Reese was sad but understanding. She understands the sacrifices that my job sometimes demands. Then I got called out to work and had to end our hunt prematurely, which spooked other deer approaching our stand. He’s grateful for the experience and is looking forward to the upcoming hunts.įrom DWR Conservation Police Officer Ian Ostlund: I took my daughter Reese hunting for the youth opener in the morning and had this buck get past us.
Too many people often forget the meat in the grocery store also was once living. It didn’t just arrive packed and butchered all pretty. It’s a great thing to teach your children that food comes at a cost. That the animal‘s sacrifice will provide for his family. This moment will teach him that this living thing is now gone so we can thrive. We had to discuss his feelings of remorse as well as his happiness at taking it.
he also experienced the visceral nature of field dressing and skinning the buck. Nothing compares to seeing the elation and pride in your child taking their first deer. He was shaking with adrenaline and excitement at what he had just done. But he quickly learned that the hunt was only the first part…. He hit the buck cleanly and dropped him at that spot. The day before we extensively went over his shot placement because of the height of our stand and how the trajectory would be affected. His shot was true. I had my son get his gun ready and we went over the fundamentals of marksmanship. He said he had a good sight picture, I whispered for him to breathe in, breathe out, pause, and squeeze…….BOOOM! He took his shot. He didn’t smell us and continued to forage. About a minute passed when the doe froze and stared straight at us in the stand. She paused for about 15 seconds, snorted loudly and jumped into the nearby woods.Dread filled my mind as I figured the buck would follow suit and wind us as well. The buck stomped at the ground near the fawn. The fawn bolted into the woods. Both the doe and buck made their way to the center of the field. The fawn went to play with the buck, who was having none of it. Previously I’d discussed with my son the ethics of shooting a doe with a small fawn in tow. He stayed there grazing on the clover and grass for about 10 minutes.Įverything was lightening when a nice sized doe and a fawn also arrived at the opposite end of the field.
The light was poor and we couldn’t tell initially what type of deer he was.
Eventually, we saw the silhouette of the deer against the woods. We quickly climbed into our position and waited for the lighting to improve. We heard numerous deer around us walking in the woods. We woke early and unfortunately bumped a couple deer out of the field upon arrival to our stand. He became discouraged. Once we returned to the house our trail cam started showing improved deer movement at our spot. I took my 12 year-old son out during the youth weekend. Saturday was a little wet in the morning and we didn’t see or hear anything that day. Marko (left) and Jeff Poulin with Marko’s deer from youth weekend.įrom Jeff Poulin: My son, Marko, and I hunted during rifle season last year but he didn’t harvest anything.