My hunting buddy and I made our yearly trek up to his home town in the Peace River region to do a little hunting. We went a month earlier than normal as he was drawn for bull moose during the early season. The best part about this season was I would be able to bring my 7 year old son on his first real hunting trip.
We left on Friday the 12th and arrived at our destination at 2 in the morning on the Saturday. Without a complaint Tyler was up with us at 6 A.M having breakfast and getting ready to head out. The temperature was hovering around zero when we decided to head out to a block of crown land between some farm land we were quite familiar with. We headed in and split at a junction of two narrow cuts, my partner headed one way and Tyler and I the other. Our intention was to try and locate a bull for my hunting partner to shoot, or possibly locate a decent whitetail buck. After travelling a little under a KM we settled in on a meadow and tried a little calling with no success. As time passed I could tell Tyler was getting a little cold so we decided to hunt back towards the truck.
We crept up a small rise and peaked over the top and were totally surprised to see a bull elk facing away from us grazing on the cut we had walked down. Surprsed because we were in prime moose territory, low ground with areas of spruce filled muskeg. Not the typical area one would expect to find an elk. Tyler quietly exlaimed "There's another one!" I couldn't see this elk, but a quick look at the bull on the trail confirmed it had at least 3 points. Telling Tyler we were going to shoot this elk, we lied down and belly crawled together to the edge of the rise we were on to get a better angle to clear some branches hanging over the trail. I estimated the elk to be a little under 200yds away, wihich is what my rifle is zeroed for. Having heard us pushing a branch out of the way the bull took a step to the right and looked back over his shoulder towards us. Telling Tyler to plug his ears I touched off the shot. The bull staggerd but still stood there, so another 220gr Sierra was sent on it's way. At the impact the bull turned directly away and staggered 30yards before collapsing on the trail. Tyler was so excited he started sprinting up the trail to the fallen bull and I had to call him back to make sure he didn't get to it before I confirmed it had expired. He kept saying "I forgot to plug my ears, but I didn't even here the gun go off!" I don't know who had the bigger smile him, or me watching him.
Turns out that the other elk that Tyler saw was a cow that the bull was tending too. Smelling him before we got there it was pretty obvious the second rut was going on. The bull was a respectable 4X3 and after a quick drag with the quad we had him skinned, loaded and back to the house.
Tyler was already planning all the trips we are going to be doing..."November is whitetails, and in the spring we'll hunt bears and next October................." Whenever my new little hunting partner wants to head out I'll be sure to take him.
Hunting with the kid
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