I had taken my daughter hunting several times during the season and we were only seeing young bucks, she has taken four bucks in prior years so we were both hoping for a bigger buck. The last two days were mostly spent glassing; I bought her a good set of binoculars and really wanted her to learn the importance of glassing. We just got done glassing a big cut and were going to turn around on the end of the landing. While turning around I remembered another good clearcut across the canyon from where we were. I decided to give it a good look, much to my surprise I spotted this buck bedded on the edge of the cut. I guessed we were 800 - 1000 yards from the cut so I tried to make a plan of attack. I know this area like the back of my hand and knew we could not get to the buck from the old road above it because of how steep it was and the fact that the cut was growing up and we would have to be right on top of the buck before we saw it. I remembered another road on the opposite side of the creek that would get us much closer so we headed that direction. When we go to the road I started glassing again and located him, only now he was standing looking in our direction. We were still along way off and I knew she would get a shot at it if we hurried. I got her on the shooting sticks and tried to calm her but she was calm it was I that was anxious.. I tried to calculate the yardage and guessed right at 400 yards. Now my daughter has shot out to 250 yards before and hit the milk jug she was shooting at the first time so I reminded her of that. I asked her to hold the cross-hairs right behind his shoulder and to elevate about 24" above its back (I held my hands apart showing her about 24"). I told her only if she was steady and sure to squeeze the trigger. She got on him and said OK! I was watching through my binoculars and watched the buck drop when she shot. The buck was thrashing around so I suggested another shot, she shot two more times and the buck lay still. I was so excited and she was as calm as could be. I knew he was a good buck but I did not know just how good. The problem was now we had to drive about 5 miles around the canyon to get to the deer. We sat there for about 10 Minutes to make sure the buck didn't move. We made it around to the other side of the canyon and I baled off in the canyon to get a good look at him while my two girls fought their way down through the brush to get down to where the buck was. There was no ground shrinkage with this buck in fact it grew a bit. Needless to say she was very excited when she finally got her hands on him. She had no clue he was as big as he was. The buck had two bullets holes one high in the lungs and one other bullet went right through the shoulder. Later I went up with a range finder to range the yardage and found that the landing we first spotted it was over 800 yards away and her shots were 368 yards. She is shooting a 100GR .243.sighted in at 200 yards...I was very pleased with the results. Definitely a day I will remember forever.
If you take your kids hunting when they
are young you wont be hunting your kids
when they get older!
