My First Experience with Taking a Kid Deer Hunting. Part 1

My First Experience with Taking a Kid Deer Hunting. Part 1

By Jason Smith

I was 14 when I first went deer hunting with my Dad’s shotgun party. I thought I was pretty young to be deer hunting, even at 14, because I didn’t know my way around in the woods, wasn’t completely comfortable with knowing exactly where everyone was, and to be honest, I was a bit of a scatterbrain kid. And I’d been pheasant hunting for at least a season or two by that time too.

That was many moons ago
A few years back, my family and I belonged to a home church group. All of the families had children that ranged from babies to 7 year olds. One of the 7 year olds, Elijah, was always such an inquisitive soul. He’d ask questions about just about anything, and some of them would really make you think before you responded.

Earlier that year, Elijah’s family had been over to our house and saw a deer mount that we had on the wall. I could just see the gears turning in Elijah’s head when he saw that mount, and soon enough, the questions began to flow. “Who got that?” “You did?” “How’d you kill it?” “Is that a male or a female deer?” “What did you kill it with?”

“Where were you hunting?” “Is that a big deer?” “How big do deer get?” Etc. Etc.

I had a lot of fun answering his questions, but didn’t imagine he would give any of it a second thought after they left. Man, was I wrong.

For the next few Sunday evenings when our church group would meet, that kid would barrage me with more questions about hunting. He even started writing his questions down in a notebook during the week so that he could ask me from it, come Sunday evening. He wanted to know everything there was to know about whitetail deer and deer hunting.

Because Elijah was so inquisitive and persistent with his questions, around late summer, I asked his parents if they would be cool with me asking him if he’d like to sit with me during bow season, so he could get some real-world deer hunting experience. They thought it would be a great idea, so I asked him. That kid was on cloud 9. He almost couldn’t believe that he would be able actually to go hunting. I told him that I had a book or two that I would lend him to read up on whitetail deer before season began, and that in order for him to go with me, he would need to sit very still and be extremely quiet for an hour or more at a time. He wasn’t sure he could do it, but was willing to try.
Personally, I had my own doubts about a 7 year old boy being able to sit still and keep quiet in a treestand, but I figured it would be an adventure giving it a go. I know I sure wouldn’t have been able to do it at the age of 7.

At this time, I had children of my own, (5, 3, 1, and another one on the way), so I hadn’t yet taken any of them hunting, and I’d never taken any other kid before either. So, I wasn’t sure exactly what I was getting myself into.

Elijah loved the books I lent him. I believe he even gave a small school presentation on them if I remember right, but I could be off on that one. On Sunday evenings, he’d now sprinkle in facts he’d read about whitetail deer, in between his questions. I absolutely ate it up!
I can’t tell you how excited this kid was. It was truly something to see.

Temps began to drop and leaves started changing. Fall was in the air. I’d picked up a small safety harness for my little hunting partner and didn’t want to spend a ton on full camo for him, so I bought some camo mesh like fabric and cut a hole out of the center that he could put his head through and wear it like a poncho. Just enough to cover his street cloths up with camo, and keep the bugs off of him.

I’d prepared him as well as I could with talking. I had set up a few different double sets of hang-on stands in the woods behind my house. The time had come to take this little guy hunting. Now, please keep in mind, he was only sitting with me while I bow hunted at this point. He was 7 years old, had never done any type of hunting before, and had such a big heart. He was far from being ready to actually hunt yet. We all have to start out crawling before we learn how to walk or run.

So, the evening came when Elijah was able to join me for his first hunting experience. His mom brought him over and we got him dressed in his safety harness, a camo mesh facemask, and my homemade poncho. Then sprayed him down well with scent killer. I believe he was wearing high tops and blue jeans too, so he looked like quite a little deer hunter in the making. He brought a couple of big print kids’ books to read in the stand to keep him entertained if we didn’t see any deer. And off we went to make the trek over the hilltop to our stands for the evening.

I live relatively close to city limits, so the deer are pretty desensitized to people as compared to places I’ve hunted that are miles from civilization, where they run for the hills as soon as they hear a car door shut or catch even a hint of human scent. This makes my place a perfect small spot to take a kid hunting because it allows them to goof up a bit and not completely bust you and ruin the entire hunt. Not that I had to worry about that with Elijah, because that kid was a phenomenal hunting pupil.

I got onto my stand platform, hung my bow onto its hanger and tethered my safety harness to the tree. Then I helped Elijah into his stand and got his safety harness tethered to the tree. We whispered back and forth for a couple of minutes before he pulled out a book and started reading. It wasn’t long, maybe 20 or 30 minutes before a doe came into view. “Pst. Hey Elijah.” I whispered and pointed. Instead of jerking his head and body around in excitement, he did just as I’d instructed him to do. He slowly turned and saw the doe coming towards us. He kept his eyes locked on her, and as soon as she gave me the opportunity, I stood up and made a clean shot on her.

Elijah watched the arrow strike and continued to watch as she ran a few yards and collapsed. He then turned to me with a huge smile beaming across his face, (that I could actually see through the facemask), and huge wide eyes, and said, “That was SO COOL!”. His response made my month. Maybe my entire year.

He wanted to get down and see her right away, but I told him we needed to wait a few minutes for her to expire, and that there was the possibility of another deer walking in. So, 10 antsy minutes passed and we’re both down out of the tree, making our way to the doe. I gave Elijah a few minutes to look her over and touch her. He was extremely curious. I then told him that I had to field dress her and that he didn’t have to watch, but that if he wanted to learn, this would be a great opportunity for it. He didn’t think he wanted to, and said he’d look away at any point that got too gross, but that kid was mesmerized with the entire process. He soaked it all in, talking and asking questions the entire time. Little did he know he was going to get a hands-on biology lesson that day.

Elijah sat with me several more times that season and the following bow season, and when he turned 9, I got to sit with him during his first youth deer season. I’ll write all about that in Part 2 within the next issue.

“That was SO COOL!”