He came by hunting naturally.  This is Stephen (1) with his dad, Jim Sakaguchi, after Jim shot this Boon and Crocket moose near Talkeetna Alaska

MY SON’S FIRST HUNT

 Stephen loved to hunt.  Funny when he was young and just starting to hunt he wasn’t too keen on spending the whole day, from dawn to dark, on the mountain, trampling through the cold snow as his mother was want to do. Strange that after that first opening day when he was finally old enough to actually have a tag, I had to beg, plead, and cajole my son to go hunting with me.

            Of course I, a die hard, completely dedicated, hunting fool who had to be out there in the woods almost every single day of hunting season, was so excited that I could take my son on his first hunt, I could barely sleep.

The evening before, I was thrilled to see snow falling and we planned our hunt; get up in the wee hours well before dawn, drive to THE spot, leave the truck just as the sky was turning gray, sneak to the edge of a clear cut, (only a mile or so) sit and watch the openings until well into day light (only a couple of hours or so)

My twelve year old son seemed excited–at first. I only had to call him three times, shove a cup of coffee laden with cocoa in his hand and lead him to the truck. And oh, don’t forget your riffle! Our packs were loaded with extra bullets, survival gear, snacks and of course lunch.

He followed me through the graying dark, stumbling now and then on a root or rock, asking me, in a whisper, how far it was. “Not far.” I assured him, ” It always seems farther going in and especially when it’s dark.”

We eased up the edge of the clear cut, and sat in the cold snow where we could see the open hillside a hundred and fifty yards away. By this time it was light enough to see dark spots that could possibly be elk, so I glassed the openings. Stephen sat with not a sound, but fidgeted now and then. I whispered to him the importance of sitting still and having no movement. Also I admonished him to keep his sharp eyes on the hillside to catch any sign of the elusive elk. Stephen had a cow tag so I was hoping to see a herd of cows, but a bull would do, both would be better.

Gray light became broad daylight and no sign of the yellow-rumped wapiti could we see. Stephen’s fidgeting grew worse and finally he hissed, “My butt is freezing!”

Oh come to think of it so was mine, in fact it was numb and Stephen’s teeth were all but chattering, so I decided we could get warmed up by walking a ways. After three hours of stealthily creeping through the timber, putting each foot down carefully so not to snap a twig, making our way up steep mountainsides, along ridges, and down, Stephen tugged on my coat and asked if we were going to “ever eat.”

Oh yeah, we hadn’t had breakfast, just a granola bar and a nut or two, guess we could sit down and eat, for a short bit anyway. So we found a log, brushed the snow off and sat chomping quietly on sandwiches.

Stephen brightly informed me, in a whisper of course, that there didn’t seem to be any elk in this area so maybe we should head back to the pickup. Oh, I told him, you never knew when you would run into a track. I had seen elk on this very hillside just a few days before. “We’ll just check out that next ridge and if we don’t see any tracks we’ll head back.”

Stephen sighed as we packed up our bags and headed out again.

An hour later on the next ridge over we did indeed run into elk tracks. A whole bunch, with no snow in them, fresh indeed. Ok here we go! My heart pounded at the sight. Stephen didn’t look so excited.

Not too far down the trail, I stopped, with nose in the air like my bloodhound, and sniffed.   “Elk!” I hissed. “Do you smell them.”

“Mom,” Stephen whispered pointing, “we’re following elk, and one went pee right there.”

Oh no, I knew fresh body scent when I smelled it. We moved farther along the beaten elk trail and the scent was still in my nostrils. My blood ran as my heart pounded in my chest.

“They’re just up ahead.” I whispered excitedly.

Stepping carefully and going slow we made our way along the ridge, peering into the timber ahead. Then I saw it. A yellow rump. I stopped and eased alongside my son pointing. I slowly squatted down and brought my riffle up. Stephen followed suit, peering through his scope.

“A cow right there, do you see her?” I whispered quietly. Before he could answer they were gone. The timber exploded in crashing elk, we saw flashes of yellow rumps and heads before they disappeared over the ridge. I saw no horns, but with a cow tag in his pocket, not a problem

Stephens’s eyes were big, his mouth wide in a grin. Oh good I thought he’s catching the yellow rump fever.

It’s ok,” I told him, “we’ll follow them, they’ll stop soon enough.”

Two hours later found us huffing up yet another ridge hot on the elk trail. Twice we had seen a flash of movement above us only to come upon a place where one elk had stood and watched the back trail. I explained that once spooked they often did this.

We stopped for a short rest; when I was on hot elk tracks there never was anything but a short breather; and Stephen whispered pointing behind us, “The truck is that way, Mom.”

“Yeah your right, it is,” I whispered back, “good job.” You see when he was small , his dad and I would take him hiking and would repeatedly ask him where the camp or rig was. So now I just figured he was letting me know he knew where we were. I failed to see the sagging shoulders and ignored the loud sigh, when I said I had an idea.

My idea was to leave the tracks of the elk, which were angling up and across the side of the ridge and head straight up the top and intercept them as they crossed a clear cut I knew was ahead.

“We have to hurry though, and get up there quickly.” So we chugged up the steep mountain side through a foot of snow, slipping and sliding some, huffing and puffing and only stopping when we couldn’t get our breath. I have to say Stephen was a trooper, he never complained, maybe mentioned a couple of times where the truck was, and just kept following his yellow-rump-fever-crazed mom up the mountain.

Making it to the top of the ridge, we moved quickly while being as quiet as possible along the upward angling ridge to where I knew we could look down on the open clear cut. We sat down in the timber and I glassed the opening below.

Stephen was pretty happy to sit and didn’t seem to mind getting a cold butt. He promptly began to dig in his pack, which was irritating but I didn’t say a word seeing as he hadn’t had anything to eat in several hours.

I soon spied a deep trail through the snow that cut across the clearing. “Oh shoot!” I whispered.

“What?” Stephen mumbled around a bite of granola bar.

“I think they’ve already gone across I can see tracks. We’ll sit here for a minute and see if any stragglers come. Be ready to shoot.”

He just nodded and kept chewing, holding his riffle in his lap. After a bit I knew they were not coming.   “Well we have about an hour of light left,” I whispered, pointing up the mountain, “they’re headed for the ridge top up there, we could–”

“MOM!” Stephen hissed not so quietly as he pointed down the draw, “The truck is that way!”

“Oh!” I said, finally getting the message. “Ok we’ll hunt our way back to the pickup. You never know what we might see.”

Stephen sighed and raised his eyes. “Ok, as long as we’re going in that direction.”

Small wonder, for the rest of the hunting season that year I had a hard time getting Stephen to go with me hunting. He would go only if I promised it would be a short hunt. Another hunting trip we stopped for lunch and I had him build a fire, then we ate and rested for awhile by it’s warmth. He enjoyed that and would go if I promised a fire at lunch.

As he got older, in high school, he went hunting with his friends, but would avoid, if he could, going out with mom. However as he grew into a man, he grew to love the hunt. I’ll tell another story of bow hunting with him after he grew up.

Stephen’s first larger buck when he was in high school. Shot not far from our house but Stephen and I packed it out with the horses, for the fun of it, although John said they could drag it to the truck.

Packing out Stephen’s buck on Rocket. I’m riding Sunny, Stephen rode Blue

John and Stephen dragging his buck to the horses