passthrough
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LAST EDITED ON Aug-27-12 AT 02:19PM (MST)[p]A long awaited hunt has come and gone. I decided to take my oldest boy (6) on his first real big game hunt. I bought an antelope tag from a long time family friend and figured it would be a great way to break my little guy in. My boy has been asking me if he could go hunting with me since he was three so when I told him he could go on this one his excitment was through the roof! The ranch we hunted is awesome! Not an area known for producing B&C goats, but that was not what this hunt was about. It has tons of antelope, some big elk, and some big muleys, plus the occasional bear. After a long drive, we set up camp, and went scouting.
After seeing a buch of goats, none that we wanted to shoot, we got poured on, it rained a little over 2 inches in about an hour. My little guy all bright eyed and ready to go saturday.
We finally saw a goat that we wanted to go after. But someone wanted some breakfast. So we headed in for a bite, and ended up helping some friends gut and quarter their antelope from that morning. Wes is an excellent leg holder. Time to go back out and look for our buck.
It took a little longer to find him than we thought and my spotter took a nap.
Finally it was go time, there stood our buck 315 yards out, the shot went off and so did the buck, I knew he was hit good but i was nervous because of the way he ran out of sight, my boy did not share me uneasy feeling, he was so excited, I had to calm him down and explain that we need to find him and make sure he was down for good. After a few tense minutes of glassing we found him bedded in a small depression. The stalk was on! My little guy did great, we closed the distance to 215 yards. I had him sit next to me so he could get a good view of what was about to happen. The buck finally tried to stand up, fell once and then got up and quartered away, i hit him at the last rib and the bullet exited through the neck on the oppisite side. DOWN for good! Just then my boy tackled me and yelled you got him! Then he took off running to the goat. After I wrangled him back in, we walked up together and made sure he was down.
I will never forget this time spent with my child. It is refreshing to see hunting through the eyes of a child, too often we loose sight of how lucky we truly are. I cant wait for him to be behind the gun, and his little brother to follow in his foot steps.
After seeing a buch of goats, none that we wanted to shoot, we got poured on, it rained a little over 2 inches in about an hour. My little guy all bright eyed and ready to go saturday.
We finally saw a goat that we wanted to go after. But someone wanted some breakfast. So we headed in for a bite, and ended up helping some friends gut and quarter their antelope from that morning. Wes is an excellent leg holder. Time to go back out and look for our buck.
It took a little longer to find him than we thought and my spotter took a nap.
Finally it was go time, there stood our buck 315 yards out, the shot went off and so did the buck, I knew he was hit good but i was nervous because of the way he ran out of sight, my boy did not share me uneasy feeling, he was so excited, I had to calm him down and explain that we need to find him and make sure he was down for good. After a few tense minutes of glassing we found him bedded in a small depression. The stalk was on! My little guy did great, we closed the distance to 215 yards. I had him sit next to me so he could get a good view of what was about to happen. The buck finally tried to stand up, fell once and then got up and quartered away, i hit him at the last rib and the bullet exited through the neck on the oppisite side. DOWN for good! Just then my boy tackled me and yelled you got him! Then he took off running to the goat. After I wrangled him back in, we walked up together and made sure he was down.
I will never forget this time spent with my child. It is refreshing to see hunting through the eyes of a child, too often we loose sight of how lucky we truly are. I cant wait for him to be behind the gun, and his little brother to follow in his foot steps.
