So my youngest, Matthew turned 10 this spring and like his older brother he got a shotgun for his birthday and went through hunter safety. Friday he made his first trip into the woods as the DH ( designated hitter) we didn't see any deer but still had a good time. Last night we went back in and at about 5:40 a lone deer comes in. Of course it's on the wrong side and he doesn't see it at first but eventually it feeds across and I walked him through the shot, take the safety off, steady the cross hairs on the shoulder, breathe out and slowly squeeze....boom ! and smoke ( muzzleloader season) I see the deer run off and we wait and listen and reload. I didn't hear any branches breaking or thrashing so we got out of the blind and got our lights going but despite our best efforts there was no hair, no blood. We followed the two exits the deer would have taken for more than 40 yards and still no blood. I didn't really expect to find any because in the big beech tree behind where the deer was standing was where the bullet had struck it, about 8 inches off the ground
but we did our due diligence and ran out the exits. I asked him,"where you steady on the shoulder, or was it bouncing around a bit ?" he said " it may have been bouncing around some" so we agreed a clean miss is better then a gut shot and we headed home. On the way I told him if his brother gave him any crap about it he missed his first time out too and it was broad daylight !
here's a short clip of him getting set up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J8qkhikYyoWhen you take your kid hunting and he says thank you and tells you how much he loves being in the woods with you, your day just isn't going to get any better than that.
