3 Ways You Can Help Youngsters Become Better Deer Hunters

The anxiety I feel around this probably has a lot to do with the fact that I have facilitated pretty much all of their success in the deer woods to date. Yet, I know that if you do everything for kids, they don’t learn to do anything for themselves. If you don’t believe this, spend an evening talking to a middle-school teacher sometime.

The internal battle I deal with over doing too much for my daughters, and the way in which I want them to love the deer game, is real. But, as they’ve aged, I’ve discovered sneaky ways to get them more involved in the entire process, and I think it’s helping to nudge them in the right direction. This really begins and ends with thinking about the different parts of any given hunt, and where you can get them involved.

The only private spot I have to hunt that’s within two hours of my house is a small, 25-acre chunk in the suburbs. I’m grateful to have it, believe me, but it’s also really challenging. I share it with the landowner who hunts quite a bit, and am lucky enough to bring my daughters out to hunt it.

That’s a lot of pressure for not a lot of land. Land that is surrounded by houses, which means shot selection and execution are always a dominant thought. This was definitely on my mind when I settled in over a small pond on the property a few weeks back.

It was 87 degrees, so I figured the water might draw in a buck or a doe. Two hours into the sit, it drew in both, and while the doe winded me instantly, a small buck stood around for a while before walking off. As soon as he did, a much better deer showed up, and when he stood broadside at 22 yards, I watched my arrow zip through his ribs.

It was one of those no-doubt shots, and I knew he wouldn’t go 75 yards. I texted my daughters, who had just gotten home from volleyball, to see if they’d help with the blood trail. When my wife dropped them off, I told them this one was all theirs and settled into third place. If you know me, you know how painful that was.

Well, the girls trailed him through some thick stuff, through a little pine desert, and out into a powerline. According to my onX, he’d gone farther than I knew he should, so that didn’t feel great. I still let the girls take lead on the trail, and when we lost him on a mowed path in the powerline, I started to question my judgment.

It took maybe 15 minutes, but one of my daughters picked up blood down the trail, and a few minutes later, she found him. That was a hunt they mostly weren’t involved in, that suddenly became all about their skills. They haven’t stopped talking about that blood trail since, and I can’t help but think that finding those moments to include them will only help stoke the fire. This is something I learned when they were far younger.

The easiest way to teach my daughters about deer was to take them scouting when they were younger. If you’re in the off-season, this is a low-pressure style of getting into the woods where you can walk wherever you want, and make as much noise as you want. Both of those things are good for kids.

Having them find rubs, and then explaining the sign to them, is educational in a way that just hunting with them will never be. I think this is partially because it’s a hands-on approach, and also helps stoke curiosity, which is the secret sauce to staying really interested in something.

Instead of marching them into the woods for a hunt that is all set up and ready to go, teach them about deer in the months leading up to the hunt. Make them wonder about where deer live and why they do what they do, and then take them hunting. The pieces will click together much better, and even if they don’t recognize it, they’ll have some level of buy-in to the actual hunt that matters so much.

And then if they do kill, or you do, you have a prime opportunity to involve them in a part of the process that keeps them tethered to deer all year long.

Over the last few years, my daughters have killed a dozen deer between them. We butchered them all ourselves. Their role in the process has gone from grabbing a roll of freezer paper, or maybe labelling the packages, to helping me skin, trim, and generally take whole parts of their deer and turn them into meal-sized portions fit for the freezer.

They don’t love it, no more than most of us actually love the butchering process. But they do love being involved in it, because it’s important. It’s also important for them to point out, throughout the year, whose deer we might be serving up for dinner. They stay connected to the hunt throughout the off-season in a positive way, and they learn that if they help with the butchering process, they are free to brag about their deer-killing prowess every time we thaw a package of venison.

While they may not be able to help you hang a ladder stand or glass for multiple evenings in a row throughout the summer, your kids can be a big part of the hunting process. Find ways to involve them and keep them curious, and you just might light a fire that will burn until it’s time for them to teach their own kids about deer and how to hunt them.