Today is a day I will never forget. My 9 year old son killed his first deer and he couldn't be more proud of himself. To make it even better, we got to share the experience with a guy you all know as SCN. I know him as a friend, a mentor and someone that I will forever look up to due to his generosity and willingness to help hunters learn from his wisdom and encouragement.
For the last month or so, Steve and I have been talking about getting out together in December with my son and we had yesterday and today picked out as possible dates to go. Unfortunately my wife has been sick and I didn't think it was going to work out. Yesterday afternoon my wife started feeling better so I gave Steve a call and told him we could go and everything came together perfectly.
The day started with me finding the lease was too wet for me to comfortably drive off the main road. As I was loading my deer cart with chairs and a gun, I saw Steve pulling in the gate. He was kind enough to haul my son half way to the stand in is 4x4 while I walked in with all of our junk. I met them at the half way point and picked up my son while Steve turned around and headed to his blind.
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We got settled into our spot and had an uneventful morning other than one unwanted visitor:
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At 9:15 we hadn't seen a deer and were considering packing up to leave. At that very moment, Steve had a group of does walk in front of his blind but he chose not to shoot because the deer were headed our way and he wanted my son to have the opportunity. We were setup about 450yds apart and it didn't take long for the deer to cut the distance. My son spotted the group of deer but they hung up in a patch of woods along the creek for what seemed like forever. After about 10 minutes, we saw the deer had crossed to the other side of the creek into the neighbors field and were trotting away from us but angling back towards another field on our property.
My son was bummed and insisted that we go try to find them. We argued for 2-3 minutes and I finally agreed to give chase. We left all of our stuff and just brought the rifle and tripod. We snuck 80yds across the field, down through the creek and up the other bank. Looking through the cedar trees we could see the deer were feeding in our field so we carefully got setup. I got the tripod situated with the gun on it just barely sticking out of a small cedar tree and had to move one branch that was blocking the scope.
My son took aim, looking over the deer through the scope and finally settled on one that was broadside. He flipped the safety off and his shot rang out dropping the doe where she stood. To say we were excited would be an incredible understatement.
We trekked back across the creek to meet Steve and we all went together to recover his deer.
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He shot the deer high in the shoulder at 190yds with his great-grandfather's gun and handloads. My grandfather is ecstatic and told me on the phone tonight that he never imagined that when he bought that gun 30 years ago and loaded those rounds for it that his great-grandson would someday kill a deer with that combination.
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Thank you, Steve!
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What a Day!
the early 80s were still some of the best 700s ever made.
