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For what it's worth

Subhead
First hunt with grandson becomes less about deer, more about memories
Lead Summary
By
Rick Peterson, Tollefson Publishing General Manager

 
It’s Thanksgiving week so we tend to spend a little more time than normal thinking about those things we are thankful for.
Because of everyone’s work and family schedules, our family celebrated Thanksgiving this past weekend. The time worked out well because it was also the weekend of the youth deer hunt at the Blue Mounds State Park. I entered our grandson Carter’s name in a drawing, and he was lucky enough to have his name selected along with eight or nine young hunters.
As luck would have it, the weekend temperatures dropped to single digits for the day to hunt. Most deer hunters will tell you a light dusting of snow is also welcomed. I don’t necessarily call four to five inches of snow a light dusting, but nonetheless we had just two days to hunt.
We headed out early Saturday morning to the ground blind I had put up the day just before the snow came. Carter had no idea we would walk nearly a half mile to the blind uphill for most of the trek in four to five inches of fresh snow.
This was our first hunt together and the first time we spent any prolonged time together — just the two of us.
I wasn’t sure how this would play out. It was cold, it was dark, and I just made him walk a half mile. We settled into the 5-by-5-foot ground blind. The walk to the blind warmed us up, but it didn’t take long for the chill of the single digit temperature to take effect.
It wasn’t long after legal shooting time we heard a single shot to the north of us. The sound of that shot perked us up, and the chill seemed to go away, at least for a while.
Not more than a half hour later we spotted two doe walking our way.
Carter and I went into whisper mode with short one-word conversations. As the two doe slowly worked their way toward us, we readied ourselves for the shot. Carter has never pulled the trigger at a deer, so this was getting exciting, at least for me anyway. Two shots later and the two doe ran off to the north.
Carter seemed to be glad to at least get a shot at a deer. A couple more really cold hours passed by with little or no activity. We decided it was time to pull the plug and go into town and warm up and come back later.
We started the half-mile walk back to the truck, and about half way there we spotted a couple more deer up ahead. There was a buck in this group, so we crouched down as low to the snow-covered ground as possible. Back in whisper mode we waited and shivered. Another shot was fired, and as before, the deer took off, this time to the south.
I couldn’t help but wonder what Carter was thinking about our first day of hunting.
I was sure we were forging a memory — I just wasn’t sure what kind of a memory.
Sunday, day two of our hunt, was even colder, and on this day it was also foggy — so foggy we waited a while before heading back to the blind.
There was even less deer activity Sunday morning, so after about three hours of quiet and very cold time together in the blind without pulling the trigger, I suggested we head back to town. To my surprise Carter wanted to stay a little longer.
I threw out the heading home idea about a half hour later, and this time Carter nodded his head in the affirmative.
We made our way back to the truck, and all the way I wondered what kind of memory my grandson would have of this weekend.
The jury is still out as far as the memories go.
One way it could go is that Carter will remember this weekend as the time Grandpa hauled his butt out in freezing temperatures and made him walk a mile round trip four times to and from the blind for nothing.
The other way it could go is he’ll remember this as the time we spent together enjoying the outdoors learning a few things about hunting and nature and that you don’t always have to shoot something to have a good hunting experience.
Either way is all right by me, because if it’s that he won’t forget his time with Grandpa, that makes it all worth it to me, and that is what I am thankful for this Thanksgiving.
 
 
 
 

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