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| Bingo | | Date Created: Oct 30, 2005, 11:27 PM |
 Well, there it is. Jeffrey Jr.'s first deer - a nice, six-point buck. He shot it in the very last minutes of the youth deer season in Missouri.
It was a beautiful evening. Everything was just right. You have to experience Missouri woods in the fall to understand. The trees were turning. There were thunderstorms in the area, so the sky to the west was dark. It drizzled and rained off and on, but the temp was mild. Jeffrey and I sat on a tree stand designed for a single person. He was perched on top and I sat just below him on the platform designed for his feet. It's a bit uncomfortable, but not unbearable.
We got out to the stand in the late afternoon, a little after 4 PM. We sat without seeing or hearing anything (but a few fat squirrels) until 5:20. The sun had set at 5:11, so it was getting dark quickly. I had just about concluded that it was time to leave, when I saw the buck standing about 25 yards from us in the open field to our left. As is usually the case, I didn't hear it. It just seemed to materialize out of nowhere.
When Jeffrey saw it, he muttered, "oh, oh, oh." I could see he was shaking a bit. He leveled his Remington Model 7 chambered for 7mm-08 rounds. But sitting below him I could see the barrel was bobbing up and down a little too much. "It's okay, Jeffrey, breath," I whispered.
When he flicked the safety off, the deer looked our way. I wondered why Jeffrey didn't shoot and I was afraid the buck would bolt any minute. Later Jeffrey told me that he thought it was looking right at him so he followed the instructions he had read somewhere. When they look you in the eye, look away. I have no clue whether that's valid or not, but he said that when he turned his head back the buck had lowered his head. Sure enough, he did. It was dark enough that when he shot I could see the bright muzzle flash about a foot from my head.
The deer jumped and then ran full speed under our stand and up a hill to our right. We lost sight of it because the light was fading fast. We stayed up in the stand for about ten minutes, then got down to check the spot where the buck was standing when Jeffrey shot to see if he had hit him. When we got there we knew it was a good shot. The blood was "bubbly," a good indication of a lung shot.
Now we had to track it in the dark. But it wasn't too difficult because he ran about 100 yards and fell. After locating the blood trail we found him easily. Then we gutted him and when to get the ATV to transport him back to the truck.
The whole time Jeffrey was ecstatic. He wouldn't stop talking. And he did a great job helping me field dress the deer in the dark. When we got back to the cabin he told his mom that he was "a man now." It was my "rite of passage," he told her. I think she said something like, "You read too many books, boy."
We celebrated on the way home with a big Imo's pizza. |
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