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The kid's
first bowhunt The autumn moon shone brightly through the leaves on this
crisp early October morning. As
we made our way to the ground blind I couldn’t help but think back on
all of the hard work, effort and anticipation that had gone into this
special morning. You see,
this was my daughter Sam’s first ever bowhunt. Samantha had expressed an interest in hunting with her Dad at
an early age. When she was
old enough she received a BB gun for her birthday and that was soon
followed by a bow and arrow. Months
of practice and Hunters Safety class had helped bring things into focus,
but now this was it. The
real thing. We slipped into the ground blind I had prepared adjacent to a
small field. As the world
came alive we experienced the explosion of fall colors as the sun rose;
and the calls of crows, chickadees and chipmunks.
But the deer decided to stay away. It was a cold morning. Sam
decided it was time to get warmed up and have something to eat.
As we drove to the café I was silently hoping that she wasn’t
too disappointed in not seeing any deer.
But she seemed to understand.
That’s hunting. Our midday hours were spent hanging tree stands with a
friend. We explained why we
cut shooting lanes where we did and how we expected the deer to behave
as they came down the trails. There’s
always a new lesson to be learned when you’re outdoors. A slight breeze stirred the evening as we settled ourselves
into a new ground blind that was better situated for the wind this day.
Not long after, a doe appeared and started feeding in the field.
More soon followed. Sam
was nervous with anticipation, holding her bow in her hands and glancing
from deer to deer. Soon a
small doe came running up our side of the field and right by us!
Unfortunately, she ran a little too far out of range and fed off
up the field edge. Our hearts were beginning to beat at a normal pace again;
that is until we noticed a fork-horn buck slowly feeding along the edge
towards us. The little buck
kept us on the edge of our toes for all of 45 minutes (it seemed like
hours!) until he too decided to scurry off into the underbrush.
We silently watched the rest of the deer until a loud truck
passing by spooked them all off the field. Packing up our gear and walking back to the truck, we noticed
two deer watching us from across the field. They seemed to be saying, “Ha, today was our turn!”.
But as we neared the vehicle, Sam turned to me and said, “Dad,
can we come back to the same spot tomorrow”? I had a smile on my face the whole trip home. *Keith Dewars is a freelance writer, avid outdoorsman and owner/webmaster of Malum Internet Properties. He can be contacted at keithd@maluminternet.com. |
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