It was opening day and I was excited and nervous. I had been “hunting” deer with my camera since I was eight. I knew we had big deer around the area because the year before a nice eight point had come to graze on the food plot of Double-Cross I was sitting over. It was my first, up close brush with a big buck.
I was so jumpy that I knocked my hat off and dropped my gloves. I couldn’t wait to harvest such a beautiful animal. I had hunted through bow season and came up empty-handed. I knew if I was going to shoot my first whitetail I was going to have to do it now. I went up to The Buddy-stand with my dad. We were overlooking a nice 2.5 acre plot that had Extreme and Imperial Clover in the middle encircled by PowerPlant with a lot of deer activity. We sat all morning and saw a coyote but no deer. After coming down and eating lunch at around noon. My dad and I went back up for another try. I was discouraged after seeing nothing all day and we began packing up. There was only a few minutes left of opening day. I kept alert while my dad began getting everything together. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. I tapped my dad and pointed in the direction I had seen the rustling of brush. He looked there and back at me. Yes! It was a deer. It looked like a big doe and I decided to take it. It walked through the PowerPlant to nibble on the clover. A few more steps and I would have my shot. Finally she gave me a shot. KABOOM! The deer took off. By the time both my dad and I were out of the stand and ready to go it was too late to look for my deer. We came back in the morning and found it almost right away. I had two surprises. First, the coyotes ate half of one hindquarter, and second, my doe was a buck. In the light I could clearly see one, three inch tine. The other tine didn’t grow and was a little knob on the head. It wasn’t what I had dreamed my first buck to be, but I wouldn’t trade it for the biggest monster buck-ever. I was glad I got to experience my first buck with my dad, my uncles, and close friends Tony and Steve. It was a perfect first buck. 