ID_deerslayer
Active member
The journey leading up to this years hunt goes back a few years to when my wife, Katie and I were dating and I took her on a doe hunt in northern Idaho with my brother, his wife, and oldest daughter. Having grown up in Portland, Oregon she was never exposed to hunting or the harvesting of animals until she moved to Idaho after college and later started dating me. Katie had never seen an animal shot, skinned, or butchered. She was forever changed on that first hunting experience getting to watch myself, my brother, my sister in-law, and my niece all harvest does. she was determined to go through hunters education and learn to harvest her own animal and contribute to putting meat in the freezer and on the table.
The following fall Katie and I were married and immediately had moved to Montana for her Job and start our lives together. This meant she would not be hunting since her free time leading up to our move was spent on planning a wedding, selling her house in Idaho, and preparing to move, hunters education was on the back burner until we got settled in Montana. To add to all that, we could not afford to be non-resident hunters.
Winter of 2013-2014 Katie spent reading up on hunters education, asking questions about hunting ethics, investing in a youth model rifle for her to shoot and become comfortable with, and finally taking her test. She was so excited at the potential of getting to harvest her first animal, a deer, with dreams of going after an elk in the following years. Having never shot and killed a large animal with the intention of eating it, she was still unsure how she might feel upon pulling the trigger on something, knowing that after she did, most likely death would be the result. All of her planning for a 2014 deer hunt ended abruptly when we found out katie was pregnant. Her hunting goal would have to wait another year.
This year I told katie that whether I was able to take an elk with my bow or not, I would dedicate my rifle season to taking her out to hunt for a deer for her to get in her crosshairs. my chase for elk would wait until after she had as many opportunities as she needed in order to help her reach a goal she had set.
Opening weekend came upon us and it also happened to be her birthday the friday before opening day so I planned to celebrate her and whisk her away to a cabin and escape from Great Falls for a weekend of relaxation and pampering, with our daughter, Elenore in tow. Hunting was not on my brain for the weekend. I asked her if there was anything she wanted to specifically do and she said she wanted to find a babysitter to go to the cabin with us and watch Elenore so we could go on a morning hunt. I made sure that she definitely wanted that and after many questions she affirmed her decision. finding a bay sitter to be available at 5 AM is definitely not an easy thing to do, especially when you don’t have any family in the state that you live in. After a sleepless night with a fussy child awake most of the night, opening morning was cancelled and katie hoped for sunday morning to be a better option.
On Sunday morning we were off to the hills in search of deer, after walking in a little over a mile we spotted some deer, two white tail does. With Katie’s goal to harvest a deer, she was not set on shooting a buck, but making a clean ethical shot. The stalk was on! Having spotted the deer in a small cut in the hill to get a break from the wind, we made a game plan on the route for her to take to close the distance from 800 yards to as close as possible, hopefully 100-200 yards. we had no cover to go straight at them even though the wind was in our favor. we back tracked to the east side of the hill before trekking south to close the distance. little by little we made our way closer, constantly checking to make sure that the does were still in the spot we left them. After closing the distance enough to have a real good look at the deer, Katie realized it was a doe with her fawn, looked at me and said “I can’t shoot the fawns mama, she’ll be orphaned!” I told her that if she wasn’t ready to shoot, that I was more than okay with that. Katie did however want to see how close we could get and after crawling on hands and knees, we were able to stalk to within 50 yards of the bedded does before getting busted. After the deer were long gone, katie looked at me and said “I can see why you love hunting so much now, that was awesome!” She shared with me that the adventure of searching for your food and the moments of pursuing an animal knowing you have the ability to take its life for the purpose of feeding the family was something she thought she would never do in her life and how grateful she was to be given the opportunity to try.
The next next few weekends were filled with other commitments and hunting was postponed. Between work, family coming to town, working with youth, and finding a babysitter taking Katie out was not easy. Getting to see family was a huge blessing though and we were grateful for that time.
Finally we had a weekend with no set plans or commitments and we found a babysitter that was available at 5 AM! Saturday afternoon we headed out to check out a new area of state land we had not yet been to to scout and see what kind of deer sign might be in the area. Upon getting there we were able to find a few deer in the spotting scope, and decided to take Katie’s gun for a walk. After further inspection, we found the bucks had moved onto private land out of reach of katie getting an opportunity to make a stalk on the deer. We watched from a distance, until last light to see where the deer would head for the evening to bed down. On the drive home we made a game plan for the following morning to get into a position to cut the deer off as they would head from the state land towards the private.
Sunday morning came upon us quick and we headed out the door, driving back to where we knew the deer would be in the morning. Upon arriving to our location we found a good place to sit and glass while we waited for the sun to rise at our backs and have the wind in our faces. While it was still dark and barely light enough to see silhouettes of darn near anything, Katie spotted movement and and whispered to me, “Deer!” She pointed the lone deer out to me as it was moving down hill into the ravine. it was not yet light out enough to shoot but we knew we were in a good location and waited to see if the deer would reappear on our side of the ravine. sure enough, five minutes later the deer came up onto the hill across from us and upon further inspection we realized it was a nice three point mule deer, he was tall and big bodied. However, the buck never stopped to feed or rest, he only kept walking and I told Katie not to shoot at a moving deer so she didn’t feel rushed. We watched him disappear over the hill in front of us and after tried to go after him and find him, hopefully feeding, but never did. after hunting the area till about nine o’clock, and cover the entire area of huntable ground, we decided to head over to another block of state land near by.
