The first time

When you have kids, you get to know their friends.  Some of these kids have been coming to the house for so many years that they’re almost like family.  Along the way, they all saw my son going hunting with me.  My son asked if they’d like to go sometime and a few of them said yes.  So this year my goal has been to take as many of those kids as I can.

The plan is to take them to the rifle range first to get them familiar, safe, and competent with the rifle.  I’m not taking someone to the woods without seeing they can actually hit the target reliably at expected distances.  To do otherwise would be setting them up for failure, and would would be grossly unfair to the animal.

With that as the plan, we got started.  The first man up was his friend John, a senior in high school.  He’s a smart kid, super nice, and a great sense of humor.  He has no shooting or hunting experience at all.  

I provided some familiarization training at the house to avoid having to do it over the sound of gunfire and potential pressure at the range.  It was a quiet place where no miscommunication was possible.  He listened intently and followed all instructions.

At the range he was the perfect student.  He did everything he was told to do, was conscious of being safe, and shot perfectly.  He had never fired a gun prior to that point.  With a target 100 yards distant, I instructed him on sight picture, breathing and trigger control.  “Once you’ve established a good sight picture, breathe in deep, let it halfway out, then during that respiratory pause…ease that trigger back until the gun goes off.”  He was shooting a .30-06 with a bipod off a shooting bench, and every shot he took was great.  He printed an inch and a half group right where I’d zeroed the gun.  After a little more familiarization fire, we called it a day and went home.  

The day after Christmas we went to the woods.  There were two other kids hunting that afternoon, but John and I were hunting together in a two man stand.  This allowed me to show him the ropes from start to finish.  Sitting in a two-man ladder stand I could help spot deer, provide advice on the hunt, and insure he learned how to do the whole thing safely.

We spooked three deer on the way in, then got set up in a two-man ladder stand on a wooded hillside overlooking a pair of roughly rectangular fields that were connected by a low creek crossing.  The creek provided a thin veil of trees that separated them, but allowed some limited visibility into the second field on the far side.

It was 122 yards to the gap between the fields, and 252 yards to the far side of the second field.  The gun was zeroed in a manner that allowed all of that distance to be shot without making any adjustments.  I didn’t anticipate we’d be shooting anything longer than 150 yards.

After a short hike, we climbed a 15 foot ladder, then settled in for the wait.

He had never been in the woods before so it was neat to hear his reactions to things.  After the woods “settled down” following our arrival, groups of small birds began to sing and stir all around us.  Noises would drift through the timber to us, leaving us discussing their potential sources.  Some are easy to pick out, a distant train, a squirrel in the woods, the usual stuff.  I’d tell a few stories in hushed whispers just to pass the time and maybe pass a little knowledge.  

I could barely hear some turkey clucking way back in the woods to the left of the first field.  I didn’t mention it because it was faint and infrequent.  Soon enough though I heard some loud, intermittent clucking from a bird in the woods to the right of the second field.  

“Turkey.” I whispered.

“Really?”  Came the answer.

I can see how he may have thought I was kidding.  It’s not a normal sound, just a single, loud cluck.  It’s hard to imagine it would be a bird, let alone a turkey.  I told him that most people don’t know that turkey can fly.  He said he didn’t know that either.  I told him I can remember the exact moment when I learned it.  I was stalking quietly through the woods when I spooked a few of them.  They took off with the loudest raucous you could imagine.  I know I went home and asked someone “Did you know that turkeys can fly?!?”

A few minutes later there was a terrible racket from the woods to the right of the second field.  It kind of sounded like a Bigfoot ripping all the branches off a tree.

“They just flew to their roost” I whispered.  A turkey is a big bird with a wide wing span, and when they fly to roost in a tree the hit all kinds of things.  A group of turkey taking to the roost can be heard a long ways away.

Not ten minutes later I saw some black dots entering the first field from the left.  110 yards away, three turkey were sneaking on to the field.  This was the first group I’d heard earlier.  They were quiet, cautious, and slow.  

“Turkey” I announced again.

“Where?”

I pointed them out on the left side of the field and handed him my bino’s.  He watched them intently for maybe five minutes; remarking on how spindly their legs looked, differences in their demeanor, and that they were quite ugly.  First day in the woods and he’s already learning stuff!  I was happy to have the entertainment for him.  The last thing I wanted was a long, cold, boring sit in the woods as his intro to hunting.

