I'm interested to hear what experiences any of you may have had taking your children with you as observers while deer hunting.

Last year my daughter, then 9 years old, watched closely while I skinned and quartered my doe in my sister-in-law's backyard. I thought she would soon get grossed-out and go back inside. Didn't happen, and she was very interested. When I followed this activity up by cutting up the meat and packaging she wanted to participate, so I let her write the appropriate information on the packages and place them in the freezer. I took a doe opening morning and a buck the second day of the season, filling all my tags. I continued to go out to the hunting ground to take my son hunting, and on the afternoon visits to the hunting ground I took my 9 year old daughter along with. We walked around the hunting ground, well away from my son's location, and I pointed out deer sign and deer food and talked about all this to my daughter. She is very interested in all this and wants to deer hunt herself.

Now this daughter is 10 years old but still too young, in my judgment, to deer hunt. It occured to me, however, that it could be a good idea to take her with me and have her sit with me while I hunt. It seems the worst case is that she may spoil my hunt by fidgiting or making noises, but I won't be crushed if I fail to take a deer under these circumstances. I could explain things to her. She could watch and learn a lot through this process. She could find out if she really wants to do this or not. I warned her she might not like seeing a deer get killed and that sometimes the deer might not just drop dead on th spot, that the deer might suffer a bit and may require a second shot.She seemed OK with this and offered the practical suggestion that if this bothered her she could just avert her eyes. I know that I'll need to make sure she doesn't get cold, that this would be a big hunting turn-off for her (or any kid). I plan to take a sleeping bag and let her pull this up over her feet and torso to keep warm, assuming something like this is needed. I also plan to provide her with ear protection -- I don't imagine she will like the loud blast of a rifle shot (I don't use this ear protection during the actual hunt, only on the rifle range). If she can't keep sufficiently quiet or still, I figure I'll just lose one hunting opportunity -- either a morning session or an afternoon session -- and I can leave her at the house for future hunting sessions.

Have any of you done something like this with young children? Has this worked for you? Any difficulties or problems I am not anticipating?