A Man, His Hunting Rifle and a Devastating House Fire

Below is a story that is reprinted with permission from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. I wrote it as part of a five-story, 63-page special section in the 2019 September-October issue of Bugle magazine. It is written as a dedication to my Grandpa Vern. It follows the path of his hunting rifle that was passed down to my father and eventually on to me before it was destroyed in a 2017 house fire that destroyed our home and most everything we owned. 

Through the Ashes

by Mark Holyoak

I thought, for a split second, about Grandpa Vern’s rifle. It was right there in a case under the bottom of my bed only feet away. But to get it, I would have to hit the floor and belly-crawl under the flames.

My shovel sliced through blackened remains along the subflooring of what used to be our bedroom until it struck a chunk of hidden metal. It was a sound that triggered accomplishment, relief and dread. More than a week of wondering, seeking and searching was over. I’d finally found it! Though its wooden stock was completely burned away, the barrel and action charred almost beyond recognition and the old reliable Redfield scope warped and melted, I had finally found what had been my most prized personal possession—my grandfather’s Model 70 Winchester .30-06.

He bought it shortly before Utah’s deer season opened in the fall of 1941. Two months later, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Just under a year later, in November 1942, Thomas Vernon “Vern” Holyoak (my grandfather) left his home in Parowan, Utah, to join his fellow Americans and serve in the Army during World War II. He was 35 years old. After defeating the enemy in the African theater, his unit took part in the invasion of Sicily. He spent time in Palermo (a city I lived in 41 years later while serving as a missionary for my church). After again driving out the enemy, he went to Scotland and England before preparing for the invasion of France. His unit landed on Omaha Beach.

He spent more than two years with Allied troops as they pushed through France, Holland, Belgium and into Germany where he fought in many campaigns, at times under heavy fire. In the spring of 1945 he was plagued with a painful and chronic stomach issue. While he was briefly transferred out of Germany for a few weeks to receive treatment, 90 percent of the soldiers in his unit died during a fierce firefight at the Bridge of Remagen.

Grandpa Vern was in Paris on May 8, 1945, for V-E Day, when the Allies accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. Three months later, he received orders to return home. As he flew onboard a B-17 to Casablanca, French Morocco, a report came over the radio confirming Japan’s official surrender. World War II was finally over.

He was not one to talk about his service—ever. It wasn’t until decades later that my father sat down and coaxed the experiences out of him for the sake of family history and his posterity. We learned that he fought in seven campaigns: North Africa, Sicily, Normandy, Northern France, the Battle of the Bulge, the Rhineland and Southern France. The U.S. Army awarded him a Battle Star for each campaign and a Bronze Star for hauling ammunition while under fire. The commanding general gave his mortar battalion a commendation for its efforts in Germany.

After my grandfather returned home, he resumed raising cattle and farming. He also returned to the mountains of southern Utah, where he loved hunting mule deer with the Model 70 each fall. As far as I know, he never had the opportunity to hunt elk since there weren’t any near his home back then. Grandpa passed away in 1992 and my father inherited the family farm and all of his possessions.

I moved my family to western Montana in 2003 where I couldn’t help noticing many of my buddies at church constantly exchanging photos, texts and hunting tales. Though I had hunted rabbits with Grandpa and my family many times as a kid, I had only ever chased deer once with my father, and that was too many decades ago to remember how to do it. But I was determined. I had to figure out this big game hunting thing. When I told my dad about my plans, he said, “I have just the rifle for you.” Shortly after that, he delivered grandpa’s Winchester.

I loved everything about it—the look, the feel, the way it fired, how comfortable it felt on my shoulder as I hiked, and especially knowing Grandpa customized it by cutting the stalk and attaching a recoil pad so it fit him. It fit me too, perfectly. I carried it with an almost tangible feeling of nostalgic gratitude and connectivity to him. I now owned the same rifle that helped Grandpa fill that old freezer in the basement of the farmhouse. I was determined not to squander this new opportunity to chase elk and deer to help feed my family while cementing relationships, both past and present.

The Model 70 not only provided a lot of meat for our family freezer over the years but great memories for me and my son Jace. At the age of 15, Jace made a perfect 202-yard shot on a cow elk with a bullet personally hand-loaded by Grandpa in the 1960s. It was the first elk taken by a Holyoak in our direct family line in more than 50 years. As we posed for a photo I felt that my grandfather was looking down on us. I thought how proud he would be of the great-grandson he never got to meet.

