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30 October 2007

Our Results From the Missouri Youth Hunt

Posted by Darrell under: Hunting Stories .

 

Last year my son got his first deer during the Misouri Youth Portion hunt. This year, both he and his sister, got skunked. Such is deer hunting.

It is hard to not feel like a failure when you are unable to put your children on deer. My children view me as some sort of hunting expert. I’m continuously telling them about the deer I’ve watched walk under my stand and how I let them go. They knew that I’d spent days deciding and preparing the ‘perfect’ locations for their hunts. They had no doubt that I’d put them on deer. We were all so excited.

Then, nothing worked the way it was supposed to. Due to circumstances beyond my control, myu son and I were an hour late to the stand on the first morning and didn’t see any deer while in the stand. Saturday evening was supposed to belong to my daughter. It would be her first deer hunt.

However, my son was able to convince her to let him tag along and maybe even take the first buck that came in. My daughter agreed as both kids (and me too) felt pretty confident that we’d see multiple deer. We didn’t. However, I did see and hear some road hunting poachers stop their truck out on the desolate county road and start shooting across our property. I then heard them crunching through the brush towards our blind and heard them shoot again within 100 yards of our blind. I think the morons were shooting at our decoy.

I only hope the idiots were poachers and not parents training their children how to trespass. It is probably fortunate that my kids were hunkered down in my blind at the time or I likely would have found myself stalking some poachers, or at least trespassers. This probably wouldn’t have played out well for anyone involved. But, since my kids were there, I did nothing - even though my blood was boiling.

My son and I were out early Sunday morning and went to the stand where he took his deer last year. Last year, in the first hour after daylight, we’d seen 23 deer from this stand. I hadn’t hunted it since. We both had high hopes for the morning.

It was a cold morning and Caleb had trouble staying still. He did pretty good though and fortunately I have this stand wrapped in camo burlap so a lot of movement is somewhat diffused. By 9:00 Caleb was ready to exit the stand. He thought that he might be frostbit, although I assured him repeatedly that he was fine and capitalized on the opportunity to teach him the value of listening to me when I tell him to put on more layers of clothing.

Caleb did take a shot at a doe later in the morning. I let him decide on whether or not to take the shot. It was 220 yards away, across a field, and he missed cleanly. He was devestated, of course. I tried to explain to him that I’ve never met anyone that had never missed and it just shows how important it is to really choose your shots.

We were suprised to be a day and a half into season and still have both kids tags to fill. Billy, a friend of mine, agreed to take Caleb out for the evening while I concentrated my efforts on putting my daughter into deer. Both of us did our best. However, the deer just weren’t cooperating.

So, both my kids were skunked. They are dissapointed. I am dissapointed. Yes, we had some great quality time together. Yes, even though no deer were involved I’ll probably always remember my first deer hunt with my daughter.  

In reality it is a good lesson for them and an important reminder for me. You had better savor and appreciate every deer you see and cherish every deer you take. No matter how good you think you are, it is possible to put in tons of time and effort without reaping a harvest.

Deer hunting is not a guaranteed sport. 

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