Shooting Range

This afternoon Walker & I went over to the shooting range and let him practice shooting the Ruger .22. We set the target up at about 30 yards, along with a milk jug full of water. The gun is a little big for him, so I was pretty proud when he was nailing the bullseye almost every time. He got really excited when he nailed the milk jug and it jumped off the ground about 3 inches as water exploded out the side. He's going to be a great shot...

The main reason he wanted to go today was to see if he could shoot my 7mm-.08 so he could try to take a deer this year. I was pretty sure that was not going to happen so I 'asked' him to watch me shoot it first. When he saw the 'kick' he said, "yeah maybe I should just wait." I asked him would he rather get his own smaller .22 and he said no, he wanted something he could deer hunt with. I'm hoping we can find him something for Christmas that he might could hunt with.

2009 Season - First deer with the kids

The 2009 deer season was an exciting one, primarily because I had been given the opportunity to hunt a small plot of land, for free, that no one else could hunt. In addition, this land was not regularly hunted. The land belonged to Mr. Giles, the principal at the school where I teach. We started off the season by going over to check the place out. From the time we got there things just kept getting better. We had to walk about 100 yards down to the field and as we walked up there were deer in the field! 

8.15.09

8.15.09

The kids loved it. We were excited to find some hardwoods, a small field planted with grass, and an enclosed shooting house/blind sitting about 15 feet off the ground. We made plans to come back later in the season to hunt.

10.17.09

On the chosen day we got up early and got bundled up and went out to the hunting property. The kids slept a while, watched out the windows a while, and unfortunately we didn't see anything. We decided we would try again, but in the evening.







 That next Saturday was October 26, 2009. Within an hour of getting settled we spotted several deer in different directions. One group of doe's wandered into the field at about 20 yards so we picked one out and I made the shot. The deer ran across the field into the woods, and I have never seen two kids more excited. Luckily I grabbed the digital camera and started recording.

We decided to call Mommy to share the excitement and that ended up being hilarious. The video of that phone call is below:

After waiting a while we climbed down to look for blood where the deer was standing. Sure enough we found some and we followed it to the edge of the field. For a few minutes we were couldn't find where the blood trail continued and the kids almost got upset that we might not find it, but we picked the trail back up where the deer ran into the woods. The video from that point is below:

Luckily Mr. Giles had gotten home and he came down to the field to see what we had taken. I am glad he was there because he volunteered to snap a photo for us.

10.26.09 - First deer with the kids - Browning 7mm-.08

This will be one of those memories that they never forget and as the years go by the pictures, video, and the story will likely be told over and over. I am very thankful for the opportunity and the experience. Hopefully there will be many more in the future.