In January 2016, on a late season depredation hunt with the Model 70 in hand, Jace by my side and after a lengthy hike, I placed the crosshairs on a cow elk 375 yards away. Once again, Grandpa Vern’s Winchester fired true. Several hours later, after a lengthy drag through snow up to the middle of our calves, Jace and I and a hunting buddy sat in the bed of the pickup exhausted, sweaty and yet full of adrenaline from what had been our most exhilarating and exhausting hunt together. When I posted the father-son photo with the elk on Facebook, my mother made this comment: “Great picture! Grandpa Vern would be so pleased to see this!”

In December 2016, Jace shouldered the .30-06 atop a mountain ridge and dropped an unsuspecting cow in its tracks. He excitedly called his fiancé and shortly thereafter they made their first joint purchase—a freezer to store the meat. Across the 14 years Jace and I got to carry that rifle, it helped us tag four elk and roughly 20 deer between the two of us.

December 29, 2017, was a frigid day in western Montana. My wife Lori and I were in the midst of replacing interior doors when the power went out. Without electricity, the late afternoon darkness fell quickly over our home so our cordless drill fell silent and our Friday afternoon project ended early. There would be no Netflix tonight. There wasn’t much to do but stoke the fire in our wood-burning stove downstairs and try to keep our house warm. As we lay in bed, we spoke of our ongoing plans to give the home we’d purchased 2½ years before on 10 acres a few miles west of Frenchtown a makeover. With that in mind, a fire crackling in the basement and a hint of the scent that only comes from wood-generated heat, we both fell asleep.

At roughly 6:30 the following morning we awoke. My brain felt as groggy as my body when Lori said she smelled smoke. It was still dark outside. As I turned on my cellphone flashlight we saw the smoke in our upstairs bedroom was as thick as a fog. But the odor was not that of a regular wood-burning fire. It smelled odd, almost electrical in nature—or so I thought. I headed for the furnace. Though the smoke was thick upstairs, I saw individual smoke columns in the furnace room. I thought the furnace somehow shorted out during the power failure and filled the house with smoke. Upon returning upstairs, Lori insisted we open the windows.

“But it’s 12 degrees outside. If we open the windows, we’ll freeze,” I protested. She was right. For the sake of our lungs and our health we had to clear the air the best we could.

With the windows throughout the house cranked wide open, I gathered more wood for the stove as we huddled under blankets around it. We chatted and even laughed for a while, but when I glanced outside from our half-basement I saw an orange glow on the snow.

“The house is on fire!” I yelled.

I sprinted up the two flights of stairs only to see flames shooting out of the ceiling of our bedroom closet. “Get some warm clothes on!” I yelled. “Call 9-1-1! Get out of the house!”

Flames shooting out from our bedroom window

I sprinted downstairs and into the garage in search of something to douse the flames. No electricity meant no water pump which meant little to no water. My brain was running a million miles an hour and totally overlooked the fire extinguisher we kept under the kitchen sink. I ran back upstairs to see what I could salvage before the fire claimed it. As I turned the corner, the entire bedroom from about four feet down from the ceiling was fully engulfed in flames. It almost knocked me off my feet. I thought, for a split second, about Grandpa Vern’s rifle. It was right there in a case under the bottom of my bed a mere four feet away. But to get it, I would have to hit the floor and belly-crawl under the flames. It was not worth the risk. It was too late. I turned and ran to the garage, ripped open the garage doors and drove our two vehicles to safety. Then I stood with Lori in the front yard and watched our home burn until the firefighters arrived.

Investigators determined the cause of the blaze was a chimney fire that smoldered and spread while we slept. That odd smell was not electrical wiring but insulation in the rafters above our bedroom. Two-thirds of our home had to be razed and about 95 percent of our belongings were deemed unsalvageable. Among the losses were all of my guns, many of which belonged to Grandpa Vern: a 1917 Luger 10 mm WW I edition, a 16-gauge shotgun dating back to the 1940s, a .357 magnum pistol in sparkling condition and my pump-action .22 Rossi rifle given to me by my parents when I was 12 years old.

