I took my son hunting for the first time this weekend. He hasn't been ready until now, but decided that like all 14 year olds (15 next month) he knows it all. After a day and a half of hunting with my Dad and we sat down at the edge of a clearcut about about a half mile off the pavement (we were taking a break on the way to another area to hunt for the afternoon). I made a comment that if I was younger and ambitious and maybe not as smart I would go walk inside the tree line at the bottom end of the clearcut, because if there were any deer around they would be in there away from the road along the other side of the cut. My son decided that was a good idea and for some reason I told him I would go with him. I gave my dad the keys so that he could meet us at the other end which was about 5 ridges away and so far that even with binoculars I couldn't tell if there was a road. It turned out that the treeline was a riparian zone and you couldn't walk inside the treeline unless you walked in the bottom of the creek in a 20 foot deep gully. After almost two hours my son figured out what the "not as smart" meant as we dragged our sorry worn out butts up the last ridge and walked the top to the road. He might understand me now when I tell him I would rather slog through thick reprod or underbrush than a year old clearcut that still has all the limbs and crap in it waiting to be piled and burned. I think that it was probably all worthwhile to see him admit that maybe I might have been right. Now if I can only teach him patience.
