HuntingNet.com Forums - My Son's First Buck (Updated with Story...)

OK... A bit of story time...

We got to the lease at about 2:00 am on Saturday morning. We're guests there, and our host had to work late on Friday. We grabbed a couple hours of sleep and got up about 5:00 to talk to the lease manager about which blind we'd hunt. There are three pastures of about 500-600 acres each, and each has about 5 or 6 permanent blinds set up. My son is now 14. He started deer hunting at 12, and had taken 3 does. I wanted to get him a shot at a buck. I knew that Blind #1-3 was a "spare" that wasn't assigned to any particular member. We had seen a nice buck there last year, but we let him walk, as we didn't think he was quite old enough. As the sun rose, we began to see a few does wandering into view. But, no bucks. After a little while, I spotted what I had come for. Pigs! One black, and one red. They milled around for a few minutes, and I watched them through the binoculars... but, I was still hoping to get my son a shot at a buck, so I didn't even pick up my rifle. After a few minutes, my son asked what the heck I was waiting for. He knew I wanted a pig. So, I grabbed my .243, and started sizing the two pigs up through the scope. Just as I started watching, the two pigs decided to show the world which one was the boar and which was the sow...

After they were done... I took aim at the boar, about 2" behind the ear, and squeezed. I watched through the scope as the boar dropped, kicked a couple times and expired (one of the things I love about my .243... the scope never comes off the game at the shot). Having heard the shot, all of the does left. We waited in the blind for a little while, but they didn't come back, so we figured there wouldn't be any bucks coming around either... We went to get the pig, dragged him back to a shady spot by the blind and waited until 9:00 to start the walk back to camp. When we were almost there, one of the members rode up on his 4 wheeler and offered to go back and pick up our pig. I skinned him, quartered him and put him on ice. (His ribs were quite tasty... Had them yesterday...)

That afternoon, we decided to hunt a different "spare" blind. We got to the blind at about 3:45, and deer started wandering through at about 4:20. We saw several does, and two very nice 8 points. There was what I deemed to be a 3 1/2 year old, with a narrow rack with fairly long tines, and a 4 1/2 year old with a wider rack and shorter tines. The 3 1/2 year old was nice, but I didn't think he was quite big enough to meet the new lease "guidelines". The 4 1/2 year old was a "shooter" but, he had a broken browtine and one of the guidelines is "we don't shoot no broke-horn deer." (yeah... there's a little bit of East Texas in the lease membership...). Anyway, those were the only buck that came around, so when the light faded, we headed back to camp empty handed.

The next morning, one of the members was a bit hung over, so he offered to let us hunt his blind. There was a five point buck that he wanted culled, and he said that if we saw a "shooter-8" to go ahead and take it. Unfortunately, it was very foggy and the deer weren't moving at all. We saw two does and a small yearling.

At lunch, we were talking to the lease manager, and he said we should go back to the blind we had been in the prior evening. He said that a nice 8 point had been seen there that would be a good shooter. He described the rack as 13-14" wide, with 6-7" G2's, and 6" G3's, and with the mainbeams curling back in in front. My son and I got in the blind at about 3:15 and got all our gear squared away. And, at 3:30, lo and behold, here comes a buck. 13-14" wide. 6-7" G2's. 6" G3's. Main beams curling in. That's our buck! But, we were both a little concerned because, to us, his neck and body didn't seem like he was old enough. We talked about it for a couple minutes and we finally decided that this was the buck that had been described to us, and maybe we had been wrong about how we'd been judging age and body size.

So, my son clicked off the safety on his rifle and took aim. The deer stood broadside and looked in our direction. I told my son to take a couple deep breaths, to let one out about halfway, aim just above the deer's elbow, and squeeze. A couple seconds later, his .243 cracked, and I watched as a bright red spray of blood shot out of the entry wound right at the deer's elbow. I knew instantly that my son had made a perfect heart shot. The buck took off running at full speed, but, only for a second. He made it about 20 yards before he fell behind a bunch of cactus. We waited for about a half hour or so, anxiously handing binoculars back and forth, both our hands shaking with excitement and anticipation.

After a little while, we decided that nothing else was going to come into the area, so we got down to take some pictures. We knew no one else was hunting in that part of the pasture, so we decided to drag the buck back to camp. We got about 3/4ths of the way back and decided to leave the buck, and head back to camp to drop off our rifles, backpacks, camera bag, and the folding chair that we had taken to the blind. As we were heading back out to get the deer, the same member who had picked up my pig the previous day came rolling up on his 4 wheeler, and again, saved the day by running out to pick up the buck. Got a few more pics of my son skinning his deer. and I did a brief autopsy, finding that the buck's lungs and heart had been turned into goo by the 100 gr. PSP Core Lokt bullet.

My son's first buck is now at the taxidermist. Not a huge buck, but... huge memories...

Thanks for reading.