Daughter's first deer!

Bushleague · #1 11-13-2024, 10:54 AM

For almost a couple months she's been doing half day hunts every day on the weekend. We'd had a couple opportunities, but due to the variables of brush and animal position that one often encounters when bush hunting, she'd not managed to get a shot she was comfortable taking. In general it had been a bit dissapointing, and I was quite proud of her for staying persistant and positive for so long.

Yesterday we hunted out of a natural ground blind that we'd built last winter. The beauty of this particular blind is that the deer time their evening arival with the thermal switch, coming down the ridge as the thermal is rising but ariving at the bottom almost precisely at the time it switches to downhill. So if you know when that switch will happen, and if the deer show up, then the wait should be relatively short.

After about a 40 minuit wait a forkhorn blew through so fast we barely had time to react. I figured, "If that deer isnt chasing anything then something must be chasing him". "Get your rifle up!" I whispered, sure enough a few seconds later a somewhat larger buck came barreling down the trail, luck was with us and with a loud shout I brought him to a stop right in an opening, about 30 yards away. Since there was no snow for tracking I whispered "Shoot him in the shoulder", and the 30-30 went off.

RIMG0095 by , on Flickr

RIMG0096 by , on Flickr

Either because of a deflection or buck fever she ended up breaking its neck instead of its shoulders, so we got a bit lucky with that too. You can see our brush pile blind up the hill in the background of the second picture.

Dick284 · #2 11-13-2024, 10:57 AM

Great job, congrats!

huntinstuff · #3 11-13-2024, 11:00 AM

That's the way to do it! Nice deer!

Stinky Buffalo · #4 11-13-2024, 11:10 AM

Terrific! Congratulations to your daughter!

colt45 · #5 11-13-2024, 11:25 AM

Way to go , great first deer, it will be good eating
Congrats on a great shot , no sense in waisting meat shooting it in the shoulder
Might as well knock it down right there in the neck
Great shot

bagwan · #6 11-13-2024, 11:35 AM

Congrats. Great to see these firsts.

Bushleague · #7 11-13-2024, 01:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by colt45

Way to go , great first deer, it will be good eating
Congrats on a great shot , no sense in waisting meat shooting it in the shoulder
Might as well knock it down right there in the neck
Great shot

All true, but we are talking about a new hunter shooting their first deer... no way would I have told her to go for the neck. And while I dont like to take shoulder shots myself, wanting the first deer to be as good of an experience as possible... a quick kill and a short tracking job, I stand by that decision.