[501s]

To Preface this, This is my fifth year hunting, and 3 year bow hunting. My son who turned 12 this year, has been coming with me since day one. He has accompanied me on archery (and gun) hunts for WT sitting in tree stands, to chasing muleys in the valleys, to even calling Elk. He has loved it from day one. And his only wish was that he could finally be hunting

This year when he turned 12 he took his hunters training course and passed the course and he was legal to hunt. I don't know many 12 years olds who are as in to hunting as he is but its seems to be all he watches on ipads is hunting. Specifically archery. He has put in a lot of time with his bow and he really wanted to try and harvest a whitetail with his bow. He has been shooting for 3 years, has used it to harvest lots of small game, and he shoots the legal poundage but no matter how good a shot he was, 20 was his absolute max.

Well this past Friday the kids had no school so on Thursday night him and I and a friend went Elk hunting to a special spot we have permission on. Him and I went down near the river and were calling. As it was getting low light we hadn't seen or heard anything. There was a beaver that kept smacking the pond in front of us and he wanted to take care of, but I said we were there for elk not beavers. With the end of the night basically there, only a few minutes left, we did one last series of cow calls, and we did a lot. And a few different kinds. Just as we were packing up, he said dad, dad, there he is. And there across the pond at 52 yards stood the most magnificent thing I have ever seen, a 6x6 elk. It feels like I have waited my whole life for moment like this. But its dark and the way he has stepped out, facing front on, I can't say for sure if he is big or not. So I bring up my binos. Yup, giant Bull. My son says, dad he is 52 yards as he ranges him. Shoot him. The problem is I am hidden behind a tree but my son is standing out in the open an our wind is going straight to him. We didn't expect to see him from there. Now that I know what I am looking at I can see him more clearly, so I dial my pin to 52, and decide IM going to got to full draw and wait for him to turn broad side. Just as I get to full draw he runs through some trees into a pasture and stands there at 94 yards. We can see him clear as can be now, but he is too far and we are on the edge of the pond. and we have 3 minutes. We cant go a towards him no matter what. So we start calling. And buggling. And for over 10 minutes we keep him within that 100-150 range but he just won't come closer. He then begins to circle around so we decide the back out as quick as possible. It was the most incredible night of elk hunting. We had waited so long to finally SEE a bull. years. Great experience together.

Fast forward to 5am the next morning and I go to his room and wake him up and say, do you want to go for Whitetails in the tree stand this morning, and no hums and has, and says ya sure. So we go and get setup in the treestand 20 before legal. About 10 minutes after legal I say to him, I think I see a buck coming. 10 or 15 minutes pass and then the buck pops out at 40. He proceeds to walk right past us to a spot my son had ranged at 17 yards, so he split his 15 and 20 yard pin and made the shot. The deer dropped, spun around, then limped off into the field and after a while it kind of crashed.

we waited an hour before going down to look for the arrow and blood but we knew it wasn't a passthrough. within a few feet we found blood, and it was really good blood. WE started following it and it just didn't stop. less then a 100 yards in as I was following the trail, I saw it. So I backed away and let him have his moment of finding it. I got my phone out to document it for him. It was pretty incredible. He had done it and made a perfect heart shot.

All of the time and effort he had put into this had paid off. And pretty quickly really. Lots of guys wait years to get a WT buck with their bow, I should know!

Here are a few pics. Hope you enjoyed the story.