Pat Cope - Pennsylvania

Here is a photo of my 8-year-old son Andrew’s first buck. He practiced shooting his 30-06 with 125 grain low recoil all summer long. Deer season rolled around and he could not wait to go hunting. I got him up at 5:30 a.m. to get ready. We headed to our stand around 6:45 a.m..
It broke daylight and we heard a shot close but we hadn’t seen anything yet so he played his gameboy for 5 to 10 minutes with volume down. He got tired of that so he turned it off. He then laid his head down against the rail of the 2-man ladder stand and fell asleep. So I watched for both of us. It was about 8:15 a.m. when I saw a buck come into the food plot so I reached over and gave him a nudge. He woke up and I told him not to move that there was a buck standing out there in the food plot. He looked and I asked him if he wanted to shoot it. His answer was YES, YES with excitement. My son got ready and I whistled at the buck to stop him, my son was ready and the shot rang out. The buck jumped straight up in the air and then turned and ran down the hill. My son asked if the had got the buck. As I watched the buck run down the hill, I told him that I didn’t know. As we were watching the buck run down the hill he started to stagger and then crashed over. I turned to my son and said you got him, you got him. My son screamed YEA, YEA. When we got to him I lifted the head up and told him it was a 7-point he screamed in joy. After we were done cleaning the deer he came up to me and thanked me for taking him hunting and gave me a big hug.