A Special Hunt with My Daughter - 11/27/14
Howdy, all.
It's been a good while since I've posted much about our family's hunting adventures (or much else for that matter - life sometimes crowds out little luxuries, and I've been in one of those seasons) - but I've checked in from time to time and enjoyed seeing stories about your hunts and those of your families, and I wanted to contribute a little something again.
While it has been a busy time with some unexpected challenges, we haven't stopped spending time together as a family hunting - nor have I stopped slipping out by myself to hunt from time to time for the kind of time and fellowship with the Almighty that only hunters understand.
A couple of years ago, one of my daughters and I chased a mature 4.5-5.5 year old, big framed 6 point. We saw him late - after the rut - for the first time, and he was pretty cagey and hard to hunt. I never got her on him during the rest of that season, and we barely laid eyes on him after that first sighting. I really wanted her to get him - for her pleasure and fun and because I really thought he was a good deer to kill. He was one of the biggest framed 6's I had ever seen in the Texas Hill Country.
The following season, I was pretty eager to find him again (obviously...grin) and I felt like we needed the rut to help our IQ's match up a little better with his. We kept our eyes peeled and stayed out of bedding areas - hunted the edges where we could slip in and out without a deer ever knowing we were around.
I don't know as much as many about lots of hunting, but one thing that chasing whitetails on low fenced, relatively small acreage with hunting pressure all around has taught me is to do my best to hunt them with them knowing I'm doing it. Hunting with young hunters, that means finding places to see deer feeding and traveling and chasing does where we can watch them without them knowing it - finding places that we can get to and get out of without blowing any deer out is pretty important.
It helps that we're around the place a lot to see deer, and that I've hunted it since I was a kid - when I was turned loose early and given all the freedom I could handle by a Dad who trusted me a bunch - more than I deserved in fact. But I knew what a privilege it was and tried not to abuse it.
Well, I enjoyed quite a few hunts with my sweet daughter and we saw lots of deer and some young bucks. I was wondering if the buck we were chasing had made the year when a doe not only evened the playing field - she tilted it pretty sharply in our favor. The old buck was with her in a flat not a quarter mile from the house I was raised in, and we had the wind in our face.
My little gal got on him with the .223 she had used to put lots of does and spikes and even an axis doe in the freezer, and she had a case of buck fever that any of us would have been proud of. There was just no way she was able to shoot the deer when he first came out, but the good Lord kept that doe out there feeding for more than 10 minutes - probably 10 times longer than we had ever seen the buck before that - and he wouldn't leave her.
I gave her a calm down/you can do it speech that I thought would have convinced David he could whip Goliath, and she finally settled down. It helped that the little doe cut the distance between us from a couple hundred yards down to a hundred. We waited until he turned perfectly broadside, and she drilled him dead center through both shoulders and dropped him in his tracks.
He had added another point, and was still a really big framed buck, and there was no ground shrink. A really pretty, mature buck - a very nice deer for the Texas Hill Country and a dandy one to get killed. Her first mature buck, and he's going on the wall.
![[Linked Image]](http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c150/djtex/HannasBuck2012038.jpg)
Her Granddaddy - who has been so kind to let us hunt the old place, and who is about as proud as can be of his granddaughter (as if you can't tell)!
![[Linked Image]](http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c150/djtex/HannasBuck2012048.jpg)
Big bodied old buck - 5.5 at least - he might be 6.5.
![[Linked Image]](http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c150/djtex/HannasBuck2012030.jpg)
I was a lot older than she was before I killed a deer this nice, but she sure deserved a good deer and a good hunt. God couldn't have given me a better daughter. Whatever trials He allows in this old life, He always treats me lots better than I deserve.
![[Linked Image]](http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c150/djtex/HannasBuck2012078.jpg)
Have a few more hunts to share as time permits, but hope y'all enjoy this little adventure and have a blessed and wonderful Thanksgiving!
DJ
It's been a good while since I've posted much about our family's hunting adventures (or much else for that matter - life sometimes crowds out little luxuries, and I've been in one of those seasons) - but I've checked in from time to time and enjoyed seeing stories about your hunts and those of your families, and I wanted to contribute a little something again.
While it has been a busy time with some unexpected challenges, we haven't stopped spending time together as a family hunting - nor have I stopped slipping out by myself to hunt from time to time for the kind of time and fellowship with the Almighty that only hunters understand.
A couple of years ago, one of my daughters and I chased a mature 4.5-5.5 year old, big framed 6 point. We saw him late - after the rut - for the first time, and he was pretty cagey and hard to hunt. I never got her on him during the rest of that season, and we barely laid eyes on him after that first sighting. I really wanted her to get him - for her pleasure and fun and because I really thought he was a good deer to kill. He was one of the biggest framed 6's I had ever seen in the Texas Hill Country.
The following season, I was pretty eager to find him again (obviously...grin) and I felt like we needed the rut to help our IQ's match up a little better with his. We kept our eyes peeled and stayed out of bedding areas - hunted the edges where we could slip in and out without a deer ever knowing we were around.
I don't know as much as many about lots of hunting, but one thing that chasing whitetails on low fenced, relatively small acreage with hunting pressure all around has taught me is to do my best to hunt them with them knowing I'm doing it. Hunting with young hunters, that means finding places to see deer feeding and traveling and chasing does where we can watch them without them knowing it - finding places that we can get to and get out of without blowing any deer out is pretty important.
It helps that we're around the place a lot to see deer, and that I've hunted it since I was a kid - when I was turned loose early and given all the freedom I could handle by a Dad who trusted me a bunch - more than I deserved in fact. But I knew what a privilege it was and tried not to abuse it.
Well, I enjoyed quite a few hunts with my sweet daughter and we saw lots of deer and some young bucks. I was wondering if the buck we were chasing had made the year when a doe not only evened the playing field - she tilted it pretty sharply in our favor. The old buck was with her in a flat not a quarter mile from the house I was raised in, and we had the wind in our face.
My little gal got on him with the .223 she had used to put lots of does and spikes and even an axis doe in the freezer, and she had a case of buck fever that any of us would have been proud of. There was just no way she was able to shoot the deer when he first came out, but the good Lord kept that doe out there feeding for more than 10 minutes - probably 10 times longer than we had ever seen the buck before that - and he wouldn't leave her.
I gave her a calm down/you can do it speech that I thought would have convinced David he could whip Goliath, and she finally settled down. It helped that the little doe cut the distance between us from a couple hundred yards down to a hundred. We waited until he turned perfectly broadside, and she drilled him dead center through both shoulders and dropped him in his tracks.
He had added another point, and was still a really big framed buck, and there was no ground shrink. A really pretty, mature buck - a very nice deer for the Texas Hill Country and a dandy one to get killed. Her first mature buck, and he's going on the wall.
Her Granddaddy - who has been so kind to let us hunt the old place, and who is about as proud as can be of his granddaughter (as if you can't tell)!
Big bodied old buck - 5.5 at least - he might be 6.5.
I was a lot older than she was before I killed a deer this nice, but she sure deserved a good deer and a good hunt. God couldn't have given me a better daughter. Whatever trials He allows in this old life, He always treats me lots better than I deserve.
Have a few more hunts to share as time permits, but hope y'all enjoy this little adventure and have a blessed and wonderful Thanksgiving!
DJ
![[Linked Image]](http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c150/djtex/Mobile%20Uploads/image_zps5bf7b9b5.jpg)