A New Hunter

Today, Noah and I decided to try our luck at deer hunting. Noah wanted to get up at 0500 but I told him he was nuts. I actually thought he would not be able to get up that early. So the friday night when he asked what time we were going to be heading out, I told him whatever time you get up, just go knock on my door and I'll get up. Surely I'll get to sleep late I thought to myself, but that wasn't the case. At 0630, there was a knock at my door so we got up and Alma made us some breakfast and we were on the road by 0700. We got to our location and were out of the truck and had walked about 10 yards into the woodline when we spooked a small doe, about 40 or 50 yards in front of us. Since I am bowhunting, that was too long of a shot for me.

We both knelt down and I told Noah not to move in case the doe came back down the hill. Noah really did a great job in not talking, not moving, and whispering instead of talking real loud. As I was watching the top of the hill, Noah tugged on my jacket and very slowly and whispering said, "Uncle Marc, there's another deer over there" as he pointed to the left of us. Somehow he was able to pick up movement in the brush to our left and there was a bigger doe walking about 20 yards away from us but in the brush. As we watched the doe moving, I was trying to find a good path to take aim and shoot, and Noah saw another doe walking. I thought this was great, we hadn't been in woods 5 minutes and we have already seen 3 does. The doe we watched was bigger than the first one and as it was getting ready to walk thru a good shooting path, I drew my bow getting ready for the shot. I was very excited knowing this would be the first deer I could take with my new bow. As I aimed, the doe stopped short of where I wanted it to be and it looked at us. I couldn't shoot since there was a cedar tree in the way and the only thing I could see was part of it's neck and head.

If I was hunting with any of my rifles, I would have taken the shot, but things are different with a bow. Noah was right behind me to my left and I told him not to move and he did a great job becasue he didn't move an inch. He kept saying when are you going to shoot it Uncle Marc? It was only 30 yards away and I have been practicing at 20 and 30 yards, so I'm pretty sure I would have been able to take the shot, but only if it would move out of the cedar tree. Well, with my bow drawn and the doe and me looking at each other after what seemed like 10 minutes I had to let the bow down and that's when the two does took off running up the hill. So much for taking the shot.

So we moved into the woods a couple hundred yards and as we walked looking for trails, (which there were a lot of), Noah asked the most important question that came to his little mind. "Uncle Marc, are elves real", to which I had to really control myself from laughing. Out of all the questions a seven year old could ask about hunting he wants to know if elves are real. I told him no I don't think so, and he started to tell me how he knew they were real. Then as we walked along following trails and deer poop, it dawned on me that if he believes in elves, he also probably believes in Santa. Oh crap I can't destroy Santa's cover, or Polie will kill me. So I had to think fast so I told him that there probably were elves up north somewhere, but I hadn't seen any in Texas. Hey check out the deer poop Noah!!!! That's deer poop? he said. Yes it worked, I got his mind off elves.

Oh well, that's all the deer we saw but I did get some pictures of my new ground blind and Noah playing his game boy while we were sitting in the blind. I bought this ground blind so I could take all three boys on different days and with a ground blind, they can move around not worry about being seen. And as you can see it comes in handy since Noah is playing his game boy.