Kayla Ray
Hunt of a Lifetime
I know some of you don’t hunt, and some of you may even be repulsed by the thought. As for me, I enjoy hunting nearly as much as breathing. So please, bear with me while I tell you about my hunt of a lifetime.
Last weekend, thanks to my friend Del Elliott who gave me a deer hunt on the famed Callaghan Ranch in Encinal, I found something I enjoyed even more than hunting and telling lies around the fir in the evenings. I took my ten-year old daughter, Kayla, on her first big time, big game, guided, South Texas hunting trip. Was it the trip of a lifetime for her? I can’t tell you. Will she even remember it a year from now? She probably will, but not the way I will.
If you have never traveled four hundred miles with a ten year old, you might be interested to know it’s not really that bad. You just have to get on neutral ground. Fortunately she came down to my level and we had a great time singing gross kid songs, playing I-spy, and taking a deer hunting quiz that I made up using some old hunting magazines. And finally stopping to put some coins on the railroad tracks across the road from the ranch entrance.
Kayla has been going hunting with her mother, sisters, and me since she was eight months old. We pulled her out into the field in a stroller on a dove hunt, and she has gone on many types of hunts, in many places since. This however was her first big game hunt, and the first time she and I would go at it without the usual faces around. Although if you know Kayla, you know she can talk the ears off a mannequin, and it didn’t take her long to make a few new friends.
Our actual hunt was wrought with problems from the beginning. The first evening out, December twentieth, we found our deer ten minutes into the hunt. The problem was, he found himself a girl friend with good eyesight and busted our hunters fifty feet into their stalk, and left with the unsuspecting buck in tow. The next morning it was so foggy we couldn’t see more than fifty yards. On the second evening our guide decided to expedite the stalk by taking Kayla about half way to where we saw the buck come out the evening before. But alas, the sneaky deer came out between the awaiting hunters and me, and they never saw him. They did however have a close encounter with five feral hogs, at a range of about four feet, while lying belly down on the ground. The second morning was equally as foggy as the first. Furthermore the buck once again came out seventy yards from me but out of sight of the hunters. Around the lunch table that day we decided to change our M.O. a little. We opted to erect a portable blind between the two spots where we were seeing the buck appear, so that we could see both ways and forget the stalking. That evening we had one slightly feverish young lady hunter, and only glimpsed the buck as he chased his girl straight across the sendero, to be seen no more. The third morning dawned beautifully clear and our hopes were high. Kayla’s fever was gone, and so was the deer Kayla has now named Houdini. We did though allow Kayla to take a lame Javilina, to take him out of his misery and give her some target practice. Twenty yards is not much practice, but so be it. On the fourth evening we played the same game of watching the deer chase his girl friend across the sendero a few times then disappear. That evening we let Kayla take a nice feral hog, again at about twenty yards.
By this time our hunt is about over. We have been tricked every way we can imagine. I am beginning to think this may be some kind of divine intervention on the deer’s behalf, for not letting Kayla get in more long range shooting practice. She had only fired her rifle twice on a hundred yard range prior to the hunt. The rifle I might add, was my first rifle, and had to cut down to fit her only two days before the hunt. You couldn’t believe the pain. It was like cutting off my own arm.
Back to the story. It’s the last inning, the deer are ahead, and I decided to go against the guide’s advice of hunting the blind one more time. I have decided to hunt the old fashioned way. Set up where we can see more area, and do the stalk if necessary. The guide had given up by seven-forty and offered to let Kayla take a doe that has wandered a little too close. But I decline and get dirty looks from Kayla and the guide. By eight, another offer of the doe, another decline, and more dirty looks. Thankfully the doe leaves and saves me from more of the old stink eye. Eight-fifteen, guess who shows? Houdini. He comes out of the brush about three hundred fifty yards down a different sendero and starts feeding our way. Holy cow, away Kayla and Nick, the evil eyed guide, go on a last chance stalk. I stayed behind to be out of the way, and out of range if things went wrong. The tension was unbelievable, I don’t know how they felt. Kayla and Nick got to within a hundred and fifty yards of the deer and belly crawled out into the sendero. Houdini and his sweetie continued to feed toward the hunters, and I’m chain smoking. At about a hundred thirty yards the doe spots the hunters and I’m sure it’s all over. The doe sneaks off into the brush and I’m willing Kayla to pull the trigger. I know the guide is waiting for a broad side shot, but I’m afraid the only side of him were going to see is the back side. At about one hundred twenty five yards the buck sees them as well. Now my brain is screaming, pull the trigger! Luckily my mouth stayed shut. The deer walked about ten yards closer and stopped, along with my pulse. Fortunately Kayla and Nick were somewhat calmer than me. Nick whispers to Kayla to shoot him in the neck four inches below the white spot, and that she needed to shoot now. She missed, the bullet entered only three and a half inches below the white spot. An amazing shot, I know she couldn’t have made without the aid of the Harris bipod I had purchased from S.W.F.A. in Red Oak Texas. All that hour of teaching, to go for the higher percentage body shot was for naught. Kayla and Nick were up and dancing in the sendero before I could get over my aneurysm and start the truck. The hunt could not have been more exciting if I’d had a world record in my own sites.
Kayla and I had to stop and crawl under a parked train to retrieve our coins on that Christmas Eve ride home. She will probably remember that longer than the hunt. But I won’t.
Take a kid with you, and you might have your hunt of a lifetime.
David Ray
Kayla used: