Teen Hunter’s First Buck

by Robert Foan, D&DH reader

On Saturday, Oct. 23, 2010, my son Brody (14) killed his very first whitetail buck in Wisconsin. He shot it with his Hoyt Kobalt set at 50 pounds using an Easton Axis ST arrow and a 100-grain G5 Montec Brodhead. The shot was taken at 23 yards on buck quartering toward Brody’s tree stand. He wore a Scent Loc Full Season suit and LaCrosse rubber boots.

The day started early for us. We walked to our stands around 5 a.m. We sat in sets on the west bluff of our 120-acre lease. Brody got into his stand, and I chose to back track 75 yards to another tree stand that wasn’t completely prepped for shooting yet.

Things were looking good. I could hear deer after deer running around in the woods on the west. At 7:12 a.m., I heard rattling. I thought my son was performing a call sequence. Actually, the noise came from two bucks sparring in the woods south of the cornfield. I performed a sequence of rattles and few grunts to entice Mr. Big out our way. That’s when I heard the release of a bow string at 7:15 a.m.

Within a minute I received a text, “I shot a buck.” I called Brody on his cell phone and told him to sit in his stand until 8 a.m., when I would come to him.

Yeah, right. Asking a 14-year-old boy to sit in his tree stand for nearly 60 minutes after he shot a buck ain’t gonna happen. As rain approached. Brody got out of his stand and met me at the shot site.

The Brody BuckAt first we found only spots of blood. As we pressed on about 10 to 15 yards into the thick cover, the trail began to look like a spraying river. We continued following the blood trail for roughly 50 yards. Then I told Brody, “I can see your deer lying over there about 20 yards or so away from us.”

I asked him to stay put while I walked over to check the deer. My eyes saw a beautiful, magnificent deer on the ground. I called Brody over to recover his trophy. He was ecstatic and crying with joy.

He turned to me and said, “Thank you, dad.” He hugged me with tears in his eyes before even touching his trophy. It was an extremely emotional and exciting time for me. I got to watch my son recover a trophy of a lifetime. He executed a perfect kill shot, high left lung and low right liver. He did his job, so to speak, as a bow hunter.

We did a rough measurement for a raw score and arrived at 129 and change, although we forgot some measurements. I have already contacted an official Pope and Young scoring official. We believe the official score will come in the high 130s, if not low 140s.

I’m so proud as a father for him. Awesome. That’s all I can say.

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