Thread: Hunting with the boy

I had a deal with my son when he was about 2 years old, when he grew as tall as my armpit he could come deer hunting with me, being a tall fella myself I thought he would be 10 or so before he fitted the bill.

He obviously took that deal on board and ate all his veges and has reached that lofty height at age 7!!

Fair enough I says so we went for a local hunt. After a 40 min walk or so we heard a stag roar along the face we were on so put in the stalk, it was the first stag he had heard roaring so his eyes were like dinnerplates!, when we got in a bit closer it clammed up, we crossed down into the gully and across a swamp and started up the other side seeing a bit of deer sign as we went along. Partway up the next face the stag where we had come from started up again so we devised a plan to circle back around the gully head and try to get above him as the wind was likely to shift. We kept going up the steep face and I promised Jack a breather on the next highpoint which looked down a forestry road.

When we got there I fished around in the bag for a muesli bar and handed to Jack, He wandered around eating it while I tried to find one for me. Jack started whispering at me and I wondered what the hell he was on about and thought he was saying "Here here", transpires he had spotted a hind and yearling down the track and was whispering "deer deer"!

Holy shit, good boy. I hit the deck and Jack dived in behind me covering his ears, sure enough two deer standing in the shadows on a corner of the road, not that easy to see so I was pretty impressed with my little hunter. As I looked through the scope I reminded myself to take my time and hit the bloody thing!!

At the shot at about 100yds I lost sight picture but I neednt have worried as my little hunter was spotting the shot and declared that I had hit it, the yearling did not hang around.

We went down and it had just flopped into the grass at the side of the road, narrowly avoiding rolling down the steep hill- bonus!!

We had a butchery and anatomy lesson, he was most impressed with the voice box and windpipe.

Jacks Hind- good spotting son!!


Jack loaded up the daypack and carried that out with the rifle. I showed him how to make a pack and then carried the hind out.

Photo makes her look bony but she is in great nick.

To say I was a very proud dad would be an understatement