This is Noah, David's son. It was a tremendous hunt as always but this one is one I'll never forget. I'm not a good story-teller either but here it goes.
On the first day of the hunt Dad and I saw a small buck in the area that he would later shoot his big one, while we were riding the 4-wheeler. That evening I saw another buck in that area as I was riding the 4-wheeler back to the cabin. The next morning we saw more deer in that area and I said, "We need to put a stand in there." We put off hanging a stand there as we were looking at other potential hunting spots. At one point while looking at other spots Dad and I looked at one another and we both agreed to go back to where I had been seeing all the deer from the 4-wheeler. I'm glad we did! We looked it over for a few minutes and found a split hickory tree that seemed to be in shooting range of the deer sign. Darrell and I hung the stand and cut a shooting lane. The rest is history. That afternoon Dad shot his big buck.
When we found it the next day, Dad was so excited and I was too. I remember him saying, "This is everyone's deer. Noah found the spot, Darrell and Noah hung the stand, I did the shooting, and Luke did the talking!"
The last part of that couldn't be any more true. I've never tried to move or drag a bigger deer it was enormous. The pictures really don't do it justice.
My deer was small, but I was happy to be able to take it on the next to last day of the hunt. It sure will taste good. I had some close encounters with some nice bucks (none as big as Dad's) but none would offer me a good shot. When the small 5 pointer came in just right and offered a fairly easy shot, I just couldn't resist. I feel like I made a decent shot, but it sure did run a long way and didn't bleed very much. Good thing we had Luke's young eyes on the blood trail! It ran a 200 yards or so and upon inspection, I had gotten 1 lung on the shot instead of 2. Either way, he expired and we were able to make the recovery.
Luke is going to have to teach me how to drop them like he did.
Good job Luke. I didn't take my first deer with traditional gear until I was 16 or so. I'm impressed.