Best day hunting ever!

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ALW

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Yesterday was the best, most memorable day I've ever spent hunting!

Deer season has been open here since mid October (early ML/bow/x-bow) and my son and I have burned some boot leather and polished a few stumps since it started. To date without success. After the long cold winter last year, with deep snow in the woods until late spring, our deer numbers are down quite a bit right across the province. That combined with the unseasonably warm fall keeping deer movement at a minimum has made for challenging hunting. But even a bad day in the woods beats a day at the office, especially when teaching a child the tradition!

This is my son's 3rd year deer hunting & 1st that he has been legal to hunt on his own/unaccompanied. It is his 1st year hunting with a ML and only my 2nd.

Yesterday was rainy, unseasonably mild, and windy. Not my favourite conditions for deer hunting, but with the season winding down and no Sunday hunting, we were headed to the woods regardless; although a later start than planned and we were going to carry our centerfire rifles because of the rain. Turned out my young fella forgot the trigger lock key for his .32 Win Spl at his mom's and would have to carry his CVA Wolf I got him late last summer. I was worried about a possible misfire because of the rain, but not a big deal to him as that is all he's carried all season other than 1 day he did carry his .32. He LOVES his Wolf, which is good, because he was starting to like my Optima V2 too much! LoL.

Luckily, we can step out the door and into the woods right from my home, as I'm out in the sticks. We'd only walked back the old logging road and were still hunting along the edges of some last year's cutovers maybe 20min when we jumped a nice doe out of a wooded gully between 2 cuts. She came crashing up out of the draw and ran into the adjacent cut and stopped broadside 70yds away looking at us. BOOM went my .308 and down she went. This all happened in seconds, and I turned to my son, who had been a few steps behind me as we were slinking along the edge, and said "Sorry I didn't let you shoot her, but there was no time." He was wide eyed and pumped up, saying, "That's OK, that was AWESOME!" It is the 1st time he's ever been right beside me when I've shot a deer, and he was pretty stoked. As was I, since she was the 1st deer I'd seen this season, and I've been really anxious to put my new sausage making gear to work on some venison.

We crossed the gully/brook and stood admiring and appreciating the deer, thankful for the meat and sharing a father/son moment that only hunters can truly understand. Just last weekend while we were hunting I was telling my son that it is important to always check your back trail, as a deer is just as likely to step out behind you as it is to the front or sides, and a lot of fellas never bother to check their six, so to speak. Well despite the fact that we'd just spent 5-10min talking, high-fiving, and as noisy as can be, I looked back across he gully to where we'd been standing when I shot, and there was another doe standing there watching us! I excitedly told Christopher there was another deer... HIS deer, right there. By this time the other doe had started slinking away along the edge of the gully on the far side, and off went my son on the stalk while I stood back and took it all in with a front row seat. He came back a few minutes later saying he couldn't see her, and I told him to beat it over into the far cut to see if she was out in it. Off he went again, like a young wolf with a scent of his first prey. A few minutes later I see him madly waving at me and heading off into a stand of 4'-6' spruce, fir and scattered birch that bordered the cut he was in. I caught glimpses of his hunter orange vest and hat a few times then BOOM!

I hollered over, "Did you get her?", and he shouted back that he thought so. Off I go to help look, and find Christopher standing in a small opening among the trees saying that is where she had been standing, but there wasn't any blood or hair. I was thinking maybe a miss/buck fever as he was shooting a 300gr Scorpion PT Gold bullet ahead of 85gr (V) of BH209, and that should have at least knocked out some hair. I asked him if he was sure that was where she had been, and he said he was, and that after the shot he saw her take off straight away through spruce & fir. I told him to hang a piece of flagging tape in a tree to mark the spot and I started off looking in the direction he'd said she went. The ground was soaked and I didn't see any fresh tracks and no blood. I was starting to plan the "Next time" talk when after about 30yds I saw her hind quarters lying just ahead of me and shouted out simply, "Congratulations!" Well let me tell you the commotion that followed was far noisier than either the crack of my .308 or his .50 cal. I'm not sure if he was happier, or I was prouder, but lets just say that what had already been a great day turned into the best day in the woods either of us will likely ever spend together. An experience that can't be bought, and can't be explained to someone who doesn't already get it. A new hunter had joined a family tradition, one as old as mankind itself. He'd joined the club and made meat. I couldn't have been more proud, and it didn't even bother me that his doe was bigger, in fact I think that even made it all sweeter. LoL

I'm extremely happy that Christopher forgot his trigger lock key, and he took his first deer using his muzzleloader. Now it is time for his old man to play catch up and christen my muzzie too. There are still a few weeks left in the season up here, and I still have my ML tag. Can't have the young fella the only successful ML hunter in the family! LoL

Best of luck to all those still hunting, and congratulations to those who've tagged out. I hope you all get to share a similar family hunting experience yourselves, the memories we made yesterday will last forever, long after the last chop or sausage is enjoyed.

Happy hunting from Nova Scotia!
 
A great day when you can spend it with your child hunting.
 
What a great, heart warming story, thanks for sharing! :applause:
 
JStanley said:
What a great, heart warming story, thanks for sharing! :applause:
Could not have said it better! Congrads to you both! :applause: :applause: :applause:
 
Thank you fellas. We are both still on cloud 9 today. There is no way I can express how proud I am and happy he is. For the last couple weeks he's been telling me how badly he wanted to shoot his 1st deer. He missed a nice doe 2 weeks ago, and was adamant that 'buck fever' wouldn't get him again. He's a good enough shot on paper that I told him he was capable of shooting any deer that stepped out in front of him, as long as he could keep calm and focus on the shot. I tried to teach him that once he decides he is going to shoot a deer (anything) that he only focus on the tiny area that will be his target and forget the rest. Its hard to hit the engine room if your staring at a rack thru the scope.

In a day and age where the majority of hunters around here hunt almost exclusively over bait, or guarding apple piles as I call it, to have teach my son to actually hunt deer, by stalking/still hunting means all the more. After we got our deer drug into the same cut and got them dressed, we called his grandfather to come help us get them out of the woods. Three generations of hunters, passing it down the line, and sharing in 'the hunt'.

That is what it is really all about, at least to us.

Thanks again, and good hunting.
 
What a great hunt! One neither of you will ever forget!! Thanks for sharing. :yeah:
 
I absolutely love stories about our kiddos hunting. All three of my hunting age kiddos harvested animals this year. Two cow elk and a small muley buck rest peacefully in our freezer due to their efforts.

Thank you for sharing your story with us. Keep up the great work.

FH
 
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