It took 10 months and a lot of hard work after the fire to rebuild our home. Do I feel sad for having lost those guns? Yes, heartbroken. But as time passes I have more gratitude than ever. I am grateful that my wife and I escaped unharmed. I am grateful that Grandpa Vern’s Army uniform somehow survived the flames and the smoke. And I am grateful for those 14 years my son and I got to carry his .30-06 over the ridges and valleys of Montana’s backcountry. Grandpa may be gone, but I felt he was with us on our adventures, every step of the way.

Mark Holyoak is the RMEF director of communication. His middle name is Vernon, named after his grandfather.

Another photo of my charred rifle

What's More Montana than That?

"Do you want us to haul that away for you?"

"Nah, I'd like to keep it but could you move it for me?"

We were talking about the lower section of one of the nine massive ponderosa pine trees we had cut down during a 2020 logging operation that removed about 350 of 1,000 trees across our six-acre forest. My thought was the oversized log would function great as a place for multiple people to sit on by our fire pit. And so that was its final resting place. But that thinking didn't last very long.

We asked the loggers to slice a thin section off a stump on the side of our house so we could convert it into kind of a redneck tic tac toe game. That round, as well as several others left behind, spawned a new idea. I'd previously created a couple of signs with extra barbed wire I already have. What if I applied that same approach to the rounds? 

It's no longer tricky finding the entrance to our place

And what if I used my chainsaw to cut a bunch more rounds and dole them out to family and friends? What's more Montana than that?

The first couple of wedges went to Aubrey's family here in Montana, the parents of my son-in-law in north Idaho and a round for my son Jace in Washington. I use bolt cutters, several wrenches, needle nose pliers, finishing nails and a hammer to bend, create and attach the letters, one at a time. Cap that off with a coat of wood sealant, that almost seems to make the barbed wire glow, and out the door they went.

A couple of months later it worked out that all my siblings would be together for the first time since Dad's funeral. And they'd be coming to my house. Of course, they needed to take a piece of Montana home with them. Okay, back to work. 

The happy recipients:  Kerry, Amy, Arwynn (stepping in for Mom), Alan & Kathrine

Now there's a Montana round in Missouri, one in Texas, one in Kansas and another in Idaho.

Just off the back porch at Mom's place in Wichita

On Alan's back deck in Rexburg

Back to the chainsaw and I cut off a couple more rounds - one to go to New Mexico when Lacey and her family move there and another for Hallie down in Utah.

Who's next?

Redneck Tic Tac Toe

Simply put, it's a fantastic fit! Located near the northwest corner of our six-acre property you can see it jut above the grass around it. 

The large, round stump is all that's left from what was perhaps the tallest tree on our place. It was about 20 yards from our home and a mere six or seven paces from the pump house. We had it and eight other extremely tall trees towering above our house removed during a 2020 logging operation that gave our home quality defensible space and thinned our forest of about 350 of 1,000 trees.

Down comes the tall ponderosa

Lori came up with the idea to transform the stump into a fun, kid-friendly outdoor game, so I asked one of the loggers if he could reduce it to a nice, clean cut parallel with the ground. And he obliged thanks to great skill and an the extremely long arm on his chain saw.

From there, it was my turn to implement Lori's vision. I grabbed a short 2x4, my circular saw and made four shallow cuts across the top of it in opposite directions. A little black paint highlighted those cuts. From there, I gathered five rocks and five pine cones from the property and the result was, well, let's call it redneck tic tac toe. 

Rocks vs. cones

Let's play!

Making Over Our Montana Forest

I love living in the woods of Montana! The smell of conifers, the scurrying of critters, the beauty of wildflowers on the forest floor, the sounds of songbirds and the swaying of massive, majestic ponderosa pines in the breeze. But to live in the mountain forests of Montana means you need to be proactively prepared for the possibility of wildfire. 

We know that firsthand. In 2013, a dry lightning storm sparked the 11,000-acre Lolo Creek Complex Fire in the mountains above our home when we lived in Lolo. It charred 17 square miles of forest, destroyed five homes, triggered the evacuation of 2,100 people including a ranch where I worked for eight years and was rated the nation's number-one firefighting priority. Huge chunks of ash and even small pieces of charred tree limbs fell from the sky onto our neighborhood from the fire several miles away. Law enforcement stopped by to notify us to keep an ear for sirens. If we heard them on our streets going forward, we would be forced to evacuate. Luckily, firefighters worked hard, the weather eventually turned and the flames died down so that didn't happen.

