Hunted deer for years by myself... Sometimes with other guys around, but it was pretty much a solo thing for all of us, if occasionally on a shared piece of farm ground, or camp in the northwoods.

2 years ago, my youngest, started talking about deer hunting, so i bought him the gun he needed for it. He shot his first deer that fall and was pretty excited about it...

Last year kinda put a damper on things as the only deer we saw during season were on the road out to Grandma's farm. We'd had a better place to hunt, farther north, but grain prices put every bit of cover there to the bulldozer after my son's first deer season.

Thinking that we were in for a bust again this year, he wasn't nearly as excited, but I had set things up a little differently, for this season... We watched the time anxiously, and started seeing deer 10 minutes after shooting hours began yesterday...
Evan had his deer tagged, dragged and hung yesterday in time to be in school by 4th period...

And we went back this morning to fill my tag with another doe...

Tenderloins 2 nights in a row would be worth it all... Having my son talking about habitat improvement and food plots is over the top...

And having a 16 yr old to drag the dead sled is OK, too!!!

That would spoil a guy. Nothing better than sharing the woods with your kids. Icing on the cake to get a couple of deer. Very nice.

Our "woods" is a brushy, spring fed ditch that runs anywhere from 30-50 yds wide and 500 yds long... The property corner where the ditch dumps into a creek is a thick tangled haven for deer during season...

3 different farms meet there, and 3 crews of hunters watch it closely... 2 crews of hunters are family to the farmers, the other leases the ground...

Aint' a bad guy, really, in all 3 bunches... But the lease guys are pretty uptight about letting anyone intrude... Even to follow a hard hit deer. They want you to call, and they wanna be right with you every step of the way. Reasonable enough, if they'd answer their phones...

My deer got 30 yds or so onto the other family's ptoperty this morning, before dropping. If she'd made it further, I'd have been welcome to follow her...

It's Illinois deer hunting, and it could be better, could be worse...

Congrats, special times for both of you!

They are special, for me, and i do every thing I can to encourage him, short of pushing.
He didn't start out wild about hunting, and he's got a stubborn streak inherited from his mother...

He has always loved to eat deer, and that's a big advantage for me...