TLDR; daughter shot a spike.

Can't figure out how to post a pic.

A few years ago we picked up a small lease. You know the old 2 out of 3 thing; close, cheap, good? You get two of the three, well its 10 minutes form the house and very affordable…. Theres deer on it, but not a whole bunch. But we can hunt after school often, even once the time changed. We’ve got a couple of stands set up that we can sneak in and out of pretty well so this time of the year a hunt longer than an hour during the week is a long one.

My 12 year old daughter has been deer hunting for the last three years. Fairly serious last year, making 15 to 20 hunts between crossbow and rifle hunts. We had one button buck come in on us right behind the tree we were sitting in. Only deer she saw. This year she was on her 25th hunt without seeing a deer. Now she’s a 12 year old girl, not exactly what you’d call quiet and still. We’ve been talking about persistence, you’ve got to be out there to give them a chance to come out, can’t kill them from the couch, all that stuff. Telling her what we all know, that you never know were or when it’s going to happen, but you.ve got to be out there to give it a chance.

We head to the lease Monday after school about 4pm. She’s got a little homework to do so we sneak into a box stand we have set up about 100 yards from a bean pile on the edge of the swamp. I’ve got to climb in all the stands first to look for lizards and remove any that may be in there… I get into the stand, do the lizard check and give her the thumbs up. I begin to open windows and see something out of place. There’s not a stump there? Look through my binos, there’s a deer facing away from us with its head down in the beans at 95 yards. We’re DMAP and all the kids on our lease have a doe tag in their pocket. I look down the ladder and tell her there’s a deer in the feed to get up here quickly and quietly. Amazingly she does. She puts her ear pro on, I sneak the window open, load the rifle and get it out the window. She shoulders it and say she has a perfect broadside shot. As I’m telling her shot is yours when you’re ready he starts to walk to the left side of the lane facing us. She stays on him but she can’t take that shot. Theres a log down that’s cut with a trail going into the palmettos right off the end of it. I’m about to throw up know that in 30 inches he sot of sight if he goes that way. He doesn’t. Takes a couple steps past the log. I tell her to stay on him, he’s going to give to a shot. She’s holding together pretty well. Couple more steps and he’s quartering to but way more broadside. Cocked the rifle and she touches it off. Deer runs into the palmettos but the near leg isn’t working. She shoots a .44 mag so if that 220 grain chunk of lead got in there we should be good. Go back to the truck for hip boots, get to the shot site. I’ve been talking to her about blood trailing. I’m bent over looking on duck weed for blood and she says “Dad, I think this might be blood but it looks funny.” It’s chunks of lung. Feeling better about things. We go on following the blood trail in the water. I’m telling myself don’t get tunnel vision so bad that I miss stuff. But I know it’s happening. She gets to the edge of the lane and has to go around a palmetto bush, “holy crap Dad! Look at this!” The palmetto is painted with blood. Feeling much better. She follows the blood on the brush for about 15 yards and sees him piled up. Bullet entry right behind the shoulder just where she told me she was holding. Exit two ribs inside the diaphragm. That little spike is a trophy of a lifetime. Man, I’ll never forget the sights and sounds over the next few minutes. Hope that’s what I remember when I’m dying. Talk about one happy chick with a happier dad.

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