Austin's First Buck

[scottrader]

My son Austin shot this 5 pointer the night before Thanksgiving. He came in to our sugarbeet plot at 5:45. Austin got a serious case of buck fever and missed him completely on his first shot at around 40 yards. The deer did not move. Austin reloaded and put almost a picture-perfect shot on him. He had his grandfather with him who is not a hunter, but Austin talked him into going. When Austin shot him they called and his grandfather said that he thought he hit him far back. They looked for blood and Austin found 2 drops. We then lost cell phone reception to them because I was wanted to tell them to get the heck out of there for the night and let him lay. We never got a hold of them and they searched for an hour. They set out to look for him at 7:30 Thanksgiving morning. We got a call within 10 minutes, saying that they had found him 15 feet from where Austin found the last 2 drops of blood from the night before. He expired while trying to jump a small drainage ditch and that's where they found him. He ended up clipping the front shoulder and it exited out on the backside right through the lungs. He has had a great year hunting and as a father I could not be more proud of him. He got his first turkey, then first deer (doe), and first buck. Now he wants a muzzleloader to shoot some more does. We were going through all of the pictures last night and he told me that the last one was his favorite. Needless to say I had tears running down my face. I'm also proud of him in the fact that we have many shooters on trail cameras that have made my friends drool, but he did not get caught up in antlers by those pictures, or by watching any of the TV shows that he is constantly watching.

*I do feel bad because I read everyone's posts on these message boards and I never comment, and there are so many of you who always comment when I post something. I thank you for that.

[Woody Williams]

Excellent buck!!

He has had a banner year hasn't he?

My congratulations to both of you!

[jordanffemt]

Way to go lil buddy. Maybe Grandpa is hooked now also!! Best of luck on manymore to come!

Congrads

[goosepondmonster]

Congrats to your son. His smile is priceless.

[raporter]

Congrats Austin

[Sasquatch]

Well done!

Feel free to comment on a post anytime, dad!

[Decatur]

Cool!

[turkeyscout]

WOW! VERY nice first buck, Congratulations Austin.. love the under armor sweat shirt too....also great story......... ...........turkey scout

[jgrimm]

Cool, congrats to the young man. nice shot!!

[stevein]

Way to go Austin! An event I am sure you will remember. I noticed right off the action is open on the rifle. My compliments to Austin and you Scott. A lot of adults could learn something from this picture.

[HuntMeister]

Way to get er done Austin, congrats!!

[scottrader]

Thanks everyone for your kind comments.

@woody: He has had an exceptional year. I was not even hunting when I was 10, and he's accomplished more now than I was by 25.

jordanffemt: His grandpa won't get into hunting. He is a hard time selling his steers for slaughter. My dad had to come over and field dress it.

turkeyscout: As far as the Under Armour goes that is his clothing of choice for anything. When it comes to camouflage it also has to be Mossy Oak.

stevein: Thanks for the safety compliment. His only other interest is really baseball and we play that from March until October, but I help coach (I coached high school baseball for 10 years) his team. Him not being able to get hands-on guidance from me in baseball has made him become a great listener. He has a huge tree house 100 yards behind our house on telephone poles with a deck completely around it and it overlooks a heavily traveled ravine. Opening weekend on Sunday night I sat in my chair underneath the tree house and he set up on top of the deck. I completely trust him on safety issues. He has not had the hunter safety course yet, but he will have it next year. He absolutely knows not to take a questionable shot, and to always treat a gun as if it were loaded, and to always know what is behind where he is aiming. Funny story from that night… At about 5:50 I was ready to go to the house and I heard a baaaaa and it was him trying to stop a doe off to my left, that I could not see. It was terribly windy that night and I started to whistle at him to tell him it was too late. He snuck over on the deck and proceeded to tell me what was going on. Anyway, on the safety issue I think we did better in these pictures: huntingindiana.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=deerhunting&thread=39336&page=1.

[poppshunts]

nice buck young man

[wileyonetoo]

Congrats and thanks for sharing.

[stevein]

Again I have to compliment you two. You for teaching, Austin for listening. My Dad and brothers were always preaching gun safety and my years in competitive shooting make me aware of such details.

[joeyb]

Congrats to Austin and Dad on a great year!

[mcguyverkodiak]

Hopefully many years like this will happen again.

[lugnutz]

Congrats to the young man!!

[jtswitz]

Great job to the young Man