Update: Here's a story written by the father who went out with his boys.
Written on his blog:
https://bartlesco.wordpress.com/2020/11/24/the-law-of-the-last-minute/ The Law of the Last Minute
Usually I am the procrastinator, I am not used to the animal kingdom playing the same game.
Several years ago my oldest son told me that he really wanted to hunt. This followed closely with my youngest son telling me that he would like to as well. I was not opposed to this, but it is not as simple as grabbing a sling shot and walking out into the woods. I had to admit that I missed hunting. I went several times when I was in high school and college and truly enjoyed it. My dad was taking more of a passive interest in hunting at the time and I was moving around quite a bit so hunting went by the wayside.
Many people think that the angst of shooting an animal or learning how to stalk or actually hitting something is the biggest hurdle with hunting. The biggest issue, in my opinion, is knowing where to go and getting access. When you move from Wyoming to South Dakota to Puerto Rico back to Wyoming over to Oregon back to South Dakota and finally over to Washington you tend to lose track of where to go if you want to hunt deer.
I also only had one hunting rifle which was not going to be enough to take me and my two boys hunting. Two years ago my father decided it was time to pass on his other rifles and his shotgun. Now, at least I was able to say I was on the way to arming the team for the hunt.
For those that enjoy hunting I am sure you may have picked up on a subtle omission that has been present thus far. Saying you want to go hunting does not clarify the ever important “what?”
There is big game hunting, all the way from antelope to moose. The most popular of which is the deer. Then you have to narrow that down because in this part of the world there is a black tail, white tail, and mule deer.
Then there is waterfowl hunting which includes, but is not limited to ducks and geese. As I found out, there are people that will only hunt one or the other. Then there are those that have the audacity to hunt both. Then there are what I would term “dryland” birds. Pheasants, Sage Hens, Turkeys, etc.
When my boys told me they wanted to hunt I had to ask the question “what?” So I did some research. I grew up shooting rabbits and deer. Rabbits are something that you shoot while looking for other things normally. Deer is something that you have to plan and prepare for. I really enjoyed Mule Deer Hunting, but the thought of the expense, field dressing, and processing and packaging the meat was not energizing. I have to confess that 20 years out from hunting and I was not that excited about all the stuff that comes after shooting the animal.
Then I looked at waterfowl and was not convinced. Sitting in the wet and cold for hours, spending lots of money on water gear, dogs, boats, etc. As I was contemplating this I looked at my dog, my pathetic, afraid-of-the-dark, herd dog. She was not built for the task and I was not going to invest in buying a dog, paying to train it, only to have it learn from my current dog how to make me feel guilty for not exercising her enough. My friend Jeff would disagree with this, but I will tell you more about him later.
Then I thought about turkeys. Now that was interesting.
A sport that involved me getting back to country that I was familiar with, mountains and high plains. A sport that involved some stalking. A sport that did not involve all that was involved fitting a large animal carcass into my freezer. A sport that was not an option back when I was a kid. And for those of you that know me, I like to try new things.
Interesting side note about turkeys. Most people don’t realize that there are more turkeys in the US now than is believed to have been here during the first Thanksgiving. That has not always been so, in the 1950’s the North American Turkey was on the brink of being on the endangered species list. Now you can hunt it in 48 states and in some places farmers and ranchers will let you come and hunt for nothing so that they can get rid of them.
I tried to convince my boys that turkey hunting was the sport for us. Plentiful, somewhat difficult, fairly inexpensive, and nostalgic. The family chipped in as well, the boys got shotguns for Christmas; Thank you grandparents. But deer did not come off the table, especially for my oldest, he wanted to shoot both but deer was higher on the list.
For those of you keeping score, the hurdles were starting to get cleared. Hunting guns, check. Quarry, check.
When I was a kid there was one thing that I did not like about hunting, the kick. Hunting rifles are loud powerful. Specifically when a gun is shot the energy that propels the bullet forward creates a corresponding movement backward that kicks the butt of the rifle into your collarbone. I actually hated to shoot the guns on the range because of this. Interestingly, when you are hunting many times you won’t even remember hearing or feeling it, especially if you hit what you were aiming at.
Because of my concern I wanted to take the boys out and have them shoot the shotguns to see how they would respond. To my delight they both looked at me like they did not understand what the big deal was. So being a good father I put some buck shot in the shotgun. One might think that I was trying to be mean, but they were being cocky, so…
On one hand I always hate when the government tries to tell me that I have to be “cleared” to do something. On the other hand, the amount of information that the Hunter’s Safety Course taught my boys was great. There was a lot that I knew that I did not think about telling them. Now I could just be angry that I had to pay for it.
