A Dad’s Perspective on Raising a Future Queen of Camo

My name is Steve from Groves, Texas. I have hunting with my family since I was 6 years old. Hunting as a child I learned the ins and outs of what you needed to know to be successful in the field. I started guiding waterfowl hunts in 1992, and had the opportunity to hunt many states during the season. When I got married I could only dream that one day I would have a son that I could teach to hunt the way my father had done. In 2003 I was blessed with a beautiful little girl, and to surprise as she grew she was in love with hunting, fishing and whatever I was doing. She is the love of my life, my hunting and fishing partner, a dancer, and a great daughter, and I couldn’t wish of having anything but her.

Keagan started hunting with me at 3 years old, although she was way too young to shoot she had to have her camouflage on and be in the deer stand with me.

As time went on she began to learn to be still and quit but we always made it fun no matter what. Over the next several years Keagan would get some opportunities at her first harvest but it just didn’t work out the way we wanted it to. So at 10 years old and lots of practice shooting, she became a member of the Buck hunters club with a broken horn 8 point in Newton, Tx.

That spring she told me she wanted to start fishing and to my joy I couldn’t wait to get her in the boat. On her first trip she caught a flounder, several croaker, and a redfish that broke her pole. But Keagan isn’t a girly girl, she wants to do it all by herself, bait, reel, and hold the fish. Witch I love even more.

With a deer behind her and hoping for many more to come, and fishing during our vast summer we have here in the south, Keagan couldn’t wait until she could shoot her own shotgun and harvest her first ducks. Growing up in my house with waterfowl mounts on every wall a little girl starts to love the sport that her father loves also. At 10 years old she completed the Hunters Education course with a 100. She was able to hunt ducks with me but the small gun that I had for her just didn’t fit her correct. So on her 11th birthday she got a 20 gauge youth semi-auto, and we began to practice shooting in preparation of what would become my best duck hunting season ever. I wasn’t because of what we had harvested it was having this young lady dressed in Camo, with her own Pink duck calls sitting in the blind with me and starting to love waterfowl hunting.

At 12 years old with a nice buck, lots of fish, and her first duck, a green wing teal and then her second. This girl is sure to have a great life of hunting and fishing and will always be my Queen of Camo.