Title: How Would You Handle It
Tags: Some People. . .
Blog Entry: Sunday afternoon a buddy & dad (they are friends of my wife and I, we do stuff together all year) calls me and asks if his 14 year old son and 12 year old son and he can somewhere to get his son a deer. They have been hunting a private place (same landowner I have but a different location, they have shot some decent deer the previous few years during rifle season) and he said the neighbors to the south of the property took up hunting this year and drive everywhere to hunt, 4 wheelers, pickups, pushes about 2 times per day and this has spoiled their hunt this year. I don't own land, but I work for (Labor for Lease that the landowner and I worked out) and pay (Pay a nominal amount to continue to have the right to hunt) for places to archery hunt, and now rifle hunt with my son. So I, being the father of a 3 sons and a daughter, I tell him that we can work something out to help the kids get a deer. I talk to the landowner and clear it with him, and let him know what I am doing, he doesn't care as long as I shoot some does so they quit ruining his outside rows of grain. We go to the farm, put the kids in the pop up blind that has been there since the corn came out, that my son and I shot the deer out of Sunday morning, and the dad will just sit in my tree stand a few hundred yards away. You know what happens, dad goes ahead and shoots a "decent" 4x4 and the kids don't even get a shot. Now dad's deer is nothing special and when I go to his house on Sunday night (I just left them there to hunt) to look at the deer, he says to me "I can't believe I shot it - I wanted to wait for the big one" WHAT? You werent even the one who was supposed to be "trying to get a deer!" and in the second place THEN DON'T SHOOT THE LITTLE ONES!! Ok, this deer, or one very similar to him, was the one that my son missed Saturday morning and was a fair deer, but he needed another year or two before he would have been a shooter buck for most adults. I am OK with a kid shooting this deer, any kid, but now I am just kind of hacked how things worked out with the dad. The dad made some comment about having the kid tag it so he could keep hunting, and I said to him that wasn't legal, and if he didn't want the deer he shouldn't have shot it! His wife was standing there and chimed right in and said I was right and we need to set a good example for the kids. . . At least she is on the right track. Really I just wanted to vent here, there is no right or wrong thing I or they did. I didn't make it clear what I thought should happen. . . "It was for the kid!" I don't TRY and shoot deer that aren't better than the best deer (rifle or archery) I ever shot, or one that is special to me (drop-tine) and I want to teach my kids that does are way better to shoot than bucks. I think that I am doing OK with my son, he actually wanted to shoot some deer and didn't care if they were does. I also learned that I am probably NOT EVER AGAIN going to let people hunt on properties that I have gained permission on, it just is too hard for me to replace that buck with one of similar quality next year so that I can have a chance at a big buck with the bow. Now, I do share these properties with other guys and they don't have the same standards I do, but I do what I do and it is all I can do. . . I guess I am just hacked that I would have passed this deer, I wanted the kids to shoot ANY deer and the only guy that got a deer really didn't even think it was that good of a deer. . . Thanks for letting me vent here, I really don't expect anything, I just needed to get my feelings out and I understand that everyone is different and can make their choices. I just learned what I will do and won't do in the future. If I am going to offer to get a kid a deer, I am taking them and letting their parents sit in the car, along the road, without a gun.
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