It was youth firearm season here in MO this past weekend. I was taking my 7 year old boy out to try and get his first deer so I didn't plan on doing any bowhunting at all Saturday or Sunday. I certainly didn't expect him to shoot his first deer the first morning of his first hunt. Sweet! Here's Drew and his button buck.

Now that Drew got his first deer, that gives me the opportunity to bowhunt 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, reluctantly, 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 saftey 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 was able to pull it off. The arrow hit high on his right side and exited low on his 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 that he also 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.

Kickback in velvet in August.


A closeup of the Kickback point


Kickback coming across a small food plot and the same area where I shot him.


Kickback and another buck I call Hoss sparring.



The field shot of Kickback where he went down.


Me and Kickback.

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