NWBuck
PMA Member
Story as written by my son NWHunter...with only minor editorial revisions and help with pics from me.
Christmas day 2014 is one I will never forget. After enjoying a great meal and some quality time with family, my dad and I decided it was such a nice day that we should enjoy part of it in a deer blind. It was sort of a last minute decision to take all of our hunting gear along, and we were glad we had. Since shotgun season our trailcam pics have shown that deer have been coming into our turnip plot very late; often in the last 15 minutes or so of legal shooting light. This is something we have become accustomed to during the last few late muzzleloader seasons though. So we weren't too worried when the family card game wrapped up just before 4:00 and we wouldn't get our usual 2 or 3 hour sit...there was still time to make it happen.
We got settled in the blind at about 4:20 and would have about an hour of legal shooting light. At 4:48 a big buck appeared, but he was a long ways away...probably 250 yards or more. He began looking into the hillside, and soon another buck showed up only about 150 yards away, but headed our way quickly. It only took him a couple of minutes to come into our plot and within range. I debated whether or not I should shoot him because he was not as big as the other buck, but the other buck didn't look like he was coming our way. Dad told me it was totally my decision, and when he stopped at about 70 yards broadside, I decided he was worthy of my final youth tag, and squeezed the trigger. The shot felt good, but I was not completely confident as I have had some rough luck with my muzzleloader in the last couple of years. As the smoke cleared we watched the buck run back into the hillside, and were pretty sure we heard a loud crash shortly after he got there. With only about 10 minutes of daylight left, we decided it made sense to use it to try to find him before dark. We had only looked about 5 minutes when we found him crashed with his head wedged in some trees
He's not the Iowa giant that I see on here a lot, but it felt good to have everything work out like it's supposed to, and I'm really glad I shot him.
Oops...it's Christmas day and I just got a good buck. I should probably smile
Dad and I thanked God for the experience, and for the ultimate gift He gave us on this day so many years ago. Then, I just about killed dad with the drag back to the truck Merry Christmas all, and good luck to those of you still out after 'em.
We have thousands of trail cam pics from the area where the buck was shot, so I figured we'd have one of the Christmas Buck. There were several…here's the best one, from back in September.
NWHunter
Christmas day 2014 is one I will never forget. After enjoying a great meal and some quality time with family, my dad and I decided it was such a nice day that we should enjoy part of it in a deer blind. It was sort of a last minute decision to take all of our hunting gear along, and we were glad we had. Since shotgun season our trailcam pics have shown that deer have been coming into our turnip plot very late; often in the last 15 minutes or so of legal shooting light. This is something we have become accustomed to during the last few late muzzleloader seasons though. So we weren't too worried when the family card game wrapped up just before 4:00 and we wouldn't get our usual 2 or 3 hour sit...there was still time to make it happen.
We got settled in the blind at about 4:20 and would have about an hour of legal shooting light. At 4:48 a big buck appeared, but he was a long ways away...probably 250 yards or more. He began looking into the hillside, and soon another buck showed up only about 150 yards away, but headed our way quickly. It only took him a couple of minutes to come into our plot and within range. I debated whether or not I should shoot him because he was not as big as the other buck, but the other buck didn't look like he was coming our way. Dad told me it was totally my decision, and when he stopped at about 70 yards broadside, I decided he was worthy of my final youth tag, and squeezed the trigger. The shot felt good, but I was not completely confident as I have had some rough luck with my muzzleloader in the last couple of years. As the smoke cleared we watched the buck run back into the hillside, and were pretty sure we heard a loud crash shortly after he got there. With only about 10 minutes of daylight left, we decided it made sense to use it to try to find him before dark. We had only looked about 5 minutes when we found him crashed with his head wedged in some trees
He's not the Iowa giant that I see on here a lot, but it felt good to have everything work out like it's supposed to, and I'm really glad I shot him.
Oops...it's Christmas day and I just got a good buck. I should probably smile
Dad and I thanked God for the experience, and for the ultimate gift He gave us on this day so many years ago. Then, I just about killed dad with the drag back to the truck
Merry Christmas all, and good luck to those of you still out after 'em.We have thousands of trail cam pics from the area where the buck was shot, so I figured we'd have one of the Christmas Buck. There were several…here's the best one, from back in September.
NWHunter
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