My 5 year old grandson’s 1st season

CallingArkansas

New member
I started working with my 5 year old grandson last April teaching him how to shoot. Started with a Red Rider BB gun we had bought him for his 5th birthday. Them I remembered I had a .22 cricket with scope that I use to carry when I ran coon hounds. He had no problem hitting with it when I would sit him on the picnic table bench and then put the little Cricket in a Caldwell shooting bag. Him and I made a nice food plot on the back of my little 150 acre farm, moved a nice enclosed box stand to the location, and put out a corn feeder to get them started while waiting on the foodplot to get growing. He kept telling me he was gonna kill a deer, so I explained he had to learn to shoot a bigger gun for deer. I finally took a chance and set him up on the picnic table with my Christensen Arms AR 15 .223 Wylde. Collapsed the stock and explained to him that it was really gonna be loud. I explained to him that it would not kick and that he should do just like he had with the Cricket, hold it on the bullseye and squeeze real slow. Put in ear plugs and a youth size set of ear muffs and he was set. Set the target at 50 yards and he put 1st two shots in the bulls eye. I only let him shoot it 2-3 times each time we would practice because I could tell the loud noise would start bothering him if he shot more and I didn’t want him to start flinching. So we kept doing a lot of practicing each time we went out with the .22 Cricket and only shot the AR a couple shots. Below I’m going to try and post a few pics of his season. I knew he could kill a deer as long as I had him where he could rest the rifle in the window of the stand and stay seated. Cleared it with his mom and dad to make sure they thought he wouldn’t freak out once he actually shot one. They gave me the thumbs up and was proud he was ready. His dad deer hunts as well but they don’t live in a place where his dad has the opportunity to let him shoot like he could when with me. So the 1st weekend of gun deer season was actually for youth only. I really wanted him to kill his 1st deer with his dad so offered up the gun and explained that he would need a good rest to be able to shoot correctly. My grandson had a soccer game the opening morning so right after lunch they picked up the gun and headed to the stand. He killed his 1st deer that afternoon it was a 7 point buck. They went back the next morning and he killed a nice size doe. Then after our regular gun season came in I carried him one afternoon. I knew it was gonna be his last chance to go and we waited for a buck after letting many doe walk around in the food plot but never saw one. Just before dark there were 12 doe feeding in front of us and I told him to pick out the biggest one and he could shoot it. Well he shot and the big doe whirled and ran like she hadn’t been touched. Another big doe kept standing there like what just happened. My grandson looked at me and said Papaw I had it right behind her shoulder and I said well shoot that other big doe. So he aimed again and she dropped right in her tracks. We got down and started walking to his trophy and quickly realized he had killed them both. The 1st one was laying just out of the foodplot. Both were hit just perfect, they just reacted a little different. We can kill a total of 6 deer in our zone and no more than two can be bucks. I told him he was through for the year, we had to leave some to grow. He gave me a big high five and told me thanks for teaching him to shoot. He said killing those deer was lots of fun. For several weeks afterwards anytime he would talk to someone about him killing deer he would asked them “ how many did you kill” and then say “ I’m still in the lead. Lol Hope you enjoyed this post as much I enjoyed our 2017 deer season. It was one a least two of us will never forget. Five years old and 4 deer, I’d say he is still in the lead. Hope I can get the pics to post.


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