I was able to contribute to the team this weekend. I took down a buck that I have quite a few pics of since late spring.

It was youth season here in MO this past weekend. I didn't plan on bowhunting because I planned on taking my 7 year old boy out to try and get his first deer. I didn't imagine him killing one the first morning out. He made a perfect shot with his .223. We saw his deer go down about 20 yards from where he shot it but I wanted him to find the position where he shot it and follow the blood trail. I looked down where he shot it and there was the bottom half of the heart laying on the ground. I've never seen that before. I've seen lung splatter, but never a chunk of the heart. Notice the chunk of the heart laying by the deer's front hoof. Here's Drew and his button buck.



So that gives me the opportunity to hunt on Sunday morning. At 8:00, I saw a doe and a couple fawns move through about 70 yards from me. It was quiet for the next couple hours. At 10:00, I decided to get down because my in-laws were visiting from out of town. I packed my stuff into my backpack, put it on, lowered my bow and as I was undoing my safety strap from the tree, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. A doe. I quickly pulled my bow back up and nocked an arrow just in case. I still had my backpack on. Sure enough, here comes "Kickback" chasing the doe. Within 20 yards, they ran past me and back again. Every time the buck would stop there would be something blocking my shot. Finally, as they passed me for the third time, I was able to get the buck to stop. He was 4 paces off the base of my tree. There was a limb partially blocking my shot. I had to lean way to the left to just miss the limb and still get into the lungs. I pulled it off. The arrow hit high on the right side and exited low on the left side. As he ran away, I could see blood pouring out of his left side. He ran about 60 yards and fell over. I was a little disappointed when I got up to him. He broke off a 4 or 5 inch kicker coming off the base of his right main beam that went back over his neck. That's where the name "Kickback" came from. He ended up grossing 128-1/8". With the kickback point and the other half of one browtine he broke off, he would have been in the mid-130's. I thought he would have been close to 140" based on the pics I had of him. Oh well, I'm still happy. Here's a few pics of him and me.



A close up of his Kickback point.


A field shot where he went down.


Me and Kickback.