Role Reversal

When I was in seventh or eighth grade, I went on my first deer hunt, guided by a volunteer and facilitated by KDWPT. It was a great program and impactful experience, but my dad was unable to participate. My dad had never been deer hunting before, but was both proud of me and excited for me having done so myself. A couple of years later, my dad and I went onto a friend’s land during deer season, but I was the only one with a gun and tag, and he watched me kill my first buck. A couple of years after that, both of us bought tags and my dad borrowed one of my rifles, so that we were both prepared to harvest, given the opportunity, but we never saw a single deer. This season, I was wrapped up in school and other things, but my dad took the initiative and coordinated a time for us to go hunt.

He went out Friday evening without me, as I had to go to work, but once again saw nothing he could shoot. That first Saturday morning was chilly, but not as bad as we had endured in the past. I was watching a few does out about 400yards out, and had just accepted that they were not going to come close when I heard a harsh whisper from my dad.

We were seated perpendicular to each other, so I twisted around to see what he was looking at. Maybe as far as fifteen yards out from our stands was a perfect column of seven does right beside my dad. I whispered to him that I thought they needed to cross the fence that ran at our feet before we could take them. He told me he was pretty sure we were allowed to shoot that field as long as we weren’t really pushing into it. “Take em if you can, then!” I whispered, and within moments I heard a BOOM!

The does scattered, and it seemed as if they were scared but not hurting seriously. I felt sick, sorely regretting not making a trip to the range before the season. My dad watched the deer as they ran away at an angle I couldn’t follow, and told me one laid down briefly before running off again. Feeling encouraged, we agreed to sit for a couple of minutes and then have him go look for signs that the deer had been hurt. After about two minutes (less than we had planned on) it seemed my dad couldn’t wait any longer and he headed to find his deer.

I sat and waited for about fifteen minutes, in hopes that some foolish buck would appear off to my right while I waited, but soon I saw that I had gotten a photo text from my dad. I already knew what it was, but I opened it up and saw a deer with a hole right through it’s lungs.

We had no more time once we’d loaded up the doe, so we headed home with a whole bunch of meat to butcher. On the way home we reflect on the irony that my father was taught by his son to hunt. My dad is old enough to be pretty set in his ways, but with this hunt we can see that it is never too late to pursue new passions or hobbies.