Day 3:
So yesterday I told my son that glassing from the tops seemed futile, since all the deer were in the bottoms, but my buddy who is familiar with the area encouraged me to try it one more time. Day 3 was our last day of hunting, so it was an all or nothing proposition. My son, being a total trooper, agreed to give it a go and get up even earlier and hike into the same area as yesterday. This time we hiked to a lower peak and had the sun at our backs, so we had a different view of the ridges. Shortly after first light I glassed a doe... another doe... a spike... and holy crap, a legal buck. We “quickly”, which is relative when youth hunting, descended our peak into a saddle and got eyes on. The sun had been up for 30 minutes and they were on their way to bed. It turns out there were about 10 deer, and 4-5 of them were bucks, including a nice 3x3. Long story short, I ranged the deer, dialed the rifle, and tried to calm my son’s nerves. I kept repeating “slow steady squeeze”. Blam! Miss, I’m pretty sure. He asked which buck to shoot, and I responded “pick one”, which seemed appropriate given the time constraints. The deer all scattered 10 yards and held tight. None of the deer were hit (and a couple actually started sparring), so I told him to shoot agin at the bigger 3x3. Blam, miss again. The deer all scattered. The bigger, smarter deer all scattered. This time I saw it just miss high. I checked the dial and it was set 1 mil high, so fixed that and tried to give him a pep talk. I figured we were done. He had tears in his eyes. He was devastated that we had worked so hard for 2 1/2 days and he missed the only bucks we had glassed up. I glance at the hillside and as natural selection would have it, a smaller. 2x3 was still standing in the ridge. We get set up again, I give him a pep talk and blam! The deer was pretty hard quartering away when he shot, and he ended up hitting just a little aft of desired, but I knew that shot would be lethal eventually. We were also running low on bullets at this point, and the deer was all hunched up in the bushes at 350 yards. I walked him fall into a bed, and I swung around to get eyes on. It was clear he was immobile and mortally wounded, but also in for some prolonged suffering. We picked up our gear and started our way towards him. We snuck to within 50 yards and Riley made a good shot to put the deer down. We made quick work of breaking the deer down, loaded the packs and started down the hill... but not before Riley stepped on a yucca spike that went through his boot sole and went an inch into his foot. Dad fixed that with a leatherman and a pep talk that started something like, “the spike is broken off in your boot sole and still stuck on your foot. I’m going to rip your boot off and you’re going to feel a pinch...”. He kept blood covered spike, once I removed it from his foot and boot. It made a daddy proud to have my 11 year old son hike out the head and hindquarter after a yucca spike went through his foot! I am so proud of my son for having excellent attitude and effort during a very frustrating and difficult hunt!
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