Long 7 years for my youngest

[Shooter McGavin]

Well my youngest boy shot his first Coues deer in 2017, 250 yd shot in unit 33. He was  pretty stocked because it was the biggest out of my other two children at that age…so there was some trash talking going on. Since then he’s been drawn for deer and cow elk but unfortunately has never filled his tag, he was getting pretty down on his luck.

Well  he got drawn for the early general hunt in 33 unit again and was looking forward to filling his tag. Being that Redington is so close to home we were going to do day trips because of the extreme heat this weekend, regardless we were both ready. We got up at 3:30AM on Friday and got to our parking spot at 5:15 and made it to our glassing spot right at 6:00. I told him to glass this hillside where I saw 3 bucks about a month earlier coming down into a draw. I told him I’m focusing on this other area where I’ve seen an absolute bruiser. Well at 6:30AM I see 2 does, I turn to my left and proceed to tell him but as you would know it, he was asleep…go figure. I then turn to the hill he was looking at and instantly see antlers, I said…I’ve got a buck get up. This was at 6:40AM. He shoots straight up and asks how far, he was bedded at 343yds. I have him get behind the 15’s so he can see what landmarks to focus on when he’s behind the rifle. We both back up about 5 yds on more level ground so he can lay prone. He gets the deer in the scope, I dial it to 350 yds and tell him just breathe easy and squeeze the trigger. As I’m looking through my binos all I hear is heaving breathing, I told him to relax the deer isn’t going anywhere. All of sudden he cracks off the first round and I wasn’t ready, I go back to the binos and see nothing, he says he missed but the deer moved to right about 20’. I’m frantically looking to see where it’s at and I hear another crack, I asked where is it, and then a third shot rang out….he then yelled I got it. At that time I do see the deer tumble. It wasn’t dead so he let one more fly and put it down, right at 6:50AM. As I’m patting him on his back he says “ dad my eye really hurts”, I have him look up at me and he has a really nice egg of a welt just above his eye on his forehead. No signs of blood, so I start to giggle and remind him of what I told him not to do with his eye. For the next 1/2 hour all I hear is, dad this hurts and of course I told him remember what I told you. We cross the canyon and locate his buck, I don’t know who was more excited him or me, but I could definitely tell he’s in hog heaven because he just stood there admiring the antlers. We gutted it and started the haul out, we got back to the truck at 9:45AM completely exhausted due to the heat. 
 

Pics of him and his 1st deer-2017

Pics of him and his 2nd deer-2024

 

[Chef]

Congratulations to you and your son!

Loved the read and thank you for sharing the story.

You guys sure didn't waste any time.  Glad he got his buck, keep the motivation to keep hunting.

[Lucafu1]

Awesome!

[Couesdeer]

Nice buck and an even better story.  This one hits hard as my youngest turns 18 in a month.  We just finished his last youth hunt as well.

[CatfishKev]

That is awesome man huge congrats on a great buck!

[PRDATR]

That's a dandy of a buck.

[campmeat]

That’s good stuff right there!! Congratulations! Thanks for sharing with us all.

[RJ75]

Great buck! It’s amazing how fast kids grow up. Thanks for sharing.

[Mocha1545]

Congrats to both of you. Great memories being made. No

[Eli]

Fantastic buck. Love when it gets western 

[luvdemcoues]

Fun read. Thanks for writing that up. Congrats guys! Cool buck.

[bonecollector]

Awesome! Congrats

[justinspe25]

Very cool, congrats to you and your son!