Youth Deer Hunt

[Josh C]

This past Saturday started the youth hunt in area 6 where we hunt. For the last two months we have been patterning several nice bucks on our property and noticed they have been hanging around the stand we call the "Kids" stand. It's called this due to it's closeness to the road which allows us to get the kids in and out without disturbing the other stands on the property. One of my daughters and my dad hunted it Saturday morning and didn't see anything while I was at the camp tending to my youngest daughter who got sick on me Friday night. Saturday during the middle of the day we hung around the camp cutting grass and getting things back in order that we neglected all summer! My Mom decided to go home Saturday afternoon and took my sick daughter home to meet my wife, so Dad and I took off to the woods with my youngest daughter and my son to see if we could get all the stars to line up!!

Dad hunted the kids stand again with my daughter and I went to the back of the property to sit in a ground blind with my son. My son and I saw 6 does and yearlings, but we couldn't get the right shot, so we let them all walk for another day. Dad and my daughter were sitting in the "Kids" stand and around 6:00 a 4 pt came out and started eating at the feeder. While they were watching and videoing it, Dad happened to glance down the SE plot that was dead down wind of them and noticed nothing but horns walking down the side of the plot. Once Dad and Caroline got the chairs in position and the gun out he window, Dad turned on his camera to film it and tried to stop the buck. He had to end up hollering at him to get him to stop and turn broadside! My little girl put the cross hairs on the buck where she has been taught too and let her 7MM-08 do it's thing! After the shot, we watched the video and realized she hit it further back then we like, so we decided with the 33 deg temps we would let it lay overnight and look for it Sunday morning. I was able to call in some help with a tracking down for Sunday morning.
Our property is 15 yr old CRP, and it isn't fun tracking a deer in it when there is no blood to see. The deer only ran about 75 yards!! She has killed a buck before, but nothing like this one! He ended up scoring 144-3/8" and weighted 240 lbs! It was day she won't forget anytime soon!

Josh