This story has been 10 years in the making... my oldest son Caedyn was born in Feb of 2005.... and as I held him I whispered "I can't wait to someday take you hunting with me little partner."
Fast forward through first steps, trips to the zoo, soccer games and all and then last year "So Dad when do you think I'm going to get to take hunter's ed?"
Game on.
I've been terribly fortunate to become pals with CoachCW, BLRMan, and RTSpring and they've become as Caedyn calls it "my crazy uncles." When I told the guys that Caedyn was looking to do hunter's ed I was instructed to get on it Martin!
I'm a moose freak by nature, desire and the sad owner of 19 points to draw but I like finding out who gets the govenor's tag and so Coach and I started going to the Wild Sheep Foundation dinner where they auctioned it off a couple of years ago. We became lifetime members of Washington Wild Sheep Foundation and enjoyed the first year so much we went back again. One of the items this last year was a youth hunt on a piece of private access land in North Bend for a bull elk. While I went to get a couple of beverages for Coach and I (I'd promised my wife I'd be good at the dinner this year) somehow I hear Coach's number being called for the Youth Hunt. I get back and ask if we're going to dress his 21 year old son up in jumper pants to make the hunt happen and he drops this gem "Guess there is no excuses for that kid not to through hunter's ed now."
When BLRMan and RTSpring heard the news they were excited and then all started tallying votes on what gun the kid needed to run to kill his first big game animal and even though I said I've got .243, .308, 30-06, 270, 6.5x284 and a .338 we all agreed the kid needed a 7mm-08 for the load capabilities and bullet options. My son is a slight build so we needed to make sure to get something in a youth model and hope that the barrel weight would be balanced. Settled on a Ruger American Compact in 7mm-08. So we picked it up. BLRMan (Karl) said he'd put his genius reload skills to work (the man never sleeps) and made a bunch of progressive loads with some factory brass that he shot to break in the rifle. (Did I mention he won't let me pay him for this work?) So now we had a broken in rifle, some handloads and a Nikon 3x9 setup.
RTSpring bought a pig from our farm to fund all the purchases of the gun, reloading supplies etc.... and gave Caedyn many pointers on how to identify two-points, and tagging options. (Seriously Kurt has always been a great friend and treats my kids great and I would send them to the woods with him anytime.)
Summer came and finally school was out so Caeydn's shooting training could begin in earnest.... my Mom lives in Union Gap now so off to Grandma's house for a visit we went (really so we could go with Uncle Karl out to the Wenas for shooting lessons).
Karl instructed Caedyn (and Dad stayed back) on handling his new rifle, and setup a bench and targets to get him started. We shot some .22Mag, and a little .223 then we shot the 7mm-08. The kid was a natural and without Dad screwing him up had no bad habits. Karl would go on to give us 4 more lessons that summer until the DNR shut down the range land and we had to move to a regular range over here on the Wetside.
Everytime we thought we'd have something to stump the kid on his groups (which were good), and his targets he'd just smoothly shoot everything and quietly smile and ask if that was the right way to do it.
Mid-summer came and we did a crab and fish trip with Coach where he told Caedyn that "He'd better come over and help him go through some stuff in the garage." So off to Uncle Corey's we went the next week where Corey proceeded to shower my kid with a bunch of gear (Pack, binos (STEINERS), knives, a coat, some calls, a bow his daughter had used, arrows etc...) seriously the kid is better setup than I was for the first 15 years of my hunting life.
Next up was Hunter's ed which we decided to do in a class and no online to make it a focus point. I also decided to do the longer class meeting over 5 weeks to really get him to study and be invested in the process. Bob33 ended up being his instructor at the Issaquah Sportsmen's club (highly recommend Bob and his colleagues classes they are top notch) and Caedyn enjoyed the weekly Dad time as we went to class. Ate a few hamburgers and often would shoot at the range before class for extra trigger time. Made some new friends that are his age and went fishing a couple of times with them and look forward to a deer hunting trip next year. He passed his class and now we'd got to the final hurdle which was waiting until November got here to go hunting for his first elk.
Coach's daughter is a freshman at WSU and the opening weekend of modern firearm elk Westside happened to fall during Dad's weekend so Coach was off in Pullman for the event. This is the only part of the story I wish were different as after everything it just sums up how great a friend Corey is that he was a WSU and texting almost hourly for updates on Caedyn's hunt. Wish I could have had him there but was excited to know he was making memories (as I was instructed to do) with his daughter that weekend.
After meeting the landowner and getting the layout of the property Caedyn and I talked about the upcoming hunt.
Caedyn was the captain of his soccer team this season and one of the leading scorers and of course we had a game on opening day. While he couldn't wait to get out to go hunting he told me that he didn't feel right leaving his team to fend for themselves and that he needed to play in the game before we could hunt so it became an afternoon hunt for Dad. Caedyn scored 3 goals, 2 assists, and iced out the leading scorer for them to win their game 5-4 (they placed 2nd in the league overall) so he was right he was needed. After the game we got home and changed into our hunting gear and drove the 30 minutes to the farm where we were hunting.
