A great opening day

[treetop]

Hi guys, well this summer I only got around to putting up 2 trail cameras. I had them out for about 3 weeks. I checked the one 3 times and the other one only once. When I pulled them in there was just over a thousand pictures, mostly skinny does and little fawns, and a lot of bull elk.
Of all those pictures there were only 3 bucks. The best one came in only at night, the next best was an evening buck that was a long hike in, but the last one was a 3X4 that was coming in at all times of the day. Some of his pictures were at 9:00 in the morning.
My son had an archery tag this year and wanted to come down and hunt.
He showed up Friday night and we fine tuned his sights a little and he shot until his arm got tired and we called it a night.
Early the next morning found us hiking into the stand where the 3X4 was and I had him set up about 7:00 with the instructions to stay at least until 10:00.
I hikes a few hundred yards down the hill and layed down, read a few pages out of my novel and then had a nap.
I awoke to the sound of footsteps coming down the trail and sat up to wait.
The boy walked out of the trees and said,” Well it’s ten o’clock let’s go,”and then he added, “And get that big buck that I just shot!”
He said that it had come in the first time at around 8:00 and spooked, and hour later it came back again and this time it gave him a broadside shot, and he slipped one of his goldtips with a grim reaper broadhead right through both lungs.
We gathered up my junk and started hiking back up to the stand and after going only a few dozen yards I noticed a huge splash of blood on the trail. I put down my coat and water bottle to mark the spot and started following the blood trail around the hill into the pines. I have never seen a blood trail like that in all my life. It was squrting out of both sides. After only about 50 or 60 yards my son spotted his first ever buck just ahead of us, and it was all over but the yelling and the hugs.
After pictures we went back to where we had first crossed his trail and followed the blood trail back the other way to find his arrow. He found it and the seeing that he had cell coverage at that point he called and shared the news with family. and ask his Grandpa to bring a truck up the canyon to help haul it out.
We went back to my coat and just as we got there the boy spotted a rattler moving off the trail and into the brush. I got to thinking, “What if he had crawled into my coat?”
I hate snakes so I found a stick and proceded to make him into a good snake.
The funny thing is that I killed one in that exact same place a few years ago when my brother (A_BOW_NUT) was hunting that stand.
We loaded up the stuff and drug the deer down to the road and grandpa was there by then so after telling him the story we loaded the deer in his truck and headed for home.
It was a good day. And I enjoyed it a whole lot more watching my son finally get one than if I had been the shooter.
Here are some of the trail cam pix, and our trophy photos. Later Treetop

[sawtooth]

nice job, it looks like you put in the work and it paid off!

[6x6 bull]

Tell your son great job!!!! I was starting to miss your trail cam photo's.

[Torch]

Congrats to your son and thanks for sharing the pictures and story!

[Heads or Tails]

Congrats!!

[GUTPYLZ]

Nice! I'd be happy with a buck like that. Nice trail cam pictures.

[MuleyMadness]

Fantastic story with GREAT photos, that's exciting right there. Congrats to your son!

[swbuckmaster]

great strory. Did you eat the snake? I have always wanted to eat a rattle snake.

[huntenfever]

that's freaken awesome nice job congrats to you son.

[BOHNTR]

Awesome story and good archery buck. Congratulations to your son and the "guide". Thanks for posting the photos up for us to enjoy.