Conducting the great 2019 Holyoak tree count

Now we live on six acres amidst a stand of ponderosas just below the mountains in the foothills above the small community of Frenchtown. As pretty as the trees are, there were too many of them too close to our home. We needed to establish a defensible space so if a wildfire ever did threaten our home, we would be able to make a stand. And there were a lot of trees on or place. How many? In the spring of 2019, Lori and I estimated there were 1,003 ponderosa pines on our property and that didn't take into account anything shorter than six feet nor the aspen or other tree species. 

We wanted to remove some particularly tall trees that were too close to our home, including one that was already dead. We needed to drop that big, brown thing before it decided to drop on its own and take a structure, a car or a person with it. We called a tree removal service and were quoted $4,000 to remove two giant ponderosa trees. Four grand?!

Seeking a more financially feasible solution, we then talked to a friend of ours, Mike Stoker, who is a commercial logger. He offered a much better deal. Mike would bring his heavy machinery to our place, remove the trees we requested and also thin trees below the shop for no charge. In return, he wanted to claim the logs and sell them to a mill. Deal! Mike was busy doing contract work on Forest Service land so it wouldn't happen in 2019. 

In early May of 2020, we heard the rumbling and watched as the big rigs lumbered onto the property. It was exciting! I had seen logging machinery in action at a measured distance but being up close was really cool. Mike manned a feller buncher, a self-propelled machine with tracks, a long arm with a single cutting head and shorter arms capable of gripping and holding multiple trees at once. 

Delimber doing its thing

Two other loggers manned other vehicles. One of them was a skidder, a tractor-like machine with an arm capable of grabbing several downed trees at once and dragging them to a designed drop zone. My favorite was the delimber, which would pick up a tree, hold it parallel to the ground, strip if of all its limbs and then cut the logs into a designated length and then drop them. A logging truck also made several early morning stopovers to load and haul off the logs. A water tender, used to haul water and fight wildfires, also spent a morning on the property to make sure a massive fire ignited in a slash pile remained in control.

Lots of work going on

With all the limbs removed from many trees, there was a lot to burn. And those fires were big and they burned hot! In fact, they smoldered for weeks. The first night was especially nerve-wracking. You see, if the flames spread to nearby properties, we would be liable. I found myself wandering to the window several times late night and early the next morning. We were happy that rainy weather helped reduce the possibility of spreading. 

...baby burn!

Burn...

I took a day off work to watch the fun when they took down the largest trees closest to our house. Lori, Kyler, Lyla, Lexi and I sat on the front porch to take it all in. It was better than watching a movie. This was live action stuff! Mike and his boys showed their skill with the chainsaw. They couldn't use the feller buncher on those closest trees because the trunks were too large to grab and control. The guys told us the direction they planned to fell the trees and then did exactly that. We counted the rings on the downed, dead tree and it was 95 years old. 

Skill with a chainsaw

Spectator sport

Kyler age 7, tree age 95

Kids' paradise

Feller buncher at work

Whacking & stacking

Just a little off the top, please

Kyler at the controls

The kids got in on the fun up close and personal. Mike let Kyler sit on his lap in the feller buncher while Lyla got to spend time in the cockpit of the delimber. And yeah, I got in on it as well. Mike let me cram into the feller buncher with him to watch the work from behind the controls. 

Happy Lyla after her ride

In the end, Mike and the crew thinned approximately 350 trees. And that's a good thing. Thinned forests not only slow the spread of a potential fire but removing the canopy above allows more sunlight to reach the forest floor below which results in thicker grasses and vegetation. And that's good news for critters that rely on quality forage.

After several weeks of work, when the logging equipment rolled off the property to the neighbor's, we were left with short stumps all over. We didn't care about those in the forest part of our place, but we wanted to remove six of the larger ones in the grass between the house and shop. Mike gave his brother a call and he brought in a stump grinder. One afternoon and one morning of work later, and mission accomplished! 

We kept a couple of the larger trees closer to home for shade but removing others really brightened things up. Everything looks great and we feel much better. The big dead tree is gone. Other large trees that towered over our structures are also gone. 

Before

After

So how did we cap the tree removal event? By starting a new era. We planted a new tree - one that will represent the family name and kids will be able to climb generations from now. After all, it's an oak.

