For those of you that have followed over the years, you know my oldest son has faced a lot of adversity in trying to kill his first deer and there are many threads on SCDucks that document the saga; from the misses, misfires, wounded, hired dog trackers, scent blown, not knowing he was behind you, etc...he's faced it all. From the excitement of pulling the trigger, hearing the boom, and smelling the smoke to the lows of failed recoveries this young man has never given up and has begged me every day for the last 5 years to take him hunting.
Work has had me all messed up this year and I have 3 boys on four different baseball teams, not to mention it's just been hot so we haven't had a chance to go deer hunting. Sure we've killed some dove but that's not deer so "it doesn't count". I promised him I'd take him deer hunting before I went to Montana last week and that was a broken promise. Again, work had me tied up and I just couldn't make it happen, so when we landed at CHS at midnight this morning I told my wife, I've got to take him...
Fast forward to this afternoon. About 6:45 two doe came walking into the field at about 100 yards. He was nervous and shaking like a leaf in the wind...he just can't control it. He braces up, and let's her rip. Miss! I can't believe it. My heart was in my gut. I dang near wanted to cry and I know he did. They didn't run off though. They ran just a little but stayed in the field. This time I was pretty stern with him..."son...you've got to calm down, practice your breathing like you do with your bow and shoot when the air is out of your lungs". He collected himself and started to try again and then another doe joined the party and then a buck. If you thought he had buck fever on shooting does, you should have seen him when the buck walked out! Again..."son, you've got to calm down" and he said, "I'm not going to miss". The deer turned broadside, he let the air out of his lungs and kerbloom! Dropped him dead in his tracks! My man screamed and yelled and I screamed and yelled. We hugged and embraced, high-fived, fist bumped and hugged some more. He's been on cloud 9 since about 7:00 and I imagine he'll live up there for the next few days.
He pulled the trigger on a deer for the first time when he was 7 and it was not until many failures (lessons learned) later that he connected and finally got his face bloody at 11 years old.
Rhett Deer in Field.jpg
Rhett Tagging Deer.jpg
Rhett Blood.jpg
Bookmarks