Conditions were not ideal here for the 19 youth opener, woke to heavy rain and thunderstorms on Saturday morning and opted to let Allison sleep in. We went for the afternoon and despite being warm and windy and some light showers we saw several deer, she got to watch two small bucks spar and had several opportunities. Afternoon closed out to a couple deer walking off the beans just before legal shooting light would end.
Sunday morning was still warm, but light wind. Again we would see several deer. There were deer in the field before legal shooting light and had deer come from a couple different places to feed in beans and in clover. Several does kept going to alert and looking down and over the hill where we could not see and I was sure there had to be a deer down there. By 8 am we had not seen another deer for probably 45 minutes and I see a deer at the far right corner of the field edge coming straight at us. There is an oak tree about half way between us with limbs hanging down that prevents a clear view as he is walking at us but I could tell he was a buck. I pick up the binos and can see it is a good buck with dark antlers. Tell Allison to get ready as he is coming straight at us. He gets to the oak limbs and works a scrape, got on his back legs and raked his antlers high in the overhanging limbs. This home made steel ladder stand has canvas wrapped around it, so we can get away with a little movement. We had to move the gun around a bar in the stand, but from where I was sitting it looked like she had a clear shot at first. Then I noticed there were a couple maple leaves in the way of the barrel and told her not to shoot yet, she had him perfectly broadside at about 75 yards. I tried moving the gun for her and she still could not get a clear shot. tried moving Allison, had her sit on my knee and that had her with the barrel too low on the rest. So we waited for her to have a shot as he was walking across, I tried to stop him with grunts, but he never stopped. He got to a point down from us where we could not see him and was heading around a brush pile. He ended up stopping at a point where there was a bad angle, he turned went back around the brush pile and away from us. He passed a camera as he walked off only giving marginal shot opportunities that Allison was not comfortable taking.
We get down about 45 minutes later and plan to go back for the afternoon with the thought that he would be bedded close by coming out that late in the morning. We get in the stand a little after 3, light sw wind in our faces. As I get in the stand and get sitting down Allison says there is a deer. It was one of the smaller bucks we had seen that morning. Then within a minute or so does start popping out and feeding in the beans. We had 2 does with twins in the beans and later on we would see some does come out in the clover. I told Allison we had seen all the deer from the morning except for 3 of them, one of them being the buck, hopefully they would also show. Again we had does looking where we could not see, and just knew there were other deer on their feet. The antlerless deer fed a while and eventually would all leave our view. I had looked at the realtree game forecast and it showed peak activity at like 2 or 3 pm, so wondered if the deer would wait until after dark to be back on their feet. No sign of the bigger buck and it was over and hour and a half before we started having deer come back out. We had does and fawns staging in the thin strip of hardwoods to our left. I think we eventually had 9 deer in our field but in different plots. About 5:30 the buck from that morning shows up between the thin strip of woods and a brush pile. He is down the hill and is at a bad angle. Allison got on him, and I told her when he gets broadside and is clear she can take the shot. He stayed in the beans at a bad angle, got in a low spot or was down in a dip for what seemed like forever. Allison had to relax a minute and let the gun down from her shoulder. From my point of view there is now a clump of weeds right between her and the deer, deer is about 95 yards away still at a bad angle, but getting better. I told her when he gets past that clump he should be at a better angle and she can take him. It had been about 15 minutes by now and he finally is clear, and she asks can I shoot him now and I said YES. That is a long time for an experienced hunter to watch before taking a shot and I knew she was excited. I hear the safety flip off her mothers savage model 10 .243 and watch through the binos as I hear the shot. He takes off like he is hit hard and heads into the woods. I thought I could hear crashing, Allison said her ears were ringing too bad to hear anything. Then a doe blew a few times from where I heard the crashing. I left her in the stand just long enough to come back to the house for marking tape and lights.
We walk to where the deer was when she shot and no sign at all. Looked for about 15 minutes in the beans and the edge of the woods and she started questioning if she hit him. She said she was 50 50. So I decided we would walk the thin strip of woods with lights working from the crest of the hill down towards where I heard the crashing to see if we could pick up some blood. We had been searching for maybe 3 minutes when Allison says I SEE HIM, there is white. And there he lay, right where the doe blew and where I heard him crash.
As we found him, entry from the handloaded interlock on the near shoulder barely visible, with no exit explains why we found no blood. He made it less than 50 yards from where she shot him though.
Congratulations Allison on a great shot and on being patient and waiting. Cell phone pics, will try to load better pic from camera later on.
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