This is my son's first deer. He's 6 years old and shot it Monday afternoon, 11-22-10, behind our house. He wanted to go hunting and at first I was thinking: 78 degrees and mosquitoes in November not a good combination for deer hunting, goes to show what I know. My neighbor always tell me this is when they "rut" so off we go. He loves to hunt and he has this grunt call he always uses around the house, important later. The whole time we are hunting he blows this grunt call about every 10 minutes, he's having fun and I try to make it enjoyable for him even if I think it may hurt our chances. After about an hour he finally tells me the mosquitoes are getting him and he's ready to go. I know that the little bit of time left is the magical time, but we haven't seen anything and it is hot and many mosquitoes. We start to walk out of the field, a cut bean field, with new levees in it. As we start to walk I check the edge of the woods, which is 300 yards away one more time, and there is a buck staring straight us. I freeze and tell my son to stop and stand still. At this point I don't know what to do, then I remember Grunt Call. I tell my son to blow his grunt call, and when he does this deer starts to trot staight to us! He stops about 200 yards from us and my heart is starting to beat fast, my son can't believe it either. It stops still looking at us in that attentive position, head up, ears out, and we are just standing there in the field, 30 feet from the edge of some trees along a drain ditch. I tell my son to blow his grunt call again, and the buck starts trotting to us again, oh man! I tell my son to slowly kneel down, the buck keeps coming, so I slowly squat down, and he stops 100 yards from us, but he is still behind a levee, no shot. He is just staring us down, so I slowly put the rifle across my knee and tell my son to blow his grunt call one more time. The buck crosses the levee and stops 75 yards from us, staring us down. My heart is beating so fast, good thing my son seems to be the calm one, I look down at him and he is looking through the scope at the deer! He asks if he can shoot! I am trying to whisper to him where to shoot in the neck and the deer finally flags his tail and starts to trot off, my heart sinks, but I remember they say to make a noise to stop them, I can't even tell you what noise I made, but it worked. The deer takes 10 steps and stops broadside looking straight at us. I ask my son are you on him, (we practice behind the shoulder shots all the time), and he says yes. I tell him "Chute 'em", and bang he shoots. I watch the deer run off and I get that feeling, did he hit him or not, he's a good shot and when I asked he said,"Dad, I hit him right were I was aiming, behind the shoulder!" Sure enough, 30 minutes later we recover him just 30 feet into the woods, dead as a doornail. Perfect shot, deer was quatering, bullet went in right behind the right front shoulder and exited on the left side to the back of the rib cage right below the backstrap and in the upper body cavity! No messed up meat and no gut shot! We were both so excited not only his first deer, but the way that buck just kept coming at us everytime he blew that grunt call! What an experience.
He shot it with a Remington 700 ADL .243, 100 grain BTSP.
Guys with young kids, don't ever think they are too young to do something. My son has been shooting a rifle with a scope for a couple years now. He started with a .17 cal with a scope and we shot hundreds of rounds throught it, then a .223 with a scope, now a .243. Spend time with them practicing, it teaches them safety and proper shot placement.
Sorry so long, but I hated to cut the story short. It was priceless, and I am thankful I got to share that moment with my son.
11-24-2010, 03:18 PM
Son's first deer
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