Last year I told him if he killed an 8 point or better I would get it mounted for him. I sat with him and could not get him to shoot anything because he wanted to hold out for a good buck. He has more control than I did at his age. I decided I would spend this year concentrating my efforts to help him reach his goal. We are in a 34,000 acre lease and have been there 14 of the past 15 weekends and 2 full weeks for muzzle loading and rifle season, we put in a lot of time and effort. The first morning of a 3 day youth hunt I had his stand over looking a thick bottom with a view to a hardwood strip across a creek about 40 yards wide. Shortly after daylight he sees a good buck swimming the creek and when he climbs out the bank on the far side he centers his crosshairs on him and pulls the trigger, the hammer fell on the thumb of his glove and the buck walked off. First lesson learned, no gloves that are too big or cut the fingers out. An hour or so later he sees two does across the creek and is preparing to shoot since I instructed him to harvest one for the table if he could when he hears another deer running in and sure enough it's another good buck. He begins chasing the does. He tries grunting to get him to stop but it does not work and they leave the area after a couple of minutes. Second lesson, if a buck is chasing it does not hurt to yell out in an attempt to stop him, you can't hurt anything by trying.
The second morning I fixed him a drag rag. He has to walk an old logging road to his stand and I told him since the bucks were starting to chase he needed to drag it down the road and hang it in a shooting lane. An hour or so later he spots a very large deer slipping through the thick bottom toward the logging road. It was indeed a very large buck but when he got to the logging road he stopped a few feet short of o good shot, stood for a few moments with his head in sight and his body in the brush at about 40 yards. Shane had his gun up and just needed him to take a couple more steps. Unfortunately he learned lesson 3 at this point. He thought the drag rag was not as goos of an idea s I did so he failed to use it and instead of smelling a hot doe he smelled where Shane had just walked the road and decided to leave.
The third day was not eventful for bucks, however he did manage to harvest a little meat for our family before the sun went down. At this point he has probably let 40 head of does and small bucks walk. I am very proud of him he is spending about 9 hours of the 11 hours we have of daylight in 3 shifts of sitting in his stand.
Fast forward to muzzleloader season and we begin again. He fell in love with my encore youth season so I bought him his own for muzzleloading and let him skip 3 days of school to go with me. Someone moved a camp in about 150 yards from his stand so we are now scrambling to get him moved. I planned to hunt a small bottom and set him up in the other end about a half mile away on the opposite end. Opening morning my daughter and I killed a small 9 point and Shane let several does walk. Before the evening hunt let me add that I bought him a primer holder that he could wear around his neck on a string and gave to him. Now he is back in his stand watching 5 does behind him. When he turns back around there is a toe head about 10 feet from him. Seeing the knots on his head was more than Shane could take so he lowered his gun under the shooting rail and fired. The small buck stumbled about 20 yards and fell, more meat for the family. As he is reloading he sees a 10 point feeding through so he tries to quickly get ready only to find he left his primers at camp. Lesson 4, never forget your primers. The 10 point feeds through and then he spots a wide 6 point with no brow tines coming to investigate. This buck actually licked and pawed the dead deer about 30 yards from Shane and then cleaned out a scrape we had cleared a shooting lane to within 20 yards of him. He stayed within 50 yards of him for over 20 minutes with no way to shoot.
Unfortunately he learned another hard lesson here. Lesson 5, if you are seeing deer and the rest of your camp is not be quiet about it. I disagree with this somewhat as I like to talk and learn when and where the deer are moving but out of our camp of 7 the next morning finds Shane surrounded by everyone but me and my brother and his stand is now useless as the deer are cut off from every direction. He is 13 and cut off by a group of adults which really raised my hackles. Back to the drawing board.