The only think left at this point was to buy our hunting gear, buy our licenses, and figure our where we were going. As I stated earlier this was the hardest part to hunting.
The “where?”
Enter my friend Jeff. A man with a passion for hunting and a passion for people that are in ministry like myself. Also a man with two sons that he loves to hunt with. I told Jeff one day that I was excited about getting my boys into hunting, I did not realize what this casual conversation would do to answer the rest of my questions.
The reality of the hunting blind is not just about waiting for your prey to walk by unaware of your presence. The reality of a hunting blind is time with people that you care about, lots of time. I was talking to my friend Brande yesterday about ministry and windshield time and she said something interesting. She told me that there is something about having your eyes focused somewhere else that allows you to be more able to talk. That is why riding in cars with people can be some of the richest times in life. The same is true of a hunting blind, the eyes are focused and our guard can relax, and you can have some, very quiet, great, conversations.
This is why Jeff was so passionate about seeing me take my boys hunting. Rites of passage, shared experiences, conversations that might not take place otherwise.
Here is where the Law of the Last Minute starts to enter back into this story. I had no idea where I was going to take my boys to get their hunt. Honestly money started to be a factor because when you add the guns and ammo, hunting gear, transportation, accommodations, licenses, and everything else together the price of the meat is about five times that of just going to the store.
Hunting is not about saving money on groceries, oh how I wish it were so.
We were going hunting, that much was for sure. Especially during the times of Covid, using this inordinate amount of family time and extra time that we have in our lives right now meant that I was going to find a way, but how?
As I met with Jeff he told me that he was going to make this happen for us. He had some contacts of people that might allow us to hunt, and he had some guys that wanted to donate to a guy that wanted to take his boys hunting for the first time.
The hunting community can be very generous.
By the time that my boys crammed all of our stuff into my extremely high miles Tundra, we had over $1000 worth of hunting gear donated and a guided hunting trip with accomodations paid for by friends that wanted me and my boys to go hunt.
Thank you Jeff, and thank you to all those that believe that this is not just about hunting, this is about fathers and sons.
So you might be asking at this point whether we shot anything? Well, I got a deer. With my dad’s old hunting rifle.
I was asked about our trip recently by a woman who was in a hunting family whether my boys got anything. I told her that they did not. She said “good, they are not supposed to shoot anything the first time. You don’t want them to think it is easy.”
I know it sucks for for my boys but it might be true.
At 6:19 my son Asher and I were packing up to head back to the truck. 6:20 is the latest that he could legally take a shot. When what to my wondering eyes should appear? A tail that was white on a female deer. (like what I did there? Merry Christmas!)
In my mind I said “Oh my, look at that deer Asher”. What I said was “Oh S**t!” Followed by “Asher I want to tell you not to hurry your shot, but you have about 30 seconds before we are not legal.”
He took the shot.
He missed.
Our last day I sent my boys, and our two shotguns to a hunting blind in the woods to see if we could get some turkey before we left. I used my truck to drive around and try to scare turkeys toward the boys. While I was driving I saw two turkeys. Praying that they would run toward the boys I was repeating my same opening line from the night before because I DIDN’T HAVE A SHOTGUN!!
While I was kicking myself I also told myself that I would not have had a good shot anyway, only to be further mocked by these stupid birds. “How?” you might ask. Because when I came around the corner to park right back where the truck had been parked there were 20 turkeys waiting for me. And to make matters worse, when I pulled in, they just looked at me like they knew that I had no shotgun.
So when the boys came out of the woods a half hour later I asked if they saw the turkeys that I flushed toward them.
Nope.
We then loaded up and proceeded to take one final trip around the property before we had to head back home. My son Isaac was sitting shotgun(literally, he had a shotgun in the passenger seat) at the ready in case he needed to jump out. At the last possible minute before we headed home we saw a group (flock, tribe, herd, I don’t know) of turkeys.
Isaac jumped out and took a shot.
He missed.
As we processed the deer that I had shot (thank you Youtube) I talked to my boys about the redemption of this moment.
They took the shot.
Many people when faced with the moment that they had prepared for failed to follow through because of fear or other factors. My boys, when faced with the moment that they had prepared for had found out that they were up to the task, that they were hunters. They were capable of doing the thing that they might not have been sure they could do several years ago when they told their dad they wanted to hunt.
I am going to find more ways to get out there and help them succeed. But this trip was anything but a failure.
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Thank you to all who donated, invested, and helped make this happen.
A very special thank you to YJ Guide Service for making this hunt a reality!