I shot this nice 3x4 with eyeguards at about 5 pm on Oct 26. I had to work that morning, so I didn't even get to the woods till about 2. I almost didn't go at all, it was my wife's bday on Saturday,so I almost felt bad about going. But, her being the good wife she is, she said just go. I jumped in a few timber patches and hiked around for a while, and then met up with my son and one of our hunting partners. So, we picked a spot and jumped in this reprod/swampy area that I wanted to check out. I sent our partner up the hill a ways, and my son and I worked our way through a blackberry patch to get into the reprod. It's one of those swampy reprod areas, once you get into it, there are some nice open areas to sneak through. We finally got through the sticker patch, and my son says "dad this better be worth it!" We were walking, still in the trees, and then we hit an open area. On our right about 30 yards we immediately spot this buck. Big body, and we can see he has a nice rack. So I get the scope on him, and by then my boy is saying shoot him, shoot him. I got one in him, and he went down, but got up again. So he was running, we ran up to where he was standing, and I hit him again in the neck. Having my son with me makes hunting even more special to me. This buck could have been his, I just happened to be ahead of him on the trail, and you know those Blacktails don't like to stand around while you try to decide who is going to shoot! So we thanked God for the buck, took a bunch of pics, and got to work. The boys did some good work on the drag out, thanks! Hit the road right at dark, I had the boys stay with the deer, and I hiked back to the truck, and had to bust through the second patch of blackberrys to get to my truck. My son is pretty sure that this is a buck we had seen during the summer. I sure am thankful to have him.
