Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting A kids first deer....

Copied from the "Christmas " thread over in the Campfire.
Wife and my gift to a friend.
His mom dates a good friend and took some of my deer jerky home to 'the kid' last year which is how this all came about.

We bought his out of state license, supplied the rifle, ammo etc and put him and mom up for the stay.
He's heavily gotten into hunting but has no places for deer back in Tenn.
Hasn't seen or spoke to his dad in over 2 years.
His Granny has 7-8 acres that he killed 2 gobblers on last spring[1st big game taken].

I was to be his guide, poor kid.

This past weekend was 'the weekend'.
Mother & son arrived late on Friday morning-8:30am, the planned arrival was around 6am but mom[and son] had to attend their work Annual/Christmas awards banquet the night before, she's a manager for the company so missing it was not an option[the son works there as well] which kept them out fairly late.
Temps were rising fast Friday morn with the high expected around 60.
We bumped several doe heading to the blind but saw nothing the rest of the morning.
He's in my favorite spot.


At about 12:30 he says "i'm hungry" and the snacks we brought along were already gone so we headed to the house for lunch.
I had him back in the blind by 2:30 ready for the evening hunt. I went to a ladder stand this time just over a rise but only maybe 150yards out.
About 5 I see a lone deer coming down the hill through the woods heading towards us but angling towards the field the kid is watching. It's a buck but I'm not sure of anything beyond that size-wise.
I send him a text, he replies "ok, I'm ready"[I can only imagine].
The next 5-10 minutes seem like an eternity and then the 'boom' comes!

The next message comes a minute or two later "I think I hit him"
I call him and through the hyperventilating I get that he ran across the field and over a hill after the shot but wasn't running like a deer normally runs[it took some prodding to get that tidbit out of him].

I was already on the ground and slowly headed towards him.
When I got to him he was shaking like it was zero degrees!
We stood for a few minutes and discussed how it went, where the deer ran, making a plan to go see where it ran etc, just trying to calm him a bit.

We headed to where the deer was when he shot, nothing!
No blood anywhere!
We drop over the hill where it ran and there it lay!
It raised it's head one final time and died as we were approaching it.
After a pic or two and call to his mom he looked at me and said "I'll let you gut it, I made a mess of the two turkeys I shot last spring"

Sent him home with a big ol' smile and a cooler full of venison along with some head gear to show off.

Merry Christmas kid!!

Good for "the kid"!

Good deal !

Hell yeah👍👍👍

+1

BTW, I think that he's hooked!

He asked if we could make it a Annual Tradition, but that he'd pay his way going forward!

He's truly a great kid with his head screwed on straight!

That’s awesome! Good on you guys for helping make it happen. Pretty nice one to boot.

Awesome Raeford's !!!!

twohundredfortythree ?

Good deal!

Way to go!! Congrats to the kid!

Yes sir!
[even though 'they won't keel nothin']

At least it wasn't a .270

Good job for getting a kid out there. A nice buck too.

-Jake

"At least it wasn't a .270"

I had to carry my .270GAY since the kid was using the .243

Folks, I honestly didn't do a whole lot here.
Just very pleased how everything went and the fact that I was able to hopefully add another deer hunter to what seems to be a waning sport.
Kuddos to his mom for her willingness to miss a day of work and drive from E.Tenn to SWVA in the wee morning hours to make this happen!

Couple hundred bucks and some groceries was all that I had in this along with time that I would have spent in the woods anyhow[had planned on us both maybe getting a doe].
This kid has a great head on his shoulders and picked up[lots of questions] stuff very quickly.
I got him started on Saturday morning and then stepped back and let him basically take over.

I think he now grasps the saying "the parties over once you squeeze the trigger"

Cool deal and well done

Ah, working towards the true reward !

Love it !

Good on ya' Reaford and congrats to the "kid"!

Very nice that you helped the young fella out