I was late into Texas Whitetail archery season before I made my first trip to the family farm. A two week business trip to Singapore put a real kink in the opening couple of weeks for me.

As the weekend of October 19th approached, I found my wife was very supportive of my spending a full day at the farm. I later found out that this was because my 6 year old son had caught wind of my plans and had already embedded himself in the plan.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled that he’s expressing an interest and going to the farm and getting involved with his BB gun and Bear Scout bow. I was just expecting that he’d start accompanying me in November after general rifle season started. I was not about to squash his excitement, so I put him to bed early the night before and packed his gear into my chest.

We woke early, got dressed, loaded up, and headed to the donut store on the way out of town. He’s NOT a morning person but he came just short of hitting his head on the ceiling when he shot out of bed.

I decided that we would start the morning hunt in a rifle stand over a food-plot. While it wasn’t an ideal setup for me with a bow, it would provide an excellent chance to let him see animals and perhaps feed his interest early. We made it to the stand before legal shooting light. I was disappointed to see eyes on the food plot as we drove past. I assumed it would really screw up our morning. I never altered speed in the truck and just drove on by. I was a bit surprised when the deer stood their ground as we passed.

We topped over a hill and hid the truck from view. I was so interested to see if the deer stayed on the food plot that I didn’t take the time to put broad-heads on my arrows or take my bow out of the case. I left everything in the truck and hustled my son up into the blind. As the light began to improve we found an old 8pt with a poor rack that my Dad wants somebody to take along with 3 does. I should have immediately gone back down and prepped my bow. Instead we watched as the buck gradually fed away from the stand while the does came right to us.

I waited until they were behind a thicket and rushed back down to the truck and began prepping my bow. I set everything up for an ambush and nothing came. I went back up to the stand and received a report from my son that I had blown the does out while prepping my bow (sound or smell). The buck had continued on and disappeared into a distant thicket. I hadn’t really considered how useful it was going to be having an eye in the sky to tell me what I screwed up… this could work.

Next he spotted 3 more does behind us at the water tank. I watched them for a moment. My gut instinct was to rush down to a salt cedar about 20 yds from the blind and lie in wait behind it to ambush them as they crossed. Instead I waited for confirmation of where they were going. This proved to be a mistake. My analysis paralysis kept me from being in the perfect position and the opportunity was lost.

We tried a pop-up blind that evening but high winds, a squirmy 6 year old, and the newly placed blind made the deer extremely uncooperative. As we packed up all of our gear onto my back I was initially frustrated at how difficult this was turning out. Then as we walked back to the truck and I heard him recapping the hunt and making up his own explanations for what happened I realized that I wouldn’t change it for the world. This was going to be a new challenge, a new adventure, and a new hunting partner. It’s going to be a season that’s going to make us all better. Spot-and-stalk whitetails here we come!