, you will want to watch how I do this so when you are old enough to hunt you will be able to quarter and clean your own animals." As I began quartering the spike, my son got real quiet. By the time I had removed one of the back legs and was working my way up to the front leg, my son said, "Dad, I think maybe I should just hunt birds with you. I don't think I want to quarter my own elk." I just smiled and said, "Don't worry son. I can help you."
That was nineteen years ago, and I must say this upcoming season, I am more than willing to help him with the "Quarterin" if he will help me with the"Packin".

 

[RockinU]

I actually wrote a story about my daughter's first deer that I never did anything with that I'll try and pare down to fit here...fair warning though, we're in Texas so there is corn and deer stands involved...also, it's still kind of long:

I can’t say that I was particularly surprised when my daughter first said she wanted to go deer hunting, like most little girls she’s a lover of things cute, fluffy, and sweet, but she’s also a very practical child who seems to have an understanding of her place in the order of things well beyond her 10 years. She gets it. So she tells me she wants to start hunting, and I tell her that we can sure make that happen, after which she immediately starts making elaborate plans for the following weekend. Obviously I’m thrilled by her enthusiasm, but I have to pump the brakes a bit by reminding her that she’s never even looked through a scope, much less fired a centerfire rifle, as a matter of fact she’s never done any type of hunting. She looks at me with the patience one reserves for a 2 year old while I’m explaining the complexities involved in a successful deer hunt, and all the preparation and practice she has in front of her, and that since it is almost December now, she’s probably going to be waiting until next deer season before she can start her career. It’s apparent that she doesn’t believe me, but she loves her daddy, and is going to play along.

So we begin our preparation with some trips to the range, starting out with the obligatory .22, but quickly graduating to an AR-15. In my mind, it’s not an ideal deer hunting rifle when chambered in the usual 5.56/.223, but it’s adjustability and limited recoil make it an ideal learning tool for transitioning a physically small person into the world of centerfire rifles. I get her situated behind the rifle, coach her up on the mechanics of the thing, explain to her how it should look through the scope when you have the right eye relief, tell her how to breathe and follow through, and all the little tricks for keeping your shots on paper, and after a couple of dry fires, we are ready to punch some holes in some targets! When she’s shooting, I watch her, looking for a flinch, or any little errors in form that I can help her with (of which I’m not really seeing), her brother is behind a spotting scope, and mom a pair of binoculars. I’m not all that concerned with the accuracy of her shots at first, just that her form is good, she’s not flinching, or jerking anything, so I don’t even ask the spotters for feedback until she’s put several down range, but when I do, her brother simply says “she’s hammering it dad!”, so we finish out the magazine, and walk down to the target for a look see. She hammered it alright! Her first time to the range, and she puts 20 into a group the size of a coffee cup!

The next year opening weekend comes and goes without a single deer sighting, then November has passed, and still nothing. I watch Kendall closely to see if she’s losing interest, or getting frustrated, and I see none of that. Instead I see her constant curiosity about the world around us, I field her endless stream of questions about first hunting, and then legion other subjects as best I can. I wonder at the patience and determination of a 11 year old girl. Finally about half way through the season we start getting some night time pictures of deer on our trail cameras. One that makes multiple appearances is a really nice main frame 10 with lots of extra points on his right side, and will likely measure in the 150’s. We name him “Right Side”, because all good deer need a name. Next weekend we finally see our first day time deer, a small 2 ½ year old buck with a minimal amount of bone above his head, but we are elated! A real deer to watch! We get the gun out the window, and practice finding him in the scope, and holding the crosshairs right where we would if we were going to shoot him. We grunt at him, just to see how he reacts, he panics and leaves, and we laugh at him. Hope has returned! We grind out the remainder of the season with minimal action, until the regular season is gone, but we still have one more chance...special youth weekend. I take off from work, and we go early on Friday, we are prepared for a long weekend of all day sits...we are determined to make this happen. All day Saturday we sit, seeing only a few doe, but having a good time warming up hot chocolate, and cream of wheat over our blind heater. Sunday is it...our last shot. The only glimpse we’ve had of a mature buck all year is a passing sighting of what we think was Right Side well after legal shooting light some weeks before. The morning passes without a single deer. We take turns napping, playing risk on an ipad, and other things to pass the time, and my anxiety is building. I really want to get this girl on a deer. The feeder goes off for the evening feeding, and nothing...not even a squirrel. The sun sets and we are down to our last 30 minutes of the season, all of which I count down, checking my watch on each and every one. Then, with literally minutes remaining, he’s there! It’s Right Side! Quickly we get the gun out the window, but he’s behind a clump of willows, standing rigid, head up, and tense. He somehow knows something is up. Time is ticking away quickly, but all we need is one step! Then he takes that one step, but it’s bounding away from us, keeping the willow between us as he goes, never offering a shot...it’s over, he’s gone, times up.

