Wolf'n
New member
On Friday, September the 5th 2008 I had the fortune of taking my son, Roland, on one of his first hunts where he was hunting with a real firearm. As August 15th rolled around and the first Georgia hunting season of the year opened for small game, namely squirrel, I had been promising Roland to take him hunting with him using his .410 shotgun in an effort to make his first kill. I took him two times prior to this date and on one occasion we did not see any squirrels or any animals for that matter. Roland saw this as a disappointment; however I had to explain to him that it was the exact reason that it is called Hunting not Killing. I saw the understanding in the face of a very intelligent young man and still the disappointment in the face of a still very young and vigilant boy. As he always does, Roland thought this through and did not get discouraged as he rarely ever does, and later told me “I’ll get one next time”.
The next time we were out at the right time and almost in the right place. We had moved about fifty yards to the west of where we hunted the first time where I had seen squirrels on occasion many years prior. Me and Roland set up on a small tier that dropped from the higher ground of what used to be the back pasture of my mom and dad’s land and is now a tangled, overgrown mess of new woods. I sat against a medium to large sweetgum tree that was at the edge of the tier and Roland sat beside me to my left so I could raise my knees and he could have a shooting rest for his gun. We waited for about 30 to 45 minutes and Roland enjoyed the outdoors as he always does by playing with every stick, rock, leaf, and piece of tree bark that was within reach. After I got tired of whispering “be quiet” “be still” and “stop playing with that and watch the trees”, I just let him play with whatever he could reach and enjoyed watching my son happy. A resounding peace came over me in having very meaningful father-son time with my greatest accomplishment (Roland) which will forever overshadow anything that I ever do again in my life.
As dark drew close the trees came alive with activity. I saw one squirrel, then two, then three come from in front of us and behind us; this was great and overwhelming at the same time. The two that came from in front of us were closing the distance at their own pace which was not fast enough for me or Roland. The one behind us just made a mad dash through the tree tops never giving Roland an opportunity to shoot, and disappeared into a large Georgia pine that was way too far to our right to even consider a shot. The other two however, closed the distance and got into a fairly large pine tree just in front of us, but were staying on the opposite side for what seemed like forever. At this point Roland had his little Rossi .410 single shot rested on my right knee waiting for the tree-rat to show himself. Finally a fairly large grey squirrel came around to the side of the tree that we could see him. I told Roland to aim at the squirrel and when ever he was ready, shoot him. Well little did I know it but Roland, being my son, inherited a trait that I had when I was still learning to shoot; he is a “stock creeper”. When I was sixteen and sighting in my Ruger M77 Mark II in .270 Winchester I crept up the stock too close to the scope and have a half moon scar in the middle of my forehead to show for it. As I was watching the squirrel and Roland squeezed off his shot, I saw the payload of the shot go about 15 feet below the squirrel and reached for the little single shot shotgun to reload if for Roland to take a follow-up shot. At that point something did not seem….well….right. I looked over and heard and saw Roland quietly sobbing with a gigantic (not really, it just seemed that way to me) stream of blood coming from just below his right eye. With this sight fresh in my mind (not the missed shot of course), and just prior to panic, I silently cussed myself for everything I was worth; maybe he is too young at age 6 I thought, and I’m a [beeep] for not seeing that.
We got up and basically ran for Mom and Dad’s house to get a wet cloth on the “gaping wound” (not) that Roland incurred. Once there and I was able to get all of the blood wiped away, the gouge that the exposed hammer had left from the recoil looked to me like it would rival the width of the Grand Canyon, so I of course panicked and then calmed down so I could panic again. After a quick run to the emergency room at the hospital where they washed out the gaping wound and to my embarrassment for my intense state of panic dabbed it with a Q-tip holding a very small amount of Liquid Skin, the doctor said “Ya’ know, I did that one time with a .243 Winchester; I learned not to” all the time rubbing a scar on his forehead that greatly resembled mine.
On the way home from the hospital all Roland seemed to be disappointed with was missing the squirrel (no thought given to the injury); that’s my boy. Roland talked about using his .22 LR barrel for the next hunt so “I can shoot them farther away”; boy is he ever mine. I was unable to get the .22 scope sighted in prior to our next hunt, but now I knew where the squirrels were coming out at; this time we would get close.
