I'll never forget our first official father-son hunting trip, and neither will every form of wildlife within hearing distance of us this past weekend.
While it lacked the raw excitement of our first official father-son fishing trip when he was three (the boy rubbed his first fish all over his hair, before torturing it to death, and then later tried to eat a worm), my first hunting expedition with our 5-year-old was not without its moments and, frankly, it was a downright educational experience.
While we didn't see a thing Saturday (although I swear I could hear deer snickering at us over behind some trees), I learned some valuable lessons about hunting with a kindergartener and it has inspired me to one day write one of those handy dandy how-to guides, to be entitled "Deer Hunting For Dads and Other Dummies."
For convenience, I would divide this guide into several easy-to-read chapters:

The proper hunting gear
If you plan on hunting with a kid, don't think you're going to get away with packing light. For starters, you'll need a kid, which usually weighs at least 65 pounds and loses both the ability and the will to walk on its own two feet once you get about 100 yards off the back porch.
Secondly, you'll need some form of entertainment to occupy the lad. While I would recommend a 19-inch television with satellite hookup and a DVD player, a small, handheld video game with the volume bottom stuck on "Maximum" will suffice.
And did you know that it is against Mommy Law to go hunting with your son without wearing matching orange/camouflage suits, which the deer find especially amusing? And apparently a kid can't go for an hour without food and drink, so you might want to allow room in your backpack for a cooler or at least a small fridge.

The proper weapons
The traditional firearm for father-son hunting is, of course, the noisiest weapon known to man - the Daisy Red Rider BB gun, which I am now convinced was invented by agents of some secret, underground wildlife protection agency as a covert means of notifying every bird, reptile, or mammal on the North American continent that a boy and his father are now in the woods hunting.
As for your own weapon, it really doesn't matter. You're not going to be seeing any game this season.

The Mommy
You would think "father-son outings" don't involve mothers, but you would be wrong. Sure, they tell you that they don't mind staying home and they really don't like hunting, but then they start to pout a little bit when you drive out of the yard and make you feel sorry for them, but not sorry enough to turn the truck around and wait an hour or more for them to drive to town and buy another matching orange/camouflage hunting suit.
But if you leave Mommy behind, be sure to turn your cell phone off, otherwise you'll be having text message conversations like this:
Mommy text: "hav u got ur deer yet?"
Daddy text: "No hon still on back porch loading up the fridge"

A few last minute pointers
A few more hunting pointers that you might not think about until it's too late:
- Take the kid to the bathroom before you drive him out into the woods, hike a mile to the stand, and climb ten feet up a tree stand.
- Be prepared to answer a few hunting-related questions from your curious five-year old.
"Daddy, are the deer here yet?"
"Daddy, why are we scared of the game warden?"
"Daddy, can we go home now?"
"Daddy, do we have to hunt deer? Why can't we hunt alligators, or snakes, or dinosaurs?"
- Go ahead and lock up the family dog before you leave the house. That same dog that hasn't come to you since that fateful day you took him to the vet to be neutered will follow you for 12.3 miles and sit under the deer stand barking until either you give up on hunting or you shoot him.
But hey, at least you can text Mommy that y'all shot something on your first father-son hunting trip.