Andy Valade took his first rabbit with a single bullet.

In June, when we looked at the dismal draw results, and tried mightily to refrain from metaphoric expletives (at least in front of children), there was one ray of sunshine. My wife, Emma — without any preference points, mind you — drew an Ochoco buck tag.

Harkening back, Emma has struggled to even draw a buck tag. Of all of her 10 hunting years, this was only her third buck tag. Worse yet, she hadn’t had a very good chance to kill a buck. She has taken several grouse, antlerless deer, and a cow elk, but for whatever reason she hadn’t gotten her first buck. Suffice it to say, the pressure was on.

A few trips made to the range during the summer were difficult on account of our newborn daughter needing to be near Mom. Yet as we could, we went, allowing Emma to get in plenty of practice with her favorite rifle, a Weatherby Vanguard chambered in 7 mm-08 Remington. With factory or handloaded ammunition, she is little Annie Oakley with that rifle.

In September, a lightning storm caused the fast-growing and very devastating Rail Ridge Fire. Located just south of Dayville, it burned deep into both the Ochoco and Murderers Creek units. This led to large portions of public land in both units being closed to any public use.

This drastically diminished the areas we had access to for hunting. As time went by, it became increasingly apparent that Emma might go yet another season without punching her buck tag.

We weren’t holding out for a monster — a spike would’ve done — yet even with the most fundamental standards, we found ourselves seeing bucks everywhere that we couldn’t hunt, and none where we could. Typical.

On the last day, as we gathered at my truck near dusk, resigned in our collective disappointment and disbelief, our 5-year-old son, Andy, spotted a cottontail rabbit in the brush.

After asking his mother and I if he could shoot the rabbit, we collected the .22 rifle from the back seat and made ready. As that Marlin 39A is almost longer than Andy is tall, I gave him a little help to aim. When he was ready, he squeezed the trigger, and with a single bullet, took his first animal ever.

Those feelings of disappointment were immediately replaced with triumph. After a few quick pictures, I dressed and cleaned the rabbit and we had a conversation about taking an animal’s life. He was so proud of himself and yet had a quiet reverence about what he had done. I had wondered how he would handle such a thing and yet he handled it like a veteran hunter.

Although 2024 was the absolute worst deer season I have ever seen, we came out of it with a treasured memory.

The rabbit was enjoyed for dinner the following evening, and Andy has repeatedly delighted family and friends with his hunting and shooting prowess ever since. I couldn’t be more proud as a father. Start them young, folks, the future of hunting depends on having these experiences and learning the lessons early on.

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