I really believe that the two funnest hunts are 1)hunting w/ old guys
and 2)hunting w/ kids
. My son went elk hunting w/ me last year when I volunteered to take another kid after his elk when he drew a tag but his family wasnt able to take him. We got a 330B&C 6x6bull, @300B&C 5x5, and a 3x3 elk on that hunt. It was a good hunt and my son was pretty jazzed, but NOTHING compared to when he put that first mulie down himself! It was pretty satisfying to me to for several reasons. First when you take kids out in high sage country like we have here, you or another adult see 999 out of 1000 deer first then try to point them out to the kids, but my son spotted this one first
. Then, the deer was moving away from him and he put a near perfect shot on him, the exit was @1-2 inches behind the opposite shoulder
(that a boy!!!). It spun the deer around and he was now faceing us, but only his head was above the sage, I'm watching the deer when I hear the kid, I look over and hes already got his knife out[8D], gun set down w/ bolt open and safety on[8D] and is heading down to gut his buck
, great except that his deer is still up on his front legs[
]. I told him, he's getting up[:@]!! put another in him. Now the deer is traveling again from left to right this time and again slightly quartering away, heading to a small opening in the sage about the length of a pick-up and sure enough, when the buck steps into the clear, the kid hits him again, and again almost perfect(this time the exit actually just clipped the point of the shoulder/leg, took the hair off its hide, but didnt break the skin.
, the hit spins the deer directly away from us and this time he bails straight into the brush[:@] out of sight. As he was going away he gave us that straight away silhouette look that makes average mulies look huge, and that glimpse wasnt wasted on the kid. he turned around and yelled HOLY SNIKIES DAD HE'S HUGE< DID YOU SEE HIM
!! As the buck was going away I could see every breath that he let out, and it wasnt frost I was seeing
. I knew he wouldnt go far. We went into the brush after him and the kid actually followed the blood trail himself for about 25yds right to his own deer. So he did most everything on his own!
The only bad thing was that because of the angle of the shots it opened the gut. On the 1st shot he grazed the gut(opened it up), went up and took out the opposite lung. The second shot was much the same, grazed and opened up the gut, then on up and shredded the liver and other lung. at least He already knows why you dont want the gut opened up
.
got my 12yr old son his 1st buck