So on the next day that I was off work and could take Roland hunting, we grabbed the .410 and headed to the “secret spot” and set up almost right under the tree that the two that came from the north came from. Like clock work we sat and Roland played with his sticks and leaves, then the trees started to come alive with activity again. The tree rats were a bit more cautious this time and came out slow and without all of the acrobatics as the time before. One squirrel was considerably larger than the others and was just sort of walking over the limbs; not jumping like the other two had done, came across the limb of the big water oak we had set up facing. In the fading light and with the squirrel moving and not wanting to stay in one place too long, we waited until he reached a smaller tree, still with a number of leaves on it where we could not see him and he could not see us. I could tell where we would catch sight of him again as there was only one tree that he could go to in the direction that he was heading from that point. Roland, at this point had gotten real quiet and still, so I had him scoot up and sit on my left leg so he could get a better view of the squirrel. I set the fore grip of Roland’s little single shot on top of my knee and stuck my head down beside his so I could see what he was seeing. At that point his point of aim was low of the spot I knew the squirrel would come out at, so I put my index finger under the fore grip and raised the barrel up so we both had “the spot” well in sight. “The Spot” being a small fork, in a medium sized sweetgum that was just right for a squirrel to climb to for security; unfortunately for the squirrel it was not very secure.
As soon as I saw the squirrel jump from the leafy tree to the sweet gum, a bit higher than I expected he made a beeline for the fork. As soon as the little varmint hit the fork I told Roland “when you are ready, squeeze the trigger” (of course making sure that he had not crept up to the point of another ER visit). Roland squeezed the trigger and I saw the payload of shot from the three inch magnum shell hit exactly where the squirrel was. But the squirrel ran up the tree about two to three feet. I grabbed the little Rossi, ejected the spent shell and loaded another. I gave Roland his gun back and searched the tree with every last bit of dying daylight that my eyes could collect. At that point I saw the squirrel move, but it did not look like he intended to move; more like the squirrel equivalent to tripping up a flight of stairs, only going downward. I saw the squirrel start to fall and reach out for every branch that was not there; the scene looked like a broken pendulum of a clock falling in slow motion. And then it was dead silence until we heard what I wanted to hear; a distinct and quite loud “thud” as the first kill of my son’s hunting career struck the ground under that sweetgum.
The hugs and tears and high-fives from that point did not end. We went down to where the squirrel had fallen and found him DRT; my son had made a perfect shot on an absolutely huge grey squirrel. I picked the squirrel up by the tail after showing Roland how to make sure an animal that he had just shot was really down for good (which was not really necessary for other than learning purposes), and handed it to him. Roland touched it, petted it, and took it by the tail, holding it up high in a great victory style stance. At that moment the tears welled up in my eyes to the point I had to look away and wipe my face; at this point the squirrel could have been a world record elk, whitetail, or giant tusker and it would not have been any better. My son had made the first of many kills in the always successful (if not fruitful) hunting trips with the proudest father ever to live; I did not even pull the trigger on a gun and this was the greatest hunt of my life.
The next time we were out at the right time and almost in the right place. We had moved about fifty yards to the west of where we hunted the first time where I had seen squirrels on occasion many years prior. Me and Roland set up on a small tier that dropped from the higher ground of what used to be the back pasture of my mom and dad’s land and is now a tangled, overgrown mess of new woods. I sat against a medium to large sweetgum tree that was at the edge of the tier and Roland sat beside me to my left so I could raise my knees and he could have a shooting rest for his gun. We waited for about 30 to 45 minutes and Roland enjoyed the outdoors as he always does by playing with every stick, rock, leaf, and piece of tree bark that was within reach. After I got tired of whispering “be quiet” “be still” and “stop playing with that and watch the trees”, I just let him play with whatever he could reach and enjoyed watching my son happy. A resounding peace came over me in having very meaningful father-son time with my greatest accomplishment (Roland) which will forever overshadow anything that I ever do again in my life.
As dark drew close the trees came alive with activity. I saw one squirrel, then two, then three come from in front of us and behind us; this was great and overwhelming at the same time. The two that came from in front of us were closing the distance at their own pace which was not fast enough for me or Roland. The one behind us just made a mad dash through the tree tops never giving Roland an opportunity to shoot, and disappeared into a large Georgia pine that was way too far to our right to even consider a shot. The other two however, closed the distance and got into a fairly large pine tree just in front of us, but were staying on the opposite side for what seemed like forever. At this point Roland had his little Rossi .410 single shot rested on my right knee waiting for the tree-rat to show himself. Finally a fairly large grey squirrel came around to the side of the tree that we could see him. I told Roland to aim at the squirrel and when ever he was ready, shoot him. Well little did I know it but Roland, being my son, inherited a trait that I had when I was still learning to shoot; he is a “stock creeper”. When I was sixteen and sighting in my Ruger M77 Mark II in .270 Winchester I crept up the stock too close to the scope and have a half moon scar in the middle of my forehead to show for it. As I was watching the squirrel and Roland squeezed off his shot, I saw the payload of the shot go about 15 feet below the squirrel and reached for the little single shot shotgun to reload if for Roland to take a follow-up shot. At that point something did not seem….well….right. I looked over and heard and saw Roland quietly sobbing with a gigantic (not really, it just seemed that way to me) stream of blood coming from just below his right eye. With this sight fresh in my mind (not the missed shot of course), and just prior to panic, I silently cussed myself for everything I was worth; maybe he is too young at age 6 I thought, and I’m a [beeep] for not seeing that.
