In 2023, Mark Wells decided it was the year he was going to take his 8-year-old daughter Avery out hunting for the first time for a chance at her first whitetail. What happened that season went far beyond his expectations.
Avery spent a lot of time prepping for her first year of hunting. She started with a BB gun then moved on to a .22 before settling on a .243 out of the gun vice. When the season finally rolled around, she was beyond excited to go opening morning and had zero issues getting up bright and early. The first day her and her dad saw a few does and a spike, but she wanted to hold out for something a little bigger than a spike. The following morning she decided she was going to take the first decent-sized deer that she saw. However, at first daylight there was both a spike and a doe that she had a chance to take but decided to let them walk. This decision paid off as shortly after a nice 8-point came out and she made a great shot and harvested her first whitetail. “The pure enjoyment that came across her face was absolutely priceless and it’s a memory that will stay with me forever!” said her dad.
Even at 8 years old she is very aware of her family hunting camp rule that you can only harvest one buck, so her and her dad set out later in the season to start taking down some does. In North Carolina, hunters are allowed to harvest two bucks and four does. Her family has quite a few friends that rely on them to fill their freezers so they got to work. Avery followed up her nice 8-point with a solid doe a few weeks later.
It was the third whitetail that she took that it started to get interesting. Back to the camp rule that you can only take one buck per season. Avery and her dad were in the stand and another decent 8-point came out. However, this one had a bit of a hitch in its step so after taking a closer look they discovered that it had a broken front leg. After some convincing, Avery’s dad assured her that it was in fact OK for her to do the ethical thing and take him down. She planted another spectacular shot on him and another freezer was filled up. “At this point the conversation started between the two of us if anyone had ever filled their tag in a season that was a part of our family hunting club to which the answer to that was no. She asked me if we could make it a goal to do it and it took me a split second to say yes,” said Mark.
Over the next three weeks or so Avery was able to take down three more does. The most impressive feat in this epic first year of hunting was that she went a perfect 6 for 6! “We have 14 of us that hunt at our family camp and I can guarantee you that none of them have gone 6 for 6 over the past 12 years that we have had the camp. Needless to say my 8-year-old daughter has bragging rights!” said Mark.
