I watched with pride as my little blue-eyed, blonde-haired daughter knelt beside her first deer and stroked its hair. "Daddy, I found my deer!" she announced with excitement. "It's a buck!" Nine-yr.-old Sara Kate Garner harvested her first whitetail during the 2006 Arkansas Youth Gun. The only assistance Sara’s father gave her was loading her single-shot rifle and placing it upon the tripod railing for her. With her daddy's cautious eye watching her every move, Sara Kate carefully aimed her gun and pulled the trigger. Within minutes, the two ecstatic camo-clad hunters were searching for tell-tale signs that Sara had been successful. Sure enough, hair and blood were quickly found and a blood trail led to a beautiful little Ozark buck.
"Life is about making choices." I've been making that statement to my children since they were very small, adding that we choose to make good choices or bad choices in every situation. There is no in-between. "When we make bad choices however, there are consequences to pay and often the results of making a bad choice will follow us for the rest of our life. 
The choices we make also affect those around us and especially those who we love the most."
Children aren’t born with instructions and as a parent, I have made my share of mistakes. However, the one thing that I feel I have done correctly was introducing my children to the outdoors. My older children were not as lucky as my younger ones though and spent their early childhood years living in the city. By the time the oldest was a teenager, I saw the warning signs of a child headed for trouble. Bad choices were being made. The decision was made to move to a more rural area and I headed back to my childhood home in the Ozark Mountains.
I immediately saw drastic changes in my oldest three sons as they were introduced to fishing, camping, and hunting. Skipping school and discipline problems became a thing of the past. No longer could they say, "There’s nothing to do." Every weekend possible was filled with trips to the river or to the woods. Life was good. We had made a good choice.
By the time Sara Kate was 4 years old, she had learned to use a spinning reel and was catching fish large enough to drag her in the river. She would insist on baiting her own hook and didn’t mind getting her little hands dirty. She’d just wipe them on the front of her shirt and smiling would say, "It’s just a little dirt." She even slept in her own tent next to Mom and Dad’s and didn’t mind when we got caught in a storm and her tent almost blew away.
The little blonde learned early the importance of making good choices. We talked a lot and often she would ask, "Mom, did I make a good choice?" When she informed me at the age of five that she wanted to be a hunter, I assured her she was making a good choice and the learning process started. Four years later, my daughter harvested her first whitetail and no doubt, there will be many to follow.
Hunting is the most efficient and cost-effective means of regulating the deer population and with the number of deer hunters declining, it is even more crucial to introduce new hunters to hunting.
Whitetail deer need adequate food, water, and living space to ensure their healthy survival. Over populations of a deer herd can cause serious problems. An area that is over-populated with deer puts an unprecedented strain upon the woodland ecosystems and agriculture productions, causing farmers to lose money and crops. In suburban communities, a high-density deer population will rely on expensive landscaping for its primary food source, causing landowners a lot of headaches and expense in landscaping costs. When there is not enough room or food for the deer, the quality and health of the deer decline. During the winter months when there is even less food, some deer will die of starvation. Another problem caused by deer is the issue of deer ticks that carry Lyme Disease, thus posing serious health issues to humans. Deer also pose a grave threat to drivers, with more than a million vehicle/deer collisions each year in the United States, causing over a hundred human deaths and more than a billion dollars in repair costs.
Besides the fact that my daughter is outdoors getting much needed exercise, fresh air, enjoying nature, and helping to provide meat for the family, as a hunter she is helping to keep our deer herd under control and being a good steward of the land. Do I think she's made a good choice? You'd better believe it. Young hunters are the future of our sport and organizations such as the Arkansas Deer Hunters Alliance, The National Wild Turkey Federation, and BuckMasters to name a few are helping to make a positive impact in keeping kids off the streets, out from in front of the television and computer, and taking them to the woods. You can do your part by taking a child hunting and introducing them to the wonderful world of hunting. Each trip to the woods will be an adventure that neither of you will forget. Make the right choice.