I knew of another good crossing and while showing it to Shane we saw a good 10 point traveling through but no way to get a shot. We hang his stand and the hunt is on. The first couple days is uneventful other than letting small bucks and does walk and he is a bit discouraged hearing all the shots and stories surrounding his previous spoy but I assure him it will work out. Lesson 6, and this was me not him, never shoot a buck head on. I knocked down a good 10 point and when I went to him he got up and was gone. 5 of us trailed until blood stopped. I believe I just grazed his neck and hopefully he will live to be hunted next year. During the trailing comes lesson 7. Shane fell but assured me his gun never hit the ground. I tried to get him to shoot to make sure but he said he was certain it was ok so I never even looked at it. I am sure you already know what happens next but he missed a BIG buck at 70 yards. His gun was off 30 inches at 40 yards and the eyepiece bent on his scope bad enough you could not adjust power on it. The scope is now in the trash. That was our end to muzzle loader season.
When gun season opened things were not real good. We had a $90 pot for big buck by gross score and only 1 person seen a buck, the guy sitting on the point right above Shane's old stand. This was a very big 8 point for our area and pretty well sewed up the money. We heard a few stories of bucks seen but not many. The rut is about over and too much traffic slowing the deer movement down. By thanksgiving he has seen 5 does and I am frantically trying to think of a way to help him. On our way out to eat dinner we find a road no one has driven all week. I know it goes to the creek, which means hardwoods and that is where the few deer seen have been. We drive in and find a few tracks crossing the road and actually see 2 does on the way out. We now have a plan but this is about 30 minutes from camp. We hunt the next morning and then decide it is time to make our move the next evening. There is a point crossing the road that looks like you drove a bulldozer off of it from all the deer crossing from plantation to hardwoods but he refuses to sit there. He wants to go further down into the bottom by the creek. Why not he has had luck on the creek before and been forced to move twice. I thought he messed up and told him I would at least let him help me drag a buck off the point when I killed him. There were tracks of a buck chasing a doe in the road so I told him to try to be where he could see to there.
Lesson 8, start listening to Shane he is figuring this stuff out. It was 4:45 and Shane had probably set for about an hour and a half in a new spot in the wrong place by my thinking when I hear a shot. My first thought was that someone was there I did not know about, Should I go check on Shane. Nope we have 45 minutes of good hunting left. About 2 minutes later I hear another shot from the same place. I have told him if he shoots a good buck and can still see it laying or standing relax for a few seconds and put another round in him wherever he can if he thinks it is already hit so now I am confused as to what is happening. I can't stand it so about 5:10 I get the truck and go to him.
When I get there he is still shaking and I ask what is wrong to which he replies he shot a buck. I bought him a 25-06 barrel for the encore for gun season and he finally got to try it out. I ask where it is and he said when he shot it took off but did not go far and he watched it fall while trying to reload. I have heard these stories before so I questioned the second shot. A doe came to the down buck and with his adrenaline up thought he would try her too but hit about a 4 inch tree right in front of him. Good thing because it is not doe day. I tried to get him to stay in the tree and walk me to where he thought it fell but he would not go for that. He did not know after asking him several times how big it was. I told him he knew the difference between a spike and an 8 point and he just replied that he thought it was big but could only see a main beam so he did not know. I was expecting to find nothing or at best a forked horn or spike so you can imagine my surprise when we walked up on this buck laying 20 steps from where he shot him. He broke the left shoulder and bullet was under the hide on the offside shoulder. Could not ask for a better shot placement but would have liked an exit if he ran very far. We had quite a celebration right there and then him to camp and to home to brag a bit.
It took me nearly a week to get the other guy to compare heads for the $$$. He said his had more width so he figured he would win. There was only a 1/4 difference in width and Shane had more mass and an extra point to tally in. Shane's tines averaged about 1/2 shorter across the board but the mass helped offset that. Final tally was 128" to Shane's 134". Let me tell ya boys it feels good to be pushed around a little and come out on top at the end. It was a great ending to a very up and down season but since he killed one bigger than anything I have harvested he is on his own next year where I can give it a try on a wall hanger. Actually I think I got more joy out of his stories everyday than if it were me being the one sitting there. It is my son and that makes it feel like I am going through every step of it right beside him.
I know this is rather long but thanks for reading. Perhaps ol GB or someone can move it to campfire tales for me. I think a story of a kid going through this much failure only to be persistent and accomplish his goals would deserve to be heard in many circles.
thanks
