# First year hunting with my 13 year old daughter



## stripper (Apr 15, 2008)

This year has been a roller coaster of emotions trying to get my 13 year old daughter dailed in on shooting out to 30 yards with good groups. At one point is was not sure if her shooting was up to par for this year of hunting so I gave her a week and told her she was going to have a shooting test.The test was 7 out of 10 arrows in a 8 inch paper plate would be a pass at that yardage so we went out to 20 yards and she hit 8 out of 10 and the other two were a 1/4 in off the plate. We stepped back to 30 and again she hit 8 out of 10 on the plate with a couple of near misses but she was able to hunt at that point.

First morning of the hunt and we drop into a nice canyon up on the pavant and I am excited as I have ever been, out hunting with my daughter who is looking like a million bucks in her she safari camo and her non matching asat camo hat. We sat for about an hour just after light and I found out what happens if she sits to long that early in the morning, that kid can fall asleep quick. We decided to make our way down the trail and sit again but all we could hear or see was about a 40 foot tree fall for no reason 50 yard behind us. We made our back to camp and decided to stick around there until the evening hunt and then we headed back out to another location where we mainly glassed canyon after canyon seeing nothing until we were almost back to camp and it was almost dark and there was a spike with a couple other deer we could not tell what they were. My daughter said that is where we needed to hunt the next morning.

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Sunday morning we head over to the canyon from the night before and get down in the trees and set up and wait. About 10 minutes after shooting light a big 2x3 and a small 3 point start making there way down to us and they are at 40 yard then 35....30.....at 26 I tell her to draw and wait for the full body to clear and she had to hold for about 25 sec's or so and she let the arrow go. I was hoping it hit the mak but when I got over to where it was standing her arrow was in the dirt with no blood or hair. I think her mind went blank just like mine did the first time I shot at an animal and the buck fever got the best of her for sure. We decided to keep walikng down into the canyon to find another place to sit a wait. We ended up about a quarter mile down the trail and sat and after about 30 minutes a caught a nice buk working it's way up feeding to the trail about 90 yards away. I told her I was going after this buck and kick my boots off and started to sneek down the trail until I ranged him at 50 yard's and he had no idea I was there, so I went to full draw placed the pin and let the arrow go. It sounded good and I fely pretty good the arrow hit the mark as I watched him bolt down the canyon into a wash and disapear. I walked over to find my arrow only to find about 9 inched of blood and hair on the arrow. After looking for blood and not finding any I decided to drop into the wash to see if I could find blood on the rocks and dirt and after walking about 30 feet i see he was piled up at the bottom of a 9 foot ledge he fell off after taking his last breath. Both my daughter and I were pretty excited and ready to find her another buck to try and kill.


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## middlefork (Nov 2, 2008)

Nice job! Always more fun with the kids. I hope she gets another chance.


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## fishane (Sep 11, 2007)

That is so cool. Great job. She will remember that for the rest of her life. God Bless!


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## Bowdacious (Sep 16, 2007)

Nice buck....you should have let her shoot it...now THAT would have been a story.


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## stripper (Apr 15, 2008)

You know the more I think about it I should have let her try to put a sneek on him. She was pretty happy we got him at all.


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## wfm (Feb 17, 2008)

Cool story bro!! How Is the old stomping grounds? I think I was around 11 or 13 my first time there and the memories will forever be cherished as will your daughters! Again, glad to see your keeping the tradition alive and nice buck!


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## Size Matters (Dec 22, 2007)

It sounds like you had a great time thanks for the report and photos great job getting your daughter involved. 8)


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