… more to come!
The following fall Katie and I were married and immediately had moved to Montana for her Job and start our lives together. This meant she would not be hunting since her free time leading up to our move was spent on planning a wedding, selling her house in Idaho, and preparing to move, hunters education was on the back burner until we got settled in Montana. To add to all that, we could not afford to be non-resident hunters.
Winter of 2013-2014 Katie spent reading up on hunters education, asking questions about hunting ethics, investing in a youth model rifle for her to shoot and become comfortable with, and finally taking her test. She was so excited at the potential of getting to harvest her first animal, a deer, with dreams of going after an elk in the following years. Having never shot and killed a large animal with the intention of eating it, she was still unsure how she might feel upon pulling the trigger on something, knowing that after she did, most likely death would be the result. All of her planning for a 2014 deer hunt ended abruptly when we found out katie was pregnant. Her hunting goal would have to wait another year.
This year I told katie that whether I was able to take an elk with my bow or not, I would dedicate my rifle season to taking her out to hunt for a deer for her to get in her crosshairs. my chase for elk would wait until after she had as many opportunities as she needed in order to help her reach a goal she had set.
Opening weekend came upon us and it also happened to be her birthday the friday before opening day so I planned to celebrate her and whisk her away to a cabin and escape from Great Falls for a weekend of relaxation and pampering, with our daughter, Elenore in tow. Hunting was not on my brain for the weekend. I asked her if there was anything she wanted to specifically do and she said she wanted to find a babysitter to go to the cabin with us and watch Elenore so we could go on a morning hunt. I made sure that she definitely wanted that and after many questions she affirmed her decision. finding a bay sitter to be available at 5 AM is definitely not an easy thing to do, especially when you don’t have any family in the state that you live in. After a sleepless night with a fussy child awake most of the night, opening morning was cancelled and katie hoped for sunday morning to be a better option.
On Sunday morning we were off to the hills in search of deer, after walking in a little over a mile we spotted some deer, two white tail does. With Katie’s goal to harvest a deer, she was not set on shooting a buck, but making a clean ethical shot. The stalk was on! Having spotted the deer in a small cut in the hill to get a break from the wind, we made a game plan on the route for her to take to close the distance from 800 yards to as close as possible, hopefully 100-200 yards. we had no cover to go straight at them even though the wind was in our favor. we back tracked to the east side of the hill before trekking south to close the distance. little by little we made our way closer, constantly checking to make sure that the does were still in the spot we left them. After closing the distance enough to have a real good look at the deer, Katie realized it was a doe with her fawn, looked at me and said “I can’t shoot the fawns mama, she’ll be orphaned!” I told her that if she wasn’t ready to shoot, that I was more than okay with that. Katie did however want to see how close we could get and after crawling on hands and knees, we were able to stalk to within 50 yards of the bedded does before getting busted. After the deer were long gone, katie looked at me and said “I can see why you love hunting so much now, that was awesome!” She shared with me that the adventure of searching for your food and the moments of pursuing an animal knowing you have the ability to take its life for the purpose of feeding the family was something she thought she would never do in her life and how grateful she was to be given the opportunity to try.
The next next few weekends were filled with other commitments and hunting was postponed. Between work, family coming to town, working with youth, and finding a babysitter taking Katie out was not easy. Getting to see family was a huge blessing though and we were grateful for that time.
Finally we had a weekend with no set plans or commitments and we found a babysitter that was available at 5 AM! Saturday afternoon we headed out to check out a new area of state land we had not yet been to to scout and see what kind of deer sign might be in the area. Upon getting there we were able to find a few deer in the spotting scope, and decided to take Katie’s gun for a walk. After further inspection, we found the bucks had moved onto private land out of reach of katie getting an opportunity to make a stalk on the deer. We watched from a distance, until last light to see where the deer would head for the evening to bed down. On the drive home we made a game plan for the following morning to get into a position to cut the deer off as they would head from the state land towards the private.
Sunday morning came upon us quick and we headed out the door, driving back to where we knew the deer would be in the morning. Upon arriving to our location we found a good place to sit and glass while we waited for the sun to rise at our backs and have the wind in our faces. While it was still dark and barely light enough to see silhouettes of darn near anything, Katie spotted movement and and whispered to me, “Deer!” She pointed the lone deer out to me as it was moving down hill into the ravine. it was not yet light out enough to shoot but we knew we were in a good location and waited to see if the deer would reappear on our side of the ravine. sure enough, five minutes later the deer came up onto the hill across from us and upon further inspection we realized it was a nice three point mule deer, he was tall and big bodied. However, the buck never stopped to feed or rest, he only kept walking and I told Katie not to shoot at a moving deer so she didn’t feel rushed. We watched him disappear over the hill in front of us and after tried to go after him and find him, hopefully feeding, but never did. after hunting the area till about nine o’clock, and cover the entire area of huntable ground, we decided to head over to another block of state land near by.
… more to come!
