Ladies first... here's a video that my brother-in-law put together of my nieces first killed buck. She powered through a difficult general archery, muzzleloader, and rifle seasons and was able to find a little buck on the extended archery. Congrats to Abbi!!!
The day after arriving home from my limited entry elk hunt, I negotiated a deal with my wife to take my two oldest sons up to the family cabin for a couple days. Logan had a tag for the area and as per tradition, we already had several family members up there for the muzzleloader hunt. So as soon as the boys got home from school we headed up the canyon. We arrived at the cabin and found a note on the basement door letting us know that the rest of the crew had headed out for the evening hunt and would be back after dark. They had left a gate key for us so that we could meet up with them sometime during the evening. We didn't even unload our personal gear, we just turned around in the driveway of the cabin and headed up the road. As we came around a bend in the road I spotted a couple deer down in the creek bottom. I could see that one was a small buck so I hit the brakes and told Logan to get out and shoot it. He wasn't quite ready and fumbled around a bit trying to get out of the vehicle. Once out of the vehicle he couldn't figure out how to put the primer in. I had to jump out and put the primer in for him then hand him the gun back. By this time the little buck was getting a bit agitated and started to work its way up from the creek bottom and was facing directly away from us. The buck took a couple nervous bounces away and I was figuring that Logan's opportunity was slipping away. I started making all kinds of ruckus, I exhausted my repertoire of farm animal noises, and with a stroke of luck that little buck turned perfectly broadside to assess what the heck was going on. I was barking at Logan to shoot and he finally pulled the trigger. When the smoke cleared, the little buck had crumpled into the sagebrush right where it had been standing.
As you can see from the picture below, he was clearly dressed for the occasion (he actually changed his shirt into the brown Cabela's shirt... he had been wearing a bright blue soccer jersey when he pulled the trigger). I'm going to have a word with Sitka, Kuiu, King's, etc. because apparently all it takes to kill a buck these days are soccer shorts and indoor soccer shoes. And don't get me started on the indoor soccer shoes... when your oldest son picks up a pair of light peach colored indoor shoes and thinks they're the most awesome things he's ever seen I guess you just swipe the card at the register and pray to whichever Higher Being you believe in that this is just a temporary phase!
Not long after we got the little buck dragged back to the road we spotted a white pickup truck coming down the road. My dad's Ford F-150 slowed to a stop and the rest of the family hunting party bailed out. Logan was able to show off his little buck to two admiring cousins and have a nice moment to puff out his chest a bit. My brother had also shot a buck earlier that evening, a nice little 4 point, and back at the cabin once both bucks were hung to cool there was quite a bit of banter back and forth between Logan and his uncle! Darren was relentless in his teasing and I loved hearing every minute of it! The tape measure was broken out and I just sat back and laughed at the verbal jabs being thrown between the two of them. It was exactly what a family deer hunt should be.
The most disappointing thing about this hunt is that I will not likely be able do this hunt again with any of my kids because Idaho is dramatically increasing the price of their youth licenses and permits next year. I think that is a crying shame, I would have planned on doing this hunt with my kids every year under the current/previous price model... but unfortunately the price increase is something like 300% so unless I win the lottery it's unlikely that I'll be able to afford this one again.
The day after the election, I had planned to take my 10 year old, Dillon, to Idaho to meet up with Doug and his son. Dillon had drawn a controlled antlerless whitetail tag and had purchased a general whitetail tag. Dillon and I left home Wednesday after he got home from school and drove to a hotel a Boise. The following morning we picked up Doug and his son and drove another nearly 5 hours north to Kamiah (I found out that it is pronounced Ka-MEE-eye... apparently it is Nez Perce for "one hell of a long drive"). We stopped at a small piece of state land and began hiking. Shortly after reaching the ridge we peeked down into a small draw and found a deer. I got Dillon set up on the shooting sticks and since he didn't have a whole lot of experience with scopes it took him a couple extra seconds to find the deer in the scope. He confirmed that he could see the deer and that he had a clear shot... so I told him to go for it. The shot was 211 yards slightly downhill, and when the rifle went off the deer turned and took three steps disappearing into cover.
We headed down to where the buck was standing and as we neared the bushes Doug was able to spot the deer piled up at the bottom of the draw in the bushes. There was a lot of excitement and it was even better when Dillon realized that he had shot a small whitetail buck!
We skinned and quartered the buck, and in the skinning process we actually found the bullet. Dillon was shooting the 7mm-08 with a 139gr Hornady GMX and when he shot the buck it was actually facing straight on and the bullet entered right at the base of the neck and was found just under the skin in front of the opposite rear leg. He made a phenomenal shot! And I had the privilege to pack the entire little buck in one trip back to the car.
One of the things that I really like to do on these types of trips is to check out the local diners... on the first night after shooting the little buck we ate the the Farm Table Cafe in Kooskia (pronounced Koo-SKEE which is also Nez Perce for "one hell of a long drive... but not quite as far as Kamiah") and Dillon celebrated his first buck with a bacon cheeseburger that was as big as his face! The next day after a morning of more deer and squirrel hunting we ate a late lunch/early dinner at the Pizza Factory in Kamiah. Both were excellent!
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