Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Kids at the Campfire Daughter connected this morning!

My 13 y/o daughter LOVES to deer hunt. With our move last year she didn't get a chance to because I hadn't found any real solid places to hunt just yet. This year we were invited to a very small lease (15 acres in an abandoned church camp) in NW Iowa. We took off after a school event last night and got to the in-laws at 11 p.m. Up at 5:45 to head out and my daughter was very tired. We were in a double ladder stand at 6:45. This guy came strolling in at around 8:15 and provided a convenient 35 yard broadside shot after standing behind a tree for about 5 minutes where I had a perfect shot but my daughter couldn't even see the deer. She had her gun up the whole time. He was tending a scrape and also trying to figure out what I was. I had binoculars on him the whole time and couldn't move. He stepped forward after what seemed like forever. She squeezed off and I got to watch the bullet punch just ahead of the front leg. Not perfect placement, but I could see in my peripheral vision that she was shaking a bit, so we'll take it. Destroyed the front part of both lungs and ripped open the windpipe with her 20 gauge Federal Fusion sabot slug from her rifled 11-87 with 2-7x32 scope. He made it about 50 yds. She's pretty darned proud of herself. This is the first of Iowa's two shotgun seasons. I'll be hunting the late muzzleloader season with my pistol (legal option here) because I wanted to focus on getting her a deer. Success is sweet!