Meeting Mr. Mann, a Super Bowl Champion

Below is a Facebook post from February 11, 2013. 

Sometimes, you never know who you'll run into. Earlier this morning, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation life member Erroll Mann walked into our visitors center to talk with me about some wildlife issues. 

Erroll was a placekicker in the National Football League from 1968-78 and wore a championship ring from Super Bowl XI when he played for the Raiders. (Yeah, he took it off and let me take a closer look at it.) After swapping stories, I learned he was on the field in New Orleans on November 8, 1970 and kicked what looked to be the winning field goal for the Lions with 11 seconds left against the Saints. After a squib kick, the Saints completed a quick pass and then Tom Dempsey attempted and nailed a 63-yard field goal (an NFL record that stood for 43 years) to win the game (see video below). Erroll says he was so mad. He said Dempsey couldn't even hit short field goals in warmups.

Wow, how 'bout that!

I was really sad to learn that Erroll passed away on April 11, 2013, only two months to the day after our encounter.

As a New Orleans native and life-long Saints fan, this remains my favorite all-time Saints highlight!

This highlight shows both Eroll Mann's field goal and Tom Dempsey's game-winner.

Putting a 'Spin' on a 'Brawl of the Wild' Birthday

Montanans call it the "Brawl of the Wild." Dating back to 1897, the University of Montana versus Montana State University annual showdown remains the hottest football ticket in the state. The 31st oldest rivalry in NCAA Division I and the 11th oldest west of the Mississippi, UM leads the all-time series 73-41-5 but since MSU joined the NCAA in 1957, the Griz lead by a slim 32-31 margin. From 1986 to 2009, the Grizzlies dominated the series winning 21 of 24 games against the Bobcats. However since 2010, MSU won 6 of 10 including the last four in a row. 

However you look at it, Cat-Griz is a spirited and yes, bitter rivalry. It divides the state and it divides families. Ours is no different. Since we moved to western Montana in 2003, we attended occasional games and cheered for the hometown Grizzlies. My son-in-law, Kenny, is a native Montanan and a lifelong, diehard Griz fan. His family had season tickets growing up and he, my oldest daughter and their kids have season tickets now and attend games to this day. My son, Jace, grew up cheering for Montana but switched allegiances by transferring from BYU-Idaho to Montana State after returning home from serving a church mission in Australia. He and wife, Kelly, both graduated from MSU and attended every home game while they were in school and still hold season tickets even though now they live 400 miles west of Bobcat Stadium. Like Kenny, Jace too is diehard but instead of bleeding Grizzly crimson and silver, he bleeds Bobcat blue and gold.

So when you have members of your family on polar opposite ends of the Brawl of the Wild spectrum, what do you get them for their birthdays? Simple, you get them what further defines who they are. 

I came up with the idea while surfing Facebook. There it was. It was perfect! Perfect for Kenny and perfect for Jace. The product I saw didn't have anything to do with football. I just needed to put a Bobcat-Grizzly "spin" on it - literally.

Two years earlier, Lori and I ordered a trailer full of tongue-and-groove, rough cut, circle-sawn fir that we installed as flooring in our rebuilt home. I stacked the leftover planks high among the rafters in the top of the garage. That fir flooring would be perfect for this project.

I used the chop saw to cut up a couple of boards and then glued and clamped them together. From there, it was a matter of art. I printed a logo from each school, cut them out and used them as stencils to transfer the pattern onto the wood. There would be no permanent marker or paint used on this project. I needed a hand-held wood burner so I purchased one from a craft store in town. 

Talk about writer's cramp. It took hours on end over a couple of days to burn each logo into the wood. Still, that gave it a classic look, a rustic look, a Big Sky State kind of look. Across the top of each of the dueling signs I burned the question, "Who to cheer for?" I then cut out small wooden arrows, drilled a hole in the end of each of them, stained all of the wood and loosely attached the arrows to the wooden signs with a nail. 

The final part of the plan was intentionally giving Kenny's present to Jace and Jace's to Kenny. As they opened their presents, they each kind of chuckled before switching with each other. Jace's Bobcat sign now hangs in his office where he spends his weekdays. Kenny's hangs in the shop where he works on cars. 

Gravity dictates their individual teams will win with each and every spin. But which side of the family wins when the Cats and Griz face off for the 120th time on the football field this fall? I don't think gravity will have much to do with it.

