Trophy Time

I rarely, if ever, kill anything when I take my kids hunting. And it’s awesome. 

When I saw the look on my nine-year-old son’s face as I held up the blood-squirting, headless grouse, I knew I had screwed up. My six-year-old daughter said, “Whoa, look at that!” 

The unsuspecting grouse let me take three shots at it with an iron-sighted .22 I inherited from my dad. I connected with a headshot. Once it was on the ground, I stepped on its head, which caused it to flail. Then I held its flapping wings tight to its body, cut off its head, and showed the kids as it spewed blood. It was not my best parenting move. 

We washed the meat in a creek and threw it in the cooler. My daughter was thrilled, but my son was quiet the whole ride home. He came around as soon as we breaded and fried the breast filets. Today, he has no desire to kill anything come fall, but he humors me on occasion by coming with me because he knows we likely won’t get bloody. I don’t know if the grouse incident turned him off to hunting entirely, but he has no desire to pull the trigger. And that’s okay. On the other hand, my daughter has become my hunting buddy. Together, we haven’t killed anything but time since that grouse. That’s okay, too.

Whether fishing, hiking, or hunting, the time I spend with my kids is more than just an outing—it's an opportunity to create lasting memories. I call these precious moments trophy time, and they're priceless.

Long Days and Short Years

I have friends who dropped their oldest kids at college this year. Some handled it better than others. One said, “The days are long, but the years are short.” That resonated with me. My kids are 15 and 12 now. My wife works a number of weekends, which means I have to be creative to get the kids outdoors. There’s fierce competition for their time, be it from sports, school, friends, band, etc. How does hunting with a 47-year-old compete with spending time with friends? It doesn’t, but I’m learning that I have to compromise. 

I took my son to hunt pronghorn a few years ago, but he had conditions. We needed to take a break mid-day so he could practice clarinet. He needed help with his math project at night, so we hunted close to the hotel in the evenings. No problem. We did find some pronghorn, but they found us first. The winds howled during the day, and we ate bagels in the back of the truck, out of the wind. Then he practiced his scales while I glassed. We drove. We talked. We brought nothing home but trophy-sized memories. I call that a win. 

Eating lunch and hiding from the wind with my son on a pronghorn hunt in southwest Montana. 

My daughter is now just old enough to hunt and more than willing. In the pre-season, hunting gives us an excuse to go to the shooting range together. But first, she needs her own rifle, so we get to go shopping. I tell my wife that my rifle is too big for her, which is partly true. My son comes shooting, too, because he likes to plink. We take hikes to ground-truth spots I find online. She hates walking the dog, but I tell her we can check trail cameras. Then she’s all in. These outings are a means to an end, which may or may not end with a dead animal. 

Convincing my daughter to walk the dog with me because we can check the trail cameras (left). My son came to help me pack out a doe many years ago, even after the grouse incident. 

Ticking Away 

I took my dad hunting once. We didn’t kill anything then, either. It was bitter cold, but we hung out in the woods together. We didn’t say much because, you know, we were hunting and had to be quiet. But I remember it like yesterday, even though he’s been gone for 12 years. Life is punctuated with memories that are anything but mundane. Hunting with him was one of those times. 

A friend once asked his father why he never killed anything after a week of hunting. His dad replied, “Why would I ruin it?” I didn’t know what to think of it 20 years ago when he told me that story, but I’m starting to get it. That notched tag is the end to the means. And as I get older, I realize that the means is what it’s all about. Sure, some hunters have multiple hunts every year, but most don’t. Those few days in the field are all the time we get to be in the woods. Focusing on a steaming pile of elk scat is a great way to forget about work and mortgages. I also like to think it’s a break for my kids. 

No deer were harmed in the making of this memory. We did hang our tag on a bag of Sour Patch Kids. 

When I take the kids, I try to hunt places with little to no cell coverage. There’s no social media up Nunya Bizness Creek. There are no group texts that suck my pre-teen daughter down an anxiety-riddled rabbit hole. There is no one to act cool in front of because I’m a middle-aged dad who wears camo cargo shorts all summer. I am the opposite of cool. I am dad. We can talk freely about friends, relatives, guns, elk, make-up, Beyonce—you name it. 

The author back when he used to kill elk (before kids). 

There was a time before kids when I killed elk. That’s how I measured a successful season. Driving home with antlers poking out of the truck bed was a proud event. But since becoming a father, priorities have changed, and so has my definition of success. It takes time to find a legal bull on pressured public land. I had time to dedicate to that pursuit once. I am now a card-carrying member of the 90 percent of Montana hunters who never fill their elk tag. When I tell my kids how big a hanging elk quarter is, I might as well be describing a unicorn. They’ve never seen either hanging in our garage. 

In the end, the trophy I have at the moment is intangible. It’s time, memories afield, and understanding that my children are growing into adults. It’s a brake check on me as a parent. I can take a step back and slow down time—even if just for a weekend. I can see if they remember the things that I told them. Which way is the wind blowing? Okay, so which way should we hunt? Is that an elk bed or a deer? What does that cloud look like to you? The answers will not help them score higher on the ACT or get a scholarship. But maybe they will remember all those nonsensical things their dad taught them. Maybe one day, they will drag their own kids out into the woods for a hike or a hunt. I just hope they make sure the grouse is good and dead before they hold it up.