Logan's 1st Deer

11/3/2012 - Opening day of the MO 2012 Youth Season

Logan and Scott made the trip down from Minnesota Friday afternoon and met me at MWT member CallaoJoe's cabin. I'd made it up to the farm earlier in the day and setup the Double Bull for Saturday morning's hunt and pulled a couple trail camera cards. We had a big spaghetti and meatball dinner and got to bed early in preparation for the following morning. 

I'd setup the DB just off the main farm road on the NW side of The Beach, the knoll provided us good cover and an excellent shooting window into the bottom. We were settled into the blind by 6:40am and anxiously awaited legal shooting time. Around 7:20am Scott and I spotted movement down on The Beach at about the same time. Three does were working through from the east, but we could tell they were being bumped and acting nervously. They all quickly cut up the hill next to our rifle stand and never stopped to offer a shot. In six years of hunting that area I've never seen a single deer cut up that hill and was a little dejected that they decided to that morning. About 45 minutes later Logan said "deer" and Scott and I focused on the area he was looking. Sure enough a small buck popped out of the drainage following the same trail the does used earlier; only moving slower. Logan got settled on the shooting sticks a said he was on the buck good. The adrenaline was starting to kick in and for a second we thought Logan was going to hyperventilate, but he got his breathing under control and touch off the shot...only problem was that his head was off the rifle nanoseconds after squeezing the trigger ask "did I kill him?", it was a clean miss.

Logan was pretty disappointed in himself and he was trying like the devil to hold back tears and be tough about it. We may or may not have noticed a tear or two while he was turned away looking out his side of the blind for the next 15 minutes. After talking about the miss and explaining to Logan that we've all missed his spirits improved and we had a great time watching all the wildlife and messing around in the blind for the rest of the morning. Around 10:45am we decided to go grab some lunch, but I wanted to show Logan more of the farm and pull the other camera cards I didn't get to the day before.

We pulled into the south meadow and headed down the hill to a camera I'd set up on several scrapes the week before. I'd literally just turned the engine off when Scott looked over and said "is that a deer?". Sure enough there was a deer feeding up the hill about 115yards away, but it was in a drainage dip and we could just see the top of it's back. We got Logan out and moved down the hill trying to get a better angle, but the dip in the field was still preventing Logan from getting a good sight picture. We were moving further down the hill when the deer finally picked it's head up and looked at us. We got on the sticks quickly, thinking the deer was going to run up or down hill but to our amazement it started trotting right at us. Logan was on the sticks and said he was on the deer, but it continued to close the distance without any sign of slowing up. Finally around 30yards out the deer angled downhill and stopped giving Logan a great shot. Wee-man touched off the round and absolutely hammered the deer! It made it out of the meadow, but it wasn't going to hold that shot very long and the celebration erupted!!! Logan, Scott and I were all kinds of wound up and several hugs and knuckle bumps followed in the aftermath.

After a couple minutes of waiting I quietly slid into the timber and spotted Logan's trophy laid up in the bottom of the draw. I knew it was a button buck once it started towards us in the meadow, but Logan thought he'd shot a doe so I didn't say anything to him. His reaction when he found out that he'd killed a "BIG BUCK" is a memory Scott and I will go to our graves with, it was priceless!!

      

Tagging his first deer and helping drag it out....

 

That evening CallaoJoe had several MissouriWhitetails.com members over for an antelope, pheasant, gator and jambalaya feast and Logan got to tell his 'Big Buck" story to the whole crew...it was the icing on the cake!

Logan reflecting on the day by the camp fire with his trophy

The Walkers invite Logan out to their farm the next morning for a coyote hunt and he was all-in on that adventure. Unfortunately I told Scott I'd drive his new Explorer and when I looked down and noticed I was doing about 68mph in a 55 zone right about the same time I spotted the MO Hwy Patrol car, I knew it was going to be another first for the weekend. The cherries came on and I proceeded to get my first ticket ever. The officer was very nice and congratulated Logo on his deer while telling me to slow it down. As I pulled away Logan said "Uncle Pete, I'm gonna call you The Ticket from now on" salt in the wound boy, salt in the wound. 

We didn't kill any yotes but Logan got to put a few rounds down range with CallaoJoe's .223 AR and Randy gave him a little driving lesson on the mule. It was a prefect finish to an amazing weekend with family, both blood and MWT!

 

Scott is headed back down to MO this Friday and we'll be spending the entire week hunting the Macon Co. property.