Go ahead, give 'er a spin

What's in a Name?

"H-o-l-y-o-a-k."

"Hey, that's just like it sounds!"

Yeah, that's a phrase I've heard a jazillion times immediately after I'm asked to spell my last name. I get it. Holyoak is different. It's unique. I like it and it has quite a history. My dad taught me that honoring our family name honors my ancestors. 

2 Nephi 16:13 (Book of Mormon)

That reminds me of a story by George Albert Smith, former president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He said he had a dream when he was young in which his deceased grandfather asked him, "I would like to know what you have done with my name." Young George answered he had never done anything of which he should be ashamed. I've tried to do the same throughout my life.

Back to my dad. He was quite the scriptorian. His scriptures are riddled with shades of yellow, blue and red featuring hand-written cross references, notes, thoughts, insights and quotes. And he searched the scriptures to find and highlight individual verses linked to the "holy" family name (see verse above and list below).  

The Holyoak Coat of Arms – Sacra Quercus (Latin)

The surname of Holyoak is a name taken from Holy Oakes, a location in Leicestershire, England, or from residency near a holy oak or gospel oak.

The Latin inscription, “Sacra Quercuo” means seeking for the sacred. This is a holy oak and beneath a shield with Maltese Crosses and a deer head. Henry Holyoak, son of my great, great grandfather, obtained this coat of arms while serving a mission in England in 1893. 

As a guy who enjoys watching and hunting wildlife, let me add it's pretty catchy especially for being so ancient.

Examples of Holyoak, as noted in the holy scriptures belonging to Dale Holyoak

D&C 124:61 – “That he may receive also the counsel from those whom I have set to be as plants of renown (Holy oaks), and as watchmen upon her walls.

2 Nephi 16: 13 – “But yet there shall be a tenth, and they shall return, and shall be eaten, as a teil –tree, and as an oak whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves; so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.

Isaiah 6:13 – “But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil tree, and as an oak whose substance is in them, when they case their leaves:  so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.

Isaiah 60:21 – “Thy people also shall be all righteous:  they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified.

Isaiah 61: 3 – “To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.”

Ezekiel 34:29 – “And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunter in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more.”

Ezra 9:2 – “For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons:  so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands: yea, the hand of the princes and rules hath been chief in this trespass.”

Deuteronomy 6:6 – “For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God:  the Lord they God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.”

Kyler's (Weird) First Hunt

I bit into a fork full of roast and chomped on something hard. What was it? A tooth? A displaced filling? I reached into my mouth and pulled it out. It was part of a bullet that broke apart when I shot the deer the previous winter. Or was it? Actually, the more I looked at it, I realized it wasn't a bullet fragment at all. It was a pellet. You know, what you load into the firing chamber of a BB gun to reckon with problem rodents or birds. 

I just chuckled as my mind finally figured it out. The deer I shot up on the mountain had probably been a prolific raider of gardens and flower beds in the valley below so a homeowner most likely fired a pellet into it as a deterrent, of sorts. Now, there it was sitting on my plate. Perhaps it was only fitting. This incident was the perfect capper to what was kind of a weird hunt, Kyler's first hunt.

My grandson Kyler was six years old when I asked his mother, Aubrey, if I could take him on a deer hunt with me. It would be an easy hunt. One that did not involve any steep slopes with grueling climbs along mountain ridges like when I chase elk. We would simply enter the forest up above our houses, slowly walk through the trees and see if we could find a doe or a buck to shoot. Kyler knew I was a hunter and had asked questions about my outings. He wanted to go.

Aubrey gave her permission so we planned our hunt. Before we ever left, we talked about gun safety, being quiet in the woods, which animals we could shoot and those we would not. I told Kyler I had a doe tag and a buck tag but either was fine since I hunt to put meat in the freezer. I also told him that I did not shoot a doe if it had a fawn with it. We talked about the importance of making a clear, ethical shot that would put the deer down as quickly as possible. I then explained how I would field dress the deer. After all, I wasn't exactly sure how he would react if/when that happened since Kyler is a big-hearted, kind kid. 