I’m crushed, my daughter has endured a painfully slow season without losing an ounce of enthusiasm. She has spent hours and hours in a stand, endured a camp with no water or power, learned to go to the bathroom outside, done so when the wind chill was in the single digits, and not only not ever complained, but having embraced the whole experience, and her reward has just slipped back into the brush, gone. I reach out and hug her, and tell her how proud I am of her, and how sorry I am that it didn’t work out, and to my amazement she tells me: “it’s ok Daddy! Think how big he’ll be next year!”. Hard not to start building excitement about next year when you have an outlook like that!

Next year comes, like it always does, and our trail cameras are showing us that our letting deer pass is starting to pay off. We not only have deer coming to feed, they are doing it in the daylight! Even bucks! We battle an early season heat wave, but the mid 80’s temps in early November seems to have stalled our deer movement. Thanksgiving gives us a short lived cold snap, that does seem to get the deer moving again, and we’ve seen a few decent deer, and several doe, but not what we’re looking for. December comes, and I’m starting to feel the pressure. Kendall seems just as engaged as she ever has, but I really don’t want another skunked season to start to erode her interest. We’ve got pictures of a couple of shooter bucks, but the buck that comes out of the brush the first Saturday in December isn’t one of them, but he’s big, and definitely a shooter! He walks right past the feeder as we are getting our gun out the window, paying it no mind whatsoever. She is able to get the scope on him just as he disappears into some trees. What the heck?! A good buck just walked all the way across our field of view in a matter of 15 seconds without ever offering to stop! He didn’t even acknowledge all the brilliant deer type noises I made at him! We’re jinxed! Can’t catch a break! We wait and wait, but he doesn’t come back.

The afternoon hunt finds us in the stand plenty early, we’re buoyed by knowing that there is a shooter deer in the area, but it’s an uneventful sit. The feeder goes off without a single deer having shown itself. I check what time official sunset is on my phone, so I know when legal light ends, and as the light starts to fade we wait. Then, like they will do, a deer seems to materialize from thin air! Binoculars up! It’s a danged doe...wait, another...also a doe. As they meander around I check my watch, 7 minutes of legal light left. When I look back up, there he is! The big mature 9 from the trail cameras! He’s stopped behind some bushes, and I make sure she’s on him, and ready for him to step clear, 5 mins! He finally moves out into the open, and I tell her to let him have it, as soon as he stops, 3 mins! I’m watching through my binoculars and he stops! The moment has arrived, and...nothing! “Shoot!” I say. “Daddy, your ear muffs aren’t over your ears.”, I hear in reply. “SHOOT THE DEER!!”, I respond through the ragged breath of intense buck fever. Then, in a fraction of a second, 2 years patience, and persistence, hours of invaluable time spent in nature with my daughter were given a trophy. She killed her first deer, a heck of a 9 point, that will go on her wall!

I hope that years and years into the future she will be able to look at it, and remember what it took to put it there, and remember all the time we spent together looking for him, and all we learned, and talked about, and shared. That’s what hunting is. After all the meals are consumed. After the taxidermied head is faded dilapidated, it’s the experiences that it represents that persevere and really matter.

 

[onpoint]

My little (now grown to much larger proportions) brother on one of his first fact finding journeys into the bull jungles. He was fascinated by the rub trees. And hooked............