Turning the page

     This is a big weekend coming up and with it brings a ton of changes to hunting life as I have known it... My 8 year old daughter, Riley is taking her hunters safety course. Riley has been begging to get her own deer for quite some time now. She has shadowed me on many trips to the woods and has been a part of numerous successful and unsuccessful hunts. The fact that she wants to keep going after some failed attempts lets me know she loves it. I know she understands why we are doing it when she helps me process the game we bring home.

     I have been telling Riley that as soon as she was ready to take the course that I would take it with her.  I got my start at age 12 and wished I had been able to do it sooner. Riley has a good grasp on what it is like to be a safe and ethical hunter and I feel she will not have any trouble with the test.
This week we took a couple practice tests together online and she crushed them.

     Riley becoming a hunter means a lot of things are going to change but somehow stay the same for me in my hunting endeavors. I have always enjoyed teaching and exposing beginners to the outdoors. I was bitten by the videography bug years ago and that has become a major part of my time afield. I have always hunted for food as well as the trophy. The trophy changes from year to year and season to season. When I was younger, It was all about getting that buck... Then it became more about a certain size buck and ultimately getting that buck on film. During that time I enjoyed filming others shooting a lot of the bucks that I did not want. Riley will fit right in the mix. I pass on a ton of bucks throughout the year. Riley has already told me that she's not going to be picky. (She has also told me she wants to mount her first deer so we might have to be a little picky) I really hope we can shoot a doe together first to get one under her belt and get a real appreciation for what she is doing.

     I have involved Riley from the beginning in all aspects of the hunt. She has helped me scouting, creating mineral sites, checking trailcams, shed hunting, and ultimately processing and cooking the game we have taken. She has been a very quick study full of questions that I have tried to answer. Being able to teach her all of the things I have learned in my last 27 seasons is keeping me fresh and looking forward to many more seasons with the added bonus of having my Daughter hunting with me.