HALCON... you got to really tread slowly here. My son grew up with Daddy hunting and bringing home lots of deer, rabbits, doves etc. He always wanted to go to the woods. I managed to fabricate some double ought buck shot into some 410 casings when he was 5. It patterned in a string about a foot long at 20 yards. I said if we got a deer at 20 or less he could shoot it. We never did. At age 6 I bought him a 243, chopped about 3 inches off the stock and fitted it with a scope. He was deadly at 100 yards. He killed his first deer at 6 and another nice one the next year. Pic attached.

Then one day it all went to heck. I was living in Georgia at the time. We had a lease that developed a major wild dog problem. The local pig farmer asked us to help as they were loosing a lot of young pigs to them. We went on a mission. I'd come home and say Bill got 2 dogs, I got a dog, Everett got two dogs etc. He heard all the stories of the guy chased back up his tree during bow season, another separated from his truck etc. My boy also just loved animals, but shot deer, shot doves and really enjoyed it. He'd blast away with the little 20 guage I bought him until he was black and blue.

So one day he and I are sitting in the family treehouse I had built for him to hunt from. It was in 4 pecan trees right in the middle of a soybean field. A doe hit the field really running scared and crossed about 100 yards from us. Just as she hit the far woodline 150 yards away a pack of 4 dogs running silent came through on her trail. I calmly said, Dixon.. I have to shoot. The first dog piled up. The other 3 scattered like quail. I hit one running straight at us and he tumbled but was dragging himself and yelping. I lined up on another and rolled him. I hit the last one going straight away at about 200 yards. I had two dogs yelping and howling and dragging themselves around. I was empty. It had been like flash backs of a firefight in Vietnam. I was cranking the bolt and follow dogs and shooting so fast I wasn't aware of what was going on. I turned to my son and said I need your gun and reached for it. He was on the floor of the elevated stand crying and sobbing "No more.. NO more... NO NOO" I was devistated. I had two dogs, one almost under the stand just howling and crying. I quickly finished them with the 243.

It took me 15 minutes to calm him down enough to help him from the stand. I walked him to the truck. We were suppose to dump the dogs at a central place as per the farmer. I drove out in the field and loaded the dogs in the back of the pick up. All the time my son is still sobbing a sob from time to time in the cab. As I started driving out of the field he looked back and went balistic. Even though lifeless when I loaded them, one of the dogs was up on his front feet with his head up. I had to stop, kick him from the truck and finish the job.

My son who loved to hunt, shoot deer, doves etc..... NEVER HUNTED AGAIN. He'll shoot once in a blue moon... but never hunt. Tread slowly my friend. Educate better than I did the virtues of why we hunt and the good we do for sustaining the species.