Fishing with Children was just the first part of our recent trip up to Sioux Lookout in Northern Ontario. We also planned to do some hunting. Having grown up in Sioux Lookout, hunting was a regular part of our fall and early winter routine. Dad shot a moose in the fall and we ate it through the winter supplemented with partridge and fish.
Given that I had three tots in tow and the fact that it’s 20+ hours to drive home from Sioux, moose hunting wasn’t really feasible. We were simply going to hunt partridge.
My children have never been around guns before, nor have they done any hunting. I had no idea how they would take to it but I needn’t have worried. The first day we were out, we were driving down some old roads slow. We spotted a partridge on the road ahead. I left the three tots with dad in the van and jumped out. I aimed, fired and got my bird. Behind me in the van Chloe and John were applauding excitedly, very proud of their mama. When I got back to the van, Chloe excitedly asked me, “mama, what are we going to shoot next?!?”
We cooked our partridge up stir-fry style with broccoli and soya sauce. Chloe ate three bowls and John ate two.
What We Learned While Hunting
- That we only shoot what we’re going to eat.
- That we shouldn’t be wasteful.
- How to clean a partridge.
- How wings work.
- What the insides look like and what the parts are.
- What partridges eat. {and saw inside their crop}.
- That for us to eat meat, animals must die and that is OK.
- That partridge tastes like chicken.
- To be patient and observant. {Well, maybe we didn’t learn this but we’re working on it…}