As it turned out, it was a perfect afternoon to be in the woods.  The temperature was in the low 40’s and there was no wind.  We’d been sitting in the stand for around an hour and a half and weren’t even very cold.

Just then I saw a deer through the trees on the second field.  There was no way to weave a shot through there, but I could see them and we still had plenty of light left.  

“Deer!” I whispered.

John craned his neck slowly trying to get a visual. 

“Second field, just to the right of the gap.”

“I don’t see them.”

I can’t blame him.  The untrained eye would have a difficult time picking them out amongst the clutter, but they were clear as day to a hunter.  I’d have to walk him onto their position.

“Do you see the skinny tree 15 yards in front of us?”

“Yeah.”

“Go up that tree until you see a big branch from the tree behind it crossing at a 90 degree angle.  The deer are in the bottom right corner of that intersection, on the second field.”

“OK, I see it.”

Those two branches formed a very crude but effective reference point to get him dialed in.

The deer were moving to the left, on a path that would have them well screened by the trees until they got to the gap between the fields.  We had plenty of light left and I was confident we’d get a shot.

I told him to get the deer in the scope, make sure it was adjusted to the right power, and that he had a clear shot to the gap between the fields, as I expected thats where we’d take them.

He had to slouch down and lean toward me to get the deer in the scope.

“Wow, there’s three of them.” I announced.  

“It doesn’t look like I’ll have a shot” he said.  “Three are lined up with each other and I don’t want to hit two.” 

He had been learning from our earlier conversations, and was now applying it in the field, on his own.  He knew to be aware of what was beyond his target, and he identified a situation he didn’t like.  A very astute observation for his first hunt, and a very disciplined call on his part. 

“Great call.  Just keep the scope on them, I think they’ll spread out by the time they hit that gap.”

He had been calm all day, but now that he was on the gun, in the field, and had deer in the scope things were changing.  He had to lean my way to get them in the scope and though I was squished as far left as I could go, he was still pushing into my right side a bit.  I could feel him breathing heavy as he watched through the scope.  His heart was clearly racing.  

The deer took a few minutes to clear the last large cedar tree and come into plain view.  They had indeed spread out.  I was looking through my bino’s and he through the scope.  We talked about which doe looked the biggest and decided he would shoot the doe furthest on the left; which happened to be the first in the line.

“Should I shoot now?” Came the rushed inquiry.  

“If you have a clear target, take the shot.”

The safety clicked off, heavy breathing continued for just one or two more breaths, then there was a long, deliberate inhale, a relaxed exhale that stopped at the halfway point, and “BOOOOOM!”  The .30-06 barked from the wooded hillside.

I watched through the binoculars as the doe dropped flat as a pancake on the spot where it stood.  Perhaps half a second after the shot, the rest of the deer ran.  I was shocked at how many deer came out of that corner.  I thought there were only three to begin with, but there may have been eight that ran out.  In singles and pairs they’d fly across that gap, darting and bounding as whitetail do.

“Where did she go?!”  He asked.  

“She’s flat as a pancake right where you shot her.”

After the shot he rode the recoil, and when the gun came down all he saw was deer running everywhere in that gap.  Logic made him assume that the last deer in the group must be the one he shot.  He figured it was wounded and it couldn’t keep up with the others.  In fact he had dropped it on the spot.  It was a great outcome.

I looked at John and asked “How do you feel?”

The response made me laugh.

“Man, that was way less recoil than at the range.”

His face bore the type of huge smile that only adventure and adrenaline can deliver.  We sat there for a minute talking about the hunt.  He said that on the drive out to the farm, he sat in the truck quietly questioning whether he’d be able to pull the trigger when the time came.  

“In the moment though, there was no hesitation, I just did it.”

He felt good that the deer died a quick and humane death.  I was happy for him, and proud of his efforts and his outlook. 

There were other deer killed that afternoon, and John got introduced to tracking, gutting, and a number of other things that just go along with the hunt. It was a great day, and I’m happy to say that the number of American hunters just grew by one more!

Friday we are taking the next kid.  Same plan, and hopefully the same result.