RE: My best day in the woods so far ever
Awesome day Stretch! I just had a similar experience with my 14 yr. old son. I am from WNY but now live in San Diego since I retired from the USMC. This is my son's 2nd year deer hunting with me on Camp Pendleton. This past Sunday (before the fires) we were hunting up on a ridge line and I glassed some eight deer heading down a draw. I grabbed my son and we stalked them from above about 350 meter above. We were hunting in a shotgun only area of the base and therefore didn't have the range to shoot down on them.
As we slowly desended to try to get in position to shoot we stopped behind some brush and just watched the deer for about 45 minutes. There was a big buck on a hot doe and two smaller bucks who began sparring. My son was out of his mind! He was loving every minute of it. The group of deer eventually split up and one large doe and two fawns split to our right where we got almost get them into range without spooking them. So we worked our way down the hillside to an area about 150 meters above them.
The week before I was in Bass Pro and bought a fawn distress call. I had read that Mule Deer will respond to this call as well. My son and I had been looking forward to tesating it out. So there we were, looking over a steep hill down on these deer and we're laying in the prone position. I blow the fawn distress call and the deer look up at where we are but otherwise don't react. I wait a bit and blow it again. Now the big doe and fawns start up the hill on the other side of a draw. We both thought they were coming up toward the call. Then they quickly sprint up and around the hillside away from us. We were puzzled as to why they reacted that way, and about 30 seconds later a mountain lion appears from just below us and chases up the hill the direction the deer went.
My son saw it first and said, 'Dad, I don't think thats a coyote". I saw the 5-6' tail and knew it was a lion. It was amazing. The wild thing is we were sitting up and blowing a fawn distress call. We were very fortunate that the lion didn't think we were breakfast!
Sunday night my son told my wife that it was the best day of his life! How cool is that?
I can't wait to get him back to NY for whitetail hunting. But that was a long story to say that I completely understand how you feel. It is such a great feeling to have your son share the same interests.