I was a nervous wreck the night before as I felt it was like Christmas Eve and Tax Day all in one as I worried that I wanted him to have a good experience, to honor the animal, to make a good shot and all the other things that run through our head. Truly this is one of the hardest things I've done as my greatest fear was that he wouldn't want to continue hunting or have a bad experience.
The layout of the property is there is a large herd of elk that travel across the property to graze on large fields that are protected early in the AM and again in the early evening so we had a blind setup with some chairs and a Caldwell Deadshot field pod to keep the rifle at the ready. (For those with younger kids or blind hunters I can't recommend the Deadshot Field pod more highly as a must have it works). so we settled in about 1:30 into the blind waiting for the evening group to hopefully come through our section.
Blind hunting is hard. Blind hunting is really hard for a kid that has a motor, plays soccer, runs track and cross country and has farm animals to care for and generally doesn't sit unless he has to or is sick. The first hour in the blind was wide-eyed anticipation (and some whispers of "see anything Dad?"), the next hour was a little more baleful looks and then digging into his pack for a snack (followed by Dad's WE TAKE THE WRAPPERS off and use a ziplock at home next time.), and then a casual grab of Dad's phone and opening of the Mad Libs app that we use to pass the time sometimes. We promised each other to not laugh when we read them and a couple of suppressed giggles may have been heard in the field. After that didn't work we got the long stare into the woods and then I looked over and saw the nod-nod-nod-snooze of a kid that slept fitfully the night before and played a full match in the rain earlier. I smiled and covered him up and let him sleep a bit. About 30 minutes later I was glassing the treeline to my right and saw an ear flap.
I could barely contain my excitement as I touched Caeydn's leg and said "Elk." He didn't say a word or make a sound but immediately sat up and got right on his gun. The lead cow stepped out and cautiously checked the wind and started into the field followed by 16 more cows and yearlings. As I continued to glass I saw a branched antler near the back in the brush and whispered "Bull."
I got the careful whisper of "Can I shoot him? Is he legal?" and I counted the one side I could see and saw 5 tines and said he was legal. Caedyn said "I'm going to shoot him when he gets in the opening Dad." The anticipation and prep of this moment almost made me lose it right there.......as I got really excited and started whispering reminders to keep our backdrop open and not let a cow be behind the target etc...
The elk browsed across from us at about 80-110 yards and the bull started to trot a bit to move past some cows.... making me worried. I whisper I'd stop him and that Caedyn should be ready to shoot when I made a sound as we'd need to fire..... my answer was in the quiet click of the safety going off and a careful "I'm ready Dad."
I did the classic TV "MEHHHHHH" and before I could finish the 2nd H the bull stopped and the Ruger barked and the bull dropped like we were on an episode of Rocky Mountain Elk TV. Down goes Frazier, hammered and gone. Absolutely perfect.
Caedyn started to shake with that adrenaline over load and giggled in a nervous way and said "I did it. I did it." I looked at him as said "What did you do?"
"I KILLED A BULL!" You'd have to know my kid but he's pretty quiet and shy and so when he said the words it was a surprise to me that he sounded like he was 25, had hair on his chest and just got his first new car..... No question in the statement, no shy did I do it right implication but the alpha hunter I DID THIS. THIS IS MINE.
This is when my emotions overwhelmed me and I started to tear up and weep like I'd punched in the gut.....I choked out "let's go look at your bull." So we checked the weapon and made it safe, got out of the blind, and started the walk up to his bull.
I got to the as he lay first and was immediately sad as it looked like the bull had broken on side off as he only had 5 points on one side and then I looked closer and realized that he was a 5x2 with a spike and drop-tine on one side. Caedyn saw him and shouted "Wow Dad look at him he's huge, and his antlers are AWESOME!" so my fear subsided.
We took some pictures and then the farmer arrived to help us. He took some more pictures and helped us cape the bull that Caedyn had decided to call Freakshow due to his rack. I gave him the option to have a mount or a euro mount and he elected to have a shoulder mount by Charlie's Taxidermy as I had showed him some pictures of Charlie's work and told him he played football with my brother so Caedyn thought it would be good for Charlie to make his mount.
This wasn't a difficult hunt, this wasn't a physical hunt but it was the perfect start to my son's hunting career and I can't thank Coach, BLRMan and RTSpring enough for all the encouragement, time, money and effort they gave to see Caedyn successful. Caedyn did mention that he didn't want to blind hunt again and that it would be better next time to hike with Uncle Corey, and Karl and Kurt into the woods so he could be wore-out too!
Quite a fall we've had hunting this year and I look forward to the next year's hunt all the more now that I've got another hunting partner. Apologies for the blast of pictures to come.
One last quick note.... his soccer team had their awards last night.... 2 awards by the team one Coaches, one by Players.... Caedyn won both. He's a great kid and I'm lucky to be his Dad.
