My boy and I were so excited when we found out he had got drawn for the late jr Kaibab hunt. That's all he could talk about. So then I had to decide what he was gonna shoot. I ended up picking up a ruger american predator in 6.5 Creedmoor. I put a nikon 3.5x14x50 on it. After we went out shooting once we decide it was going to need a muzzle brake. After the easy installation, because the predator model comes threaded already, we went back out shooting and he loved it. Had him shooting out to 200 yards, which he though was cool and so far.
Then we started the long drive up there on Thursday, this is my first time going to 12aw , and I thought this would be a great first tag for my ten year old boys first hunt. We got camp set up Thursday night and both us couldn't sleep because we were too excited.
Opening morning was actually really slow and we didn't see very many deer. The only two we saw were in the bed of another
successful hunters truck.
We woke up the next morning and headed out to some more areas that were burned and we were able to glass. Then we started seeing deer acrossed the deep canyons. They Were About 150 To 200 yards acrossed. I found a doe for him to shoot and he got on the shooting sticks and said I don't see her dad, so I looked down at his level and poor kid couldn't see over the pine tree branch and that was our only shooting lane we had at the time. We tried to reposition but she busted us. We located a few more doe but couldn't get the shot set up before they went through the shooting lanes as well.
We hiked back to the truck and went back to camp to eat and my boy really wanted to shoot his bow. After he shot his bow and we ate, we went to another canyon to hunt. We ended up getting on a couple of groups of deer and yet again these deer were super spooked from the prior hunts and on the move.
A group finally stopped to feed at last light and was at 300 yards acrossed the deep steep canyon. I got my boy set up and told were to aim and to make sure it didn't have antlers. He told me to zoom the scope in cause he found them now. I zoomed the power to a little over 12 and he said that was good. I told him to check again for antlers and he said it didnt have any, so I told him to squeeze when he was ready. After the blast for the brake scared the crap out of me I saw one deer tear out of there and straight down the canyon, like it was hit and the others just kinda bounced around.
It got dark quick and after starting down the canyon, I decided it was best and safer to wait until morning since the oak saplings were so thick over there it would be a very difficult job to locate his deer tonight and it was going to be in the low 20's at night anyways.
We woke up in the morning after yet another difficult night of sleep. We drove to the other side of the canyon. I had the shot pinned on my gps. We found the shot location and started to look for blood. I found one drop and let my boy at it to see what he could do on his own.
This is one of the things I was most proud of too, was how well of a tracking job he did all on his own, with next to no help from me except for the beginning. After a about a 50 yard track through very thick oak saplings the blood just started pouring out thick. So I looked around and spotted his downed deer. It rolled down to a group of oaks and stopped.
While he was on the trail I walked past his deer so I could record him finding it. He said dad there's alot of blood here and two steps later, ..... hah my deer , my doe ! He was so happy to find it and I was so proud as well. After a 303 yard shot and a awesome track job we started the fun stuff. As much as I wanted to do the gutless method I wanted to teach him how to gut it , so we did that then I carried him out whole, a half mile back to the truck. We jumped a couple of nice bucks on the way out too.
He ended up shooting an antlers less buck. When we got back to camp we skinned it and quartered it up , packed up camp and started the drive home. I couldn't of been prouder seeing how happy he was at the g&f check in station as well as the whole drive home with his big Ole smile until he fell alseep.
This is by far my favorite hunt to date and can't wait to do it again. We had a blast. Pictures to come soon......sorry.
