spdrman
WKR
- Joined
- Dec 3, 2012
- Messages
- 444
2021 was my older boys first year hunting. When the season was over I told him to remember that cuz it’d probably be impossible to beat that year. Well to my surprise 2022 was better
My 9 year old Talen, has tagged along all his life, way his birthday landed in 2021 he missed spring turkey but we where able to get him out this spring and he not only got 1 but 2 birds!
My older boy Hunter had his mind dead set on killing a bear, with my work schedule I knew I’d have to pull him out of school to find time to bear hunt, told him he couldn’t miss for both turkeys and bears so he chose bear hunting this spring. After a few outing and a miss we finally where able to connect on his first bear a few weeks after his brother tagged out on turkeys
This would be his first year archery hunting so we spent the rest of the summer preparing for his first archery hunt getting his bow dialed in and shooting from blinds, 4 days before archery antelope opened my cousin called and said he just got a couple depredation doe antelope tags and asked if Hunter wanted one, of course we wanted it! I made some calls to work to get the time off and off we went. He was able to make take his first antelope and made a perfect shot on her.
We hustled home, got his doe taken care of and loaded up to head out for archery antelope. Opening morning a flood of emotions hit me when I hung his bow on the same hook I’d been hanging my bow on for 10 years, I started taking him with me in that blind when he was 4 and now it’s his turn in the hot seat. Opening day didn’t disappoint when one of our target bucks showed up just after noon and he made a picture perfect shot on his first archery animal. I couldn’t have been more proud of him. Even better Talen was there to enjoy the experience too
Month later our most anticipated hunt of the year was finally here. We both drew rifle bull tags and I made arrangements with school to pull him out of school for about 2 weeks to make the most of this opportunity, well everything was looking good found bulls before the season opened and opening day the weather came, we where socked in for 4 days and couldn’t see or here anything, once the weather cleared we had high hopes of finding elk but we couldn’t turn up any where we could get him too.
Had a long talk with him and asked if he wanted to save some of these days he could miss for deer season and head home. He agreed and we packed up. He went to school and I headed to deer camp hoping to turn up some deer for when he could come the following weekend. Opening day didn’t go as planned with more people than we’d ever seen. Finally we found a spot without people and slowly started turning up deer, I found a 4pt I was debating on shooting when all of a sudden they bolted. My buddy said it was wolves and grab my gun. I was lucky enough to shoot 2 of the 3 wolves.
While taking care of the wolves that 4pt I found came back out as well as another 3x4, Jason said he wasn’t interested in either buck so I went and put a stalk on them, I got within 200 yards of them bedded and after looking them over I decided they’d mean more to Hunter and my buddies boy Connor that was coming that weekend so decided to pass on both bucks hoping they’d make it through the week.
Well a few days later Connor’s mom brings them up and I couldn’t sleep at all that night I was so excited and stressed. It was the weekend and more people had showed up but I had high hopes the bucks were still there. That morning was a little slow but a few hours into glassing finally turned up one of the 2 bucks. Un sure what to do we had the boys draw short sticks to see who could shoot it and Hunter got the lucky stick and made a perfect shot on his first mule deer buck.
Connor was able to get his first buck on the last day they could hunt and we headed home.
I worked a couple days and headed back up and got my buck the last few hours of the last day. With one more weekend left we decided to give elk one more try
Last day of the season just as we where getting ready to head home I finally locate a group of elk with a bull, tell the boys we can go after them but won’t make it home in time for Halloween, they both agreed they’d rather shoot a elk so after a 3mile hike we finally got in range and he mad a perfect shot on his second bull elk
Hunter packed a deboned front shoulder and the head, a Talen packed the other front shoulder and back straps, I carried everything else
Talen even got a bonus yote that trip which would be his first yote!
My 9 year old Talen, has tagged along all his life, way his birthday landed in 2021 he missed spring turkey but we where able to get him out this spring and he not only got 1 but 2 birds!
My older boy Hunter had his mind dead set on killing a bear, with my work schedule I knew I’d have to pull him out of school to find time to bear hunt, told him he couldn’t miss for both turkeys and bears so he chose bear hunting this spring. After a few outing and a miss we finally where able to connect on his first bear a few weeks after his brother tagged out on turkeys
This would be his first year archery hunting so we spent the rest of the summer preparing for his first archery hunt getting his bow dialed in and shooting from blinds, 4 days before archery antelope opened my cousin called and said he just got a couple depredation doe antelope tags and asked if Hunter wanted one, of course we wanted it! I made some calls to work to get the time off and off we went. He was able to make take his first antelope and made a perfect shot on her.
We hustled home, got his doe taken care of and loaded up to head out for archery antelope. Opening morning a flood of emotions hit me when I hung his bow on the same hook I’d been hanging my bow on for 10 years, I started taking him with me in that blind when he was 4 and now it’s his turn in the hot seat. Opening day didn’t disappoint when one of our target bucks showed up just after noon and he made a picture perfect shot on his first archery animal. I couldn’t have been more proud of him. Even better Talen was there to enjoy the experience too
Month later our most anticipated hunt of the year was finally here. We both drew rifle bull tags and I made arrangements with school to pull him out of school for about 2 weeks to make the most of this opportunity, well everything was looking good found bulls before the season opened and opening day the weather came, we where socked in for 4 days and couldn’t see or here anything, once the weather cleared we had high hopes of finding elk but we couldn’t turn up any where we could get him too.
Had a long talk with him and asked if he wanted to save some of these days he could miss for deer season and head home. He agreed and we packed up. He went to school and I headed to deer camp hoping to turn up some deer for when he could come the following weekend. Opening day didn’t go as planned with more people than we’d ever seen. Finally we found a spot without people and slowly started turning up deer, I found a 4pt I was debating on shooting when all of a sudden they bolted. My buddy said it was wolves and grab my gun. I was lucky enough to shoot 2 of the 3 wolves.
While taking care of the wolves that 4pt I found came back out as well as another 3x4, Jason said he wasn’t interested in either buck so I went and put a stalk on them, I got within 200 yards of them bedded and after looking them over I decided they’d mean more to Hunter and my buddies boy Connor that was coming that weekend so decided to pass on both bucks hoping they’d make it through the week.
Well a few days later Connor’s mom brings them up and I couldn’t sleep at all that night I was so excited and stressed. It was the weekend and more people had showed up but I had high hopes the bucks were still there. That morning was a little slow but a few hours into glassing finally turned up one of the 2 bucks. Un sure what to do we had the boys draw short sticks to see who could shoot it and Hunter got the lucky stick and made a perfect shot on his first mule deer buck.
Connor was able to get his first buck on the last day they could hunt and we headed home.
I worked a couple days and headed back up and got my buck the last few hours of the last day. With one more weekend left we decided to give elk one more try
Last day of the season just as we where getting ready to head home I finally locate a group of elk with a bull, tell the boys we can go after them but won’t make it home in time for Halloween, they both agreed they’d rather shoot a elk so after a 3mile hike we finally got in range and he mad a perfect shot on his second bull elk
Hunter packed a deboned front shoulder and the head, a Talen packed the other front shoulder and back straps, I carried everything else
Talen even got a bonus yote that trip which would be his first yote!
