I told this story last January, but it's a good thread to repeat it in.
I took my 7 year old son and 9 year old daughter hunting for the first time last year. Technically, my son was 6 at the start of the season and turned 7 in December. Same thing for my daughter; 8 at the start, 9 in January when it finished. We had everything setup and had lots of pictures of bucks and doe all the way up until about a week before opening day.

Since this was their first year, the goal for the season was to get a doe. I didn't want them thinking you just jumped in the blind and shot a huge buck your first time out. Well, like others saw last year, opening day came around and the deer just disappeared. The acorns started falling hard and they just weren't interested in corn at all. Not to be deterred, we went out the week before Thanksgiving and between Thanksgiving and January, we probably hunted 15 days with both morning and afternoon sits in our blind. Over that time, we probably saw 3 doe and they were out on a game trail around 175 yards away. They were way to far out there for the kids, but I shot one of those in late December because we needed some meat for the freezer. Since we weren't seeing anything under the feeder and we saw a few deer on the hill to the left of our feeder, we started throwing corn all over the hill. It finally paid off towards the very end of extended doe season. I was out there with my son for one last weekend hunt. We didn't see anything on Saturday or Sunday morning so I asked him if he wanted to hunt Sunday night. I told him I would let him miss school on Monday if we couldn't get home in time. So we go out that night and just before it started to get dark, a doe walked out on the hill about 120 yards away. My son was so excited he was shivering as he lined up the shot. I moved my chair behind him, wrapped my jacked around him to warm him up, tried to calm him down as best I could and bang, he dropped the doe where she was standing. I thought he was going to tear the door off the blind in trying to get out there to see her. Needless to say, we didn't leave the lease Sunday night. The next morning I woke up about 5:30, saw it was about 25 degrees out and I asked him if he wanted to go back to the stand for one last hunt before we went home. He said nah and went back to sleep. Well about 6:30, he wakes up and tells me he wants to go. I was thinking great, it's freezing out there, we just shot a doe the night before and nothing is coming to the feeder; looks like it will be a cold, dull morning in the blind. But the little guy wanted to go, so we head out. Around 8:30, a buck walks out in the exact spot the doe was in the night before. I looked at my son, told him he had paid his dues this season by sitting there for almost the entire season without seeing a thing and if he wanted to shoot the buck, he could. Shivering again, he lined up the buck and bang, nailed him right behind the shoulder. The buck ran about 20 yards and dropped.

Here is my son with his first doe


Here he is with his first buck


What was funny is that my wife told us at the beginning of the season that there would be no horns in our house. If we wanted to mount something, it would stay in the trailer at the lease. When I sent her a picture of his buck, her first response was "you're getting that mounted to put in his room right?" I almost dropped my phone I was laughing so hard.

I started taking my son when he was 2 years old.
He shot his first deer when he was 11.
IMO... That a child should be taught to hunt as well as gun and hunting safety before given the right to kill an animal.

This is his first deer at the age of 11.



This is his first buck at the age of 12.