After two years of tagging along with his big brother, we decided it was time for Hayes, our five year old, to be the shooter. He has shown great steadiness and accuracy in many sessions of .22 practice off the bench. After big brother got a buck over Thanksgiving, it was time for Hayes to get in the driver's seat as we entered the Christmas holidays. Dad had seen a good 8 point hanging behind the camp on 4 different occasions, so we set up on him last weekend. That proved unsuccessful as we never saw him. We were able to make it back over on Thursday morning and had a good hunt that afternoon. We saw 15 deer or so and right at dark had a sounder of 12 hogs enter the field. Hayes squeezed off a round, however he missed low on the biggest of the bunch, but it was good for him to get a little experience shooting at a live target. Fast forward to Friday afternoon and we were set up in the same stand, along with about 2 acres of standing water from the non-stop rain over the past 24 hours. I was somewhat skeptical of our chances with much of the field underwater. About 4:50 big brother and I were watching a couple of does to the west when Hayes says,"there's a deer." I looked to the north and saw that a buck had eased out at exactly 100 yards. A quick check with the binos to verify he was a shooter and I began to work Hayes into position to get the shot. This includes spinning chairs around, positioning him on his knees so he is tall enough to see through the scope out of the window. He got settled, took two deep breaths, and squeezed the trigger. The sharp crack of the 7/08 rang out and I saw the buck mule kick and take off to the edge of the field. He exited the field into a tall stand of grass at which point I see him tangle himself and fall over backwards, heart shot. We celebrated with plenty of hugs and high fives, made a few calls, sent a few texts, and then went to put our hands on his trophy. What an incredible experience to have little brother shoot his buck, nearly 2 years to the date, within 10 yards of where His big brother shot his first buck. Both bucks even fell in the same stand of tall grass! I thank the Good Lord for blessing me with the opportunity to be with both of my boys experiencing His great outdoors and providing us with safety and wonderful memories all along the way! It beats me shooting a world class deer all day, every day!
1 Comment
Proud Wife
11/24/2015 09:01:30 am
I love you, Brandon Mayer!!! You left this site up on the iPad, so I started looking back through your old posts. This one is so special and so sweet to read. Thank you for being such a good daddy to our babies. Thank you for spending so much time with them and for putting their joy above your own opportunity to hunt. I love this post so much and the last picture is my favorite!. Love you!!
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