I posted this picture on the Daily Hunt/Pics thread, but forgive a proud papa for wanting to do a separate little thread on a pretty special day.
I'm blessed to have two wonderful daughters (Hayley and Emily), both of whom have spent a LOT of time following me around and probably alternately amaze and bore their classmates and teachers with stories from the natural world. They both like to fish and shoot bows and my youngest, Emily (6), is especially into nature and spends most of her free time catching frogs and snakes.
Well, I've taken them bowhunting but as you know a lot of things have to go right to "get something" when you're alone, even more so when there is an overanxious kid along. Plus, I pretty much will only take a mature doe or big buck, and the chances of that happening are not too good under the conditions present. Emily wanted to go out Friday evening with me and we went to the buddy stand (from where I killed the buck in my avatar last year) and it was just dead still. So much so that I just knew it wasn't going to happen. But 15 minutes in, she said she saw a deer and soon enough I saw the tail flick in the grass too and here he came. It was a very small spike buck, but the wheels began turning in my head and I realized he would qualify under NE's regs as an antlerless deer and I could tag him on my season choice tag, not endangering my two either-sex permits that I have other high hopes for.
Anyway, Emily whispers for me to shoot it, so when it pauses at 13 yards I lean over the side railing of the buddy stand and drill it perfectly through the lungs and top of the heart. It scrambles off 40 yards and piles up in the high grass from which it came. I looked back at Emily (she had a great angle to watch the shot) and her smile said it all.
She led the way on the ample blood trail, and was so into it that she walked right past the deer 8' away as the blood trail went a few yards past and then stumbled back in a tight fishhook pattern. Got that part on video (botched getting it started on the shot).
Pretty happy day for Dad and daughter, that's for sure.
Topic: A deer for my daughter (Read 895 times)
