My name is Sam and I am 11 years old. My Dad and I are going to tell the story of my first hunting experiences and ultimately my first deer harvested. Three years ago at age 8 I graduated hunters ed and have been deer hunting all around Washington, from wheat fields and sage brush to timber and clear cuts and finally over to the San Juan Islands. Every year me and my dad would hunt early season through late season, several times dawn to dusk, often in rain and cold. Every year early season would come and go, and every year the sun would set on the last day of late season without a deer, not even a shot fired.
Then, last month my Dad received a message from Jakeland, he said lokidog asked if he knew of a youth hunter who wanted to go on an island hunt. My Dad said, “Heck yah.” And arrangements where made for a late season rifle hunt.
Fast forward to Saturday morning the 18th. I spent the night at a friend’s house for a birthday party, I got less than two hours sleep.
My Dad picked me up at 10am with hunting gear packed, we drove to the marina (I slept most of the way), and met lokidog. Lokidog piloted us over to the island which was a fun experience in itself. We landed, went to lokidogs and he showed us around. After a little while he took us to a blind to sit for the evening hunt. After about ten minutes in the blind I couldn’t stop myself from going to sleep. My Dad shook me awake an hour later, I was only half awake, there was a nice fork horn outside the blind, but I didn’t know what to do,
weird thoughts where flashing through my mind, like: is it legal to shoot Bucks?, or how do I fire a gun? So after about three minutes of this, the buck got suspicious and left. Dark came and that was the end of our evening hunt. We went back to Lokidog’s place and told him about what happened and he couldn’t believe I fell asleep in the blind.
We had dinner, shared hunting stories and went to bed.
The next morning we woke up and had breakfast. Lokidog said we should set out on foot after first light, so we took our time, got dressed, grabbed my shotgun, and headed out. Right off the bat we saw a few does, then a few minutes later we saw what looked like a buck! Lokidog said to go ahead and shoot it so my Dad set the sticks up, I raised the gun, caulked the hammer, aimed, and fired!
The buck dropped like a brick! And I rubbed my eye brow and realized I scoped myself (not too bad though). We went to the deer and saw I hit it in the neck. We took pictures, celebrated,
broke down the deer, and had deer heart for lunch. After words, Lokidog showed us around the island and we made plans for our departure. Do to high wind and high seas
we had to take a larger boat (the Paraclete) back to the main land. It was a fitting end to a great and successful adventure. Thank you very much for hosting us and getting us on deer lokidog! And a shout out to jakeland for keeping us in mind, and putting us in contact with lokidog!
