Yesterday evening I figured was the perfect day to take my 4yr old son Hayden on his first deer hunt, the wind was perfect out of the north and I thought that the breezy conditions may help mask his movements and noise in the pop up. Around 4 o'clock we get dressed and get ready to drive out to the lease. I am very lucky we only live about 25mins from the lease gates. Hayden had been practicing with is toy bow for a awhile and was ready for his first sit! After about a 1/4 mile walk to the stand we get settled just in time for a mid-day snack on some apples. Anyone that has been hunting with a 4yr old knows they don't sit still very long. I already had it in my mind that we wouldn't see anything and would be lucky to make it an hour in the stand before he grew impatient and would be ready to go. We spent the first 30mins looking at trail camera pictures, playing games on my phone, glassing for deer and practicing the perfect shot opportunity. Feeder goes off at 6:00 and shortly after we see our first deer! Its a couple very young small bucks. This grabs his attention and he sits down and gets quite briefly. Shortly after he is asking if he can shoot one with his bow, I tell him "these are baby deer we don't shoot baby deer they have to grow up some first". About 15 mins pass a couple more little bucks filter-in and a nice 120"ish 4.5 yr old 8 comes out. I decide I don't want to shoot the nice 8pt and figure it will be a good one for the wife when she comes out so we give him a pass. We watch them mill around eating corn and other native vegetation, then all of a sudden something spooks them and they all bolt off. Thinking it was my 4 yr old who was moving a lot, I anticipate the hunt was over, right? I was wrong, a couple minutes later a bobcat comes trotting in..I whisper "Hayden there is a bobcat!" He trots in at 22yds angled 1/4 to us, I draw back and let the arrow fly. Right after impact the bobcat makes a bee-line right towards us only to veer off a couple feet from the pop-up, then runs off out of sight. We get out an look for about 30mins but have no luck finding him. By now it is dark and my little boy is getting tired and hungry. I decide not to force him to stay and look so we head home. This morning on my way into work I decide to swing out to the lease and look for a bit longer, 15mins into the search I find my first bobcat ever! I am a little sad in the moment since Hayden couldn't be there with me when I made the recovery but either way it is defiantly a memory I will never forget and cherish forever!
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