This past weekend was the Youth Firearms Deer Hunt, where hunters younger than 16 years old could deer hunt with a firearm over the 3-day holiday weekend.

The weather forecast was up to half an inch of rain on Sunday and some more rain on Monday. Saturday was supposed to be clear so I figured that was going to be the best bet. My local spot has only been giving me pictures of deer roughly every other day on my cellular trail camera, so I was not confident that we’d even see anything there. I wanted to increase my youth hunter’s odds of success to the max, so I called Mike, my hunting mentor as a teenager, on Friday to see if I could bring my youth hunter, Timmy, to Watkins Glen to hunt the winery where I have hunted since high school. Mike did not have a youth hunter lined up to hunt with him and he was very happy to offer Timmy and I exclusive rights to use his ground blind overlooking a food plot. With this invitation, I made my plans with Timmy’s parents to meet at 4:45 in the morning in Greene, so we could be in the blind as legal hunting time began.

We made it to Watkins Glen just as it was getting light enough out to not need a headlamp to navigate our way to the ground blind. I parked the truck and we got our gear ready. Once ready, we headed on our way and snuck into the blind just before legal shooting time began. I got Timmy situated in a swiveling chair so he could be able to shoot out of multiple windows of the blind. We moved the mesh in a few spots to allow for clear shots and got the shooting stick monopod set to a comfortable starting height.

After about 10 minutes, I looked to the left and saw the shape of a deer cutting across the food plot about 100 yards away. I told Timmy I could see a deer and I got my binoculars up. It was a 4-point buck and he was working diagonally across the field and was getting slightly closer. Then I noticed another deer behind the buck and got the binoculars up again. The second deer was a spike. He was following a similar line as the 4-point. At the downhill edge of the field, the 4-point worked a scrape for a few seconds. I asked Timmy if he wanted to shoot either of the deer. He paused and thought about it before deciding to wait to see if any other deer come out. The bucks worked off into the brush across the food plot after another minute or two. After a couple more minutes, Timmy said something about if they come back out they might be in trouble, so I think he had a slight bit of regret from not shooting.

Another 10 minutes went by before Timmy said he saw a deer to the left again. I peered out and could see one deer facing straight towards us. With my binoculars, I could see it was a doe but couldn’t tell if it was an adult doe or not. Then a few seconds later another deer walked out into the field and I could tell it was an adult doe.

A third doe emerged and looked smaller. As they headed in our direction, I told Timmy if he wanted to shoot a doe, the one in front was a big one. So we got the rifle on the shooting sticks as she walked directly in front of us at 40 yards. She got too far right for Timmy to shoot out the front window so we were trying to move the rifle to shoot out of the next window when the rifle slipped of the forearm and onto the barrel on the shooting stick. The doe heard the slight clank and stopped. She had also just hit where the wind was blowing our scent. After a couple good sniffs, she stomped her front feet and gave a couple blows before turning around to go back to our left. As she did this however, she walked right back in front of where Timmy had the rifle pointed. So I made sure he had the rifle on the shooting stick and asked him if he had her in the scope. He said he did so I told him to take the safety off. CLICK. “You still on her front shoulder?” “Yeah” “Ok, slowly squeeze the trigger when your ready then.” POW!

The doe took off with a clearly broken front shoulder and made it maybe 50 yards before falling in a pile. And just like that, Timmy had shot a mature doe before 7:30 in the morning. To let the adrenaline wear off, we took a few minutes before getting out of the blind and getting the doe.

Something that hit me later on Saturday as I was reminiscing about the hunt and my hunting memories. The first deer I shot while hunting with Mike almost 17 years ago, I shot on the opposite side of the food plot from a treestand only 75 yards from where Timmy shot his doe. My deer hunting career had gone full circle, from being mentored to being the mentor.