Idaho Deer Hunter Magazine Spring/Summer 2013, Issue #4 | Page 22

animal that my young future hunter had seen up close and the doe was still alive I made sure to explain to her a swift end was the best and finished the kill off with a quick shot to the neck . I was very proud of my daughter , there were only questions asked and no hesitation when we got down to the real work . My daughter had been excited about a couple of things , one was the cleaning process . She handled it with flying colors and I now know that when science class comes along in a few years she will not have any problems when asked to dissect anything . She was instrumental in helping me clean the deer . Given the distance from the truck I decided to quarter and then debone the remainder of the animal . As we wrapped up our hill side processing she asked what she could have as a memento of this hunt . It was decided to have a European mount made of the skull for her to remember our first joint hunting adventure . To insure that she understood the effort that goes into this she was tasked with packing out the skull and I packed out the meat . It took longer to get back to the truck than I would have thought . The small truck really doesn ' t look that far away , but sure took its sweet time getting bigger . The sandwich and water were extremely welcome and the satisfaction of making it back after sharing a successfully hunt with my daughter was awesome . My only regret was that my dad had to work that day and wasn ’ t with us .
I am currently in the process of getting my daughter into a hunter ' s safety class . I can only imagine
that the only time I will be more proud of her will be when she is successful in her first hunting endeavor . It was awesome to see her in that environment and be able to share it with her . If all goes well we will get to turkey hunt in the spring and the next generation of hunter will have picked up the hunting torch .
( My nine year old daughter ’ s version of the hunt is below in her words .)
My first hunt with my dad ! Was totally wicked ! It took a while to find one , but we went to a lot of places to find a doe . I got to see a bear , buck , 5 DOES , a long river , a stream , trails , and slow elk . It was awesome and I want to do it again because it was fun . I can ’ t wait to hunt myself , and with my dad . It was fun to see the does last twitching moves . I also got to see the gutting process . My dad let me have its head , so I packed it out .
Awesome hunt Chris ! Way to pass it on to the next generation !
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