My Son's 2016 Archery Buck

Hey Muley Madness friends,
We didn't draw any tags this year so I purchased one of the left over youth archery tags. I am so glad I did as we had an amazing hunt. My friend had his 13-year-old and 15-year-old with tags and we were seeing bucks everywhere. By lunch on opening morning we had seen 9 different 4 point bucks and all in camp (with tags) had an opportunity to stock a buck but all had missed or blew the stock.

At 2:30 in the afternoon, after lunch and a rest at camp, we headed back out. My buddy and his sons went to where I had pushed bucks to in the morning. My son came with me on the push route. A few hundred yards into the aspens we kicked up a bedded doe, then another and another. I told my son "there are more bedded deer in here so be ready". Not 15 yards further in the aspens we both saw the antlers of a sleeping 4 point. He ranged it at 31 yards. It stood up as he drew back. My view was blocked by an aspen but I knew he hit the buck as the bushes he was in started thrashing around.

As a dad I felt the responsibility of needing to become hyper focused. I was watching where the buck would run to and making mental notes so that I'd be able to track after we give time for it to expire. The bushes stopped moving after 30 -45 seconds. We could see the antlers on the ground and knew the buck was dead. I didn't have to track, yeah! I've had many rifle kills that took longer to die. As we got up to the buck we were so excited. The buck has great mass. I thought for sure my sons first archery buck would be a spike or two point but approaching this downed buck I knew I'd have to come up with some taxidermy dollars.

Here is my boy and his buck, which incidentally was shot about 800 yards from where I shot the buck in my avatar. Yeeha! for good bucks on general season hunts.