As a preface to our hunt, we needed to get Kyler an orange vest so we had a grandpa-grandson "date" a few days prior at Sportsman's Warehouse to get him outfitted. After purchasing him a nice, vibrant hunter orange fleece vest large enough to fit for several years I said "So where do you want to go to lunch? Wendy's, McDonald's, somewhere else?" "Burger King," he said. "Why Burger King, Kyler?" "Because Burger King is the king of burgers." How do you argue with such well-thought-out logic?

The morning of the hunt, it was a chilly but not too cold fall Montana morning. His mother texted me that Kyler was ready to go before I was. I picked him up in the truck and we drove a short distance to a neighbor's place backing up a nice chunk of national forest land bordered by adjacent state lands. As we walked into the forest, we noticed our hunting twosome almost immediately transitioned into a threesome as a cat followed about 10-20 feet behind us. Not sure if it was a feral cat or someone's pet but it wasn't scared of us at all. When we stopped to glass into the woods, it stopped. When we started walking, it started walking. Just weird. And what was really weird was by the time our multi-hour, four mile hunt ended, it remained close by.

Looking for game with our furry sidekick (lower left-hand side)

Not even 10 minutes into our hunt, we spotted a whitetail buck that was slowly walking away from us. Its white antlers easily stood out as it sauntered in the opposite direction. It had not seen us but it never turned in a manner to expose its vitals for a good, ethical shot. We slowly stalked it hoping for such an opportunity but then a doe with two fawns bisected its trail and headed in our direction. We did not want to spook any of the deer and ruin this opportunity so we stopped and watched. 

"Papa, we can't shoot that doe," Kyler whispered. "It has fawns with it." I smiled and nodded. 

Eventually, the doe and fawns made their way down the mountain. We resumed our quest for the buck but because of the amount of time that passed, it was long gone. We never saw it again. 

We continued to loop through the national forest section. We saw a number of other deer but no more bucks that we could tell and none of the does we saw presented any kind of decent shot. In all we saw something like 13-15 deer so that was really good. Then we crossed into nearby state land and continued our quest. Still, no good shooting opportunities. With the feline fur ball still trailing our foot steps, we eventually made our way back down into the national forestland and slowly headed toward the truck. As we did so, I saw a doe.

"Kyler, there's a doe," I whispered. "It doesn't have a fawn with it, Papa. You can shoot that one."

I placed my rifle on the shooting sticks, pulled the trigger and dropped it on the spot. We waited a few minutes and looked for any movement. After all, the last thing we wanted to do was to find out it wasn't a good shot and cause it to jump up and run off. However, as we approached it was more than evident that it died almost instantly. We both knelt down by it, placed our hands on its still warm body and I said a prayer of gratitude for the deer's life and for the meat it would provide for our families.

One interesting side note, the cat was nowhere to be found. I'm guessing the booming sound of my .30-06 sent it scurrying away. I pulled out my hunting knife and began to field dress the deer. I asked Kyler if he would hold one of the deer's rear legs to I had better access to its abdominal cavity. Kyler was not hesitant or queasy. I showed him where the bullet entered the deer and where it exited. As I removed its innards, I showed him the stomach, intestines, lungs, heart and other organs. He was intrigued and seemingly fascinated. We talked a little how a deer's internal system really isn't that different than a human's. When I finally removed the windpipe, the process was finished. We turned over the carcass for a few minutes so the blood would drain from the abdominal cavity. Then I attached a harness to its body, around my shoulders and waist, and we headed down the mountain. Oh yeah, and while our fury friend was nowhere to be found during the de-gutting process when you think it would front and center, it returned to our sides for the walk out.

When we got home, Kyler called his parents and sisters outside to share our hunting tale and show them the deer in the bed of the truck. It wasn't just a deer. It was our deer. 

I hung it in the garage, skinned it and cut the meat into dozens of vacuum-sealed packages of steaks, roasts, stew meat, jerky and ground burger. That left me with one delivery to close out this hunting experience. 

Rewind to 10 months earlier. I was attending the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show in Las Vegas. I attended a seminar about helping to grow support for hunting. They had what they called  +One mentor challenge coins for those attendees willing to introduce someone new to hunting. I took two with Kyler in mind to receive the first.   

Back to our deer hunt tale. I loaded up a bag of meat for Kyle and walked it next door for him and his family to enjoy. I also presented him a +One coin. He proudly posed with his spoils. 

"Papa, I want to go again next year," he said. "You got it buddy!"