The cold had them out on Saturday morning. Youth Season hunt with my oldest. He shot a spike last year for his first buck. He shot that buck while I was sitting in a tree blind across our property. I was sad not being able to be with him and talk him through it after the fact until the deer was already on the ground.
After sitting for about an hour and drinking hot chocolate in the stand and talking, we were really getting cold. Four bucks feed toward us. We notice that one of them has a limp.
My son decides, on his own mind you, that it would be the right thing to shoot the limping one. It wasn't the biggest of the four, but it was clear that it was injured. We watched them for about 20 minutes waiting for him to present a shot. The other three deer are sparring off and on, which was another cool thing for him to see for the first time. The cold and the buck fever were working on both of us. I was more excited than I can remember being on any hunt in my life.
The deer starts to walk left to right, presenting a perfect shot, except he is walking. To my horror, he isn't stopping. I break out the old "Merrrrr. Merrrrr." call to get the buck's attention. He stops and looks at us.
POW.
The buck stumbles, runs 20 yards and piles up on the edge of the trees. I never lose sight of him through the binoculars. Holy smokes, what a great feeling. The long 15 minute wait begins.
For the first time, he wants to watch while the deer is field dressed. Every other time there has been a chance to watch, he has turned green and walked around in the woods while I do it. He got a hunting knife for Christmas and makes the first cuts. Does a great job of opening everything up. Then he stands there and watches as I finish out. We find the hole in the heart and celebrate again a clean, ethical kill of an animal that was injured.
What a lucky man to have the opportunity to do this with my son! I was proud of his experience, but even more excited that he was thinking about what's best for the animals and deer population. If he would have wanted to shoot the big 8 instead of this limping one, I probably would have encouraged him to reconsider and ask him to think about the long-term impact of that decision. If he would have pushed, I might have given in. It never got to that, though. He immediately knew which deer was the right one to take.
We discovered why it was limping, too. An injured front foot/ankle. It wasn't exactly an open and festering wound. May have been shot earlier in the season. Two circles look like they might be an entry/exit of a bullet.I couldn't tell for sure.