Ladies & Gentlemen:
This year we (our hunting group) four Jr. deer tags. Here is what happened in chronological order; but first a small introduction.
From Left to right: Luke(12), John(17) these two are brothers, William (16) and Marcos (15). Luke was on his first hunt, he was very excited about it. We all got to camp on Monday 8th about 3 PM. Tuesday we seen some deer but not much, we had never seen so many hunters in this area before. We were told that many had been gone empty handed because they were not seen much. I figured we had two advantages, one we had served God before we went hunting and some of the boys were good up to 850 yards.
Not to mention that all these young people had excellent eye sight!
On Wednesday 10th, we seen a young 4x4 and our 12 years old (Luke) was all willing to go for it. When he finally was ready for the shot using the prone position and the bipod, the deer was 430 yards away. Luke was shooting a 25-06 Remington that had been pillar and glass bedded by his dad, who had reloaded 115 gr. Berger bullets for the hunt. Luke dialed up what he wast told by me and let one fly! No!!! he got hit in the front leg. Luke did get more excited than we though, I said: fast, chamber another one and get ready, relax, watch that trigger pull very carefully, be ready, when he stops shoot as you know again... Now... one, tw... BUM! The deer walked a little bit and fell dead, the second shot had gone right through the heart. Great job Luke, GREAT JOB! We were all yelling, alright!!!
Thursday and Friday go by, by then John had missed a nice deer at 245 yards, he uses the mildots and forgot to set the scope on 20x, so he shot hight and Marcos got too excited on one of the largest bucks I've seen and completely missed him at 247 yards. Brother STeve, Luke and John's father walked all the way to make sure there was absolutely no sign of a hit.
Saturday comes, this is the last day, we still have 3 tags left, we headed out to where I had planed and we got there right on time when a nice 4x4 was coming out of the trees where there was some water, Marcos was suppose to shoot, since the buck started moving away and John was ready, I asked him to shoot. 275 yards, one shot, the buck was dead before it hit the ground.
3 does ran away and stooped about 320 yards away. I asked Marcos if he wanted to take a doe since the Jr. tag is for either sex. Marcos said no. William was by this time set up and asked me, Dad how far was Marlon's Elk last year? (Marlon is William's older brother) I said 470 yards. William decided to wait,
Them does kept moving farther and farther away finally they stopped at 480 yards and just wouldn't move. William said OK dad, what do I need for 480? I said 6 MOAs 4 clicks. The doe took two more steps and I thought 482, we're still good. BANG! the 210 grain Berger was on its way. There was no wind and I was confident William was playing the game. Thump!!! we heard, the doe rolled to the right immediately, rolled once and twice and again and stopped rolling right at a bush. We know folks in here taking lopes at over 1K, and so forth, but let me tell you, that doe looked so far away at 482 yards that I was extremely proud of my boy William. What a shot!!! Last year he took a buck at about 360 and shot it again at 380, year before that he took a buck at 412 yards.I was even more proud when I gutted the doe, William had hit her exactly right on the spot. One shot, one kill!!!
There is only about 3 hours left, and we still have one tag left. Now where do I take Marco to get his animal. To make a long story short I got away with it. God's goodness was there and Marcos was able to get a nice 2x2. I thank my creator for a good hunt and giving us 4 animals this year + 5 last year = 9 animals in two years. Not bad at all. That last day we harvested 3 animals to fill all tags. Thanks be given to the Lord!
Good hunting to you all!
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