deer hunting

Last weekend I was invited to the Harm's family annual hunting/Thanksgiving extravaganza. I tell you what, we had a great time. Not only did I get my first deer ever, we got to hang with the amazing Harms family all weekend. There are six brothers, one brother in law, one father, and one guest (that's me), and all of there respective families. So we had 9 hunters total, and when we were fortunate, some of the family members came out with us. Here's the story...

It was Sunday morning at 6:38, one minute after the legal shooting time. I was posted on the south edge of a field basically in a ditch with a gravel road and some wooded area behind me. The rest of my party was north of me posting the perimeter of the field. The night before we had a buck come down through this area and wounded him, but never found him even after and hour of searching. I was in the "clean-up" location, hoping to take a deer down if it made it though to me before it reached the woods. I was looking north when I heard some noise from the south. I got into the squat position and I could see the beast emerging from the woods behind me. He was about 20 yards away and it was still so dark I had a hard time telling if he was a buck. Once I could tell, I started praying he would cross the road. He did slowly. The ditch was pretty flat but had about a 6 foot embankment to get up into the field. I couldn't shoot him across the road nor could my bullet cross the road, so I waited. He walked the road and the ditch, but when he started for the embankment he took off! I stood and fired right as he leaped into the field and I got him through the neck. He fell on his side and never moved again. We are in a slug only zone so the he was pretty much done for.

Five minutes later after finding the blood trail from the wounded buck the night before, we shot and killed him also. He had been hiding out 30 feet into the woods behind me all night. Glad we got him and he didn't go to waste.

Thanks Harms for the memorable and fun weekend!

Corban kept saying "dead deer." He was pretty OK with it even though in this picture he looks a little skeptical.My young Jedi hunter.Ann and Grayden. Grayden was shooting his gun (the stick) and loving it!
Jesse, Julie, and Moses...our old neighbors. Praise God that they were able to sell their house, sad though we lost awesome neighbors.

Casey (Ann's husband, Grayden's dad, Jesse's brother) and Jesse
Sophie (Jason's daughter) with the two deer we got on Sunday morning. Jason is the one who had shot the deer on Saturday night.