We got up and basically ran for Mom and Dad’s house to get a wet cloth on the “gaping wound” (not) that Roland incurred. Once there and I was able to get all of the blood wiped away, the gouge that the exposed hammer had left from the recoil looked to me like it would rival the width of the Grand Canyon, so I of course panicked and then calmed down so I could panic again. After a quick run to the emergency room at the hospital where they washed out the gaping wound and to my embarrassment for my intense state of panic dabbed it with a Q-tip holding a very small amount of Liquid Skin, the doctor said “Ya’ know, I did that one time with a .243 Winchester; I learned not to” all the time rubbing a scar on his forehead that greatly resembled mine.
On the way home from the hospital all Roland seemed to be disappointed with was missing the squirrel (no thought given to the injury); that’s my boy. Roland talked about using his .22 LR barrel for the next hunt so “I can shoot them farther away”; boy is he ever mine. I was unable to get the .22 scope sighted in prior to our next hunt, but now I knew where the squirrels were coming out at; this time we would get close.
So on the next day that I was off work and could take Roland hunting, we grabbed the .410 and headed to the “secret spot” and set up almost right under the tree that the two that came from the north came from. Like clock work we sat and Roland played with his sticks and leaves, then the trees started to come alive with activity again. The tree rats were a bit more cautious this time and came out slow and without all of the acrobatics as the time before. One squirrel was considerably larger than the others and was just sort of walking over the limbs; not jumping like the other two had done, came across the limb of the big water oak we had set up facing. In the fading light and with the squirrel moving and not wanting to stay in one place too long, we waited until he reached a smaller tree, still with a number of leaves on it where we could not see him and he could not see us. I could tell where we would catch sight of him again as there was only one tree that he could go to in the direction that he was heading from that point. Roland, at this point had gotten real quiet and still, so I had him scoot up and sit on my left leg so he could get a better view of the squirrel. I set the fore grip of Roland’s little single shot on top of my knee and stuck my head down beside his so I could see what he was seeing. At that point his point of aim was low of the spot I knew the squirrel would come out at, so I put my index finger under the fore grip and raised the barrel up so we both had “the spot” well in sight. “The Spot” being a small fork, in a medium sized sweetgum that was just right for a squirrel to climb to for security; unfortunately for the squirrel it was not very secure.
As soon as I saw the squirrel jump from the leafy tree to the sweet gum, a bit higher than I expected he made a beeline for the fork. As soon as the little varmint hit the fork I told Roland “when you are ready, squeeze the trigger” (of course making sure that he had not crept up to the point of another ER visit). Roland squeezed the trigger and I saw the payload of shot from the three inch magnum shell hit exactly where the squirrel was. But the squirrel ran up the tree about two to three feet. I grabbed the little Rossi, ejected the spent shell and loaded another. I gave Roland his gun back and searched the tree with every last bit of dying daylight that my eyes could collect. At that point I saw the squirrel move, but it did not look like he intended to move; more like the squirrel equivalent to tripping up a flight of stairs, only going downward. I saw the squirrel start to fall and reach out for every branch that was not there; the scene looked like a broken pendulum of a clock falling in slow motion. And then it was dead silence until we heard what I wanted to hear; a distinct and quite loud “thud” as the first kill of my son’s hunting career struck the ground under that sweetgum.
The hugs and tears and high-fives from that point did not end. We went down to where the squirrel had fallen and found him DRT; my son had made a perfect shot on an absolutely huge grey squirrel. I picked the squirrel up by the tail after showing Roland how to make sure an animal that he had just shot was really down for good (which was not really necessary for other than learning purposes), and handed it to him. Roland touched it, petted it, and took it by the tail, holding it up high in a great victory style stance. At that moment the tears welled up in my eyes to the point I had to look away and wipe my face; at this point the squirrel could have been a world record elk, whitetail, or giant tusker and it would not have been any better. My son had made the first of many kills in the always successful (if not fruitful) hunting trips with the proudest father ever to live; I did not even pull the trigger on a gun and this was the greatest hunt of my life.
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