For those of you that take kids hunting, you know the many challenges we face, especially at the early ages of 6 and 7. For me, my son is small framed and at 6 we struggled with him shouldering the smallest of rifles.

At age 7, we had the perfect rifle but never could get the perfect shot. It's hard hunting in thick woods for a kid and unfortunately our farm is 98% thickets and woods. I don't know how many times we just couldn't get the shot that he was looking for. He has a younger cousin who is close to his age that had already killed two does so my boy was beginning to question me and my methods. I explained to him how his cousins were hunting in an open field, out of a wooden box blind, using shooting bags as rests and how the hunting WE were doing was much harder and so much more complicated. After that conversation he began to realize how "it just wasn't him or me", and really began to appreciate and comprehend the hunt involved and how everything had to come together at just the right time.

My son turned 8 in the offseason and we practiced shooting every chance we got. He carried his .410 to the dove field and he got much better at shouldering and shooting his gun. By the time fall approached he was more eager than ever and neither of us could hardly wait for the first juvenile hunt.

By now he was only wanting to kill a buck. I left that totally up to him, encouraging him to shoot whatever made him happy. He passed on two big does and a little one that juvenile but never fired a shot. He kept reminding me how hard it was to kill a buck, especially in the woods as opposed to in an open field. We had some great hunts and a few close calls during early rifle season but still no shots fired. He hung in there with me though, begging me to go every single day.

On Thanksgiving morning it all came to a head. We were overlooking a thicket that was seperated by a small patch of sage. A few minutes after daylight I spotted a rack moving thru the sage about 100 yards away. The deer came across in a steady walk and when he got broadside with us, I hit my grunt call. The deer stopped for just one second then picked back up into a steady walk, turned and came right to us. At this point, we are still seeing nothing but rack moving through the sage until finally, he came up on a little flat spot and stopped 50 yards away. At first, my son was hesitant about shooting through the sage but I told him to shoot thru it, right where his heart should be. BOOM!! He shot and the deer immediatedly disappeared. We looked at one another, neither of us knowing if he had hit him or not. I really felt like he probably missed but wasn't sure. We sat there for about ten minutes and decieded to walk up there and see if we could find any blood.

I wasn't exactly sure where the deer was standing so when we got up there, I walked around for maybe 15 seconds and didn't see blood. I was just about to tell him that I thought he missed when I looked down, and the deer was laying dead in his tracks. We seen him right at the same time and he began to jump and yell, "Yea, that's what I'm talkin' about Dad...!!" Thats what I'm talkin bout !" He ran up, nudged him to make sure he was dead and jumped down and grabbed that rack so fast... No words can describe how excited we both were.. I think it's the most excited I have ever been in my life, literally.

The perfect ending to the story was when my son told me that he had been praying all week that he would kill a buck and that he knew God would answer his prayers. That's why he wanted to hold out for a buck, because he had faith in me and he had faith in God. I went on to explain to him that God HAD been hearing his prayers the whole time and that even though we don't always get what we want, our prayers are always heard. God's timing is perfect, unquestionable and for us; our prayers were answered Thanksgiving morning, 2009.

The deer was a 2.5 yr old 8 point that weighed 140 lbs fieldressed.