First buck

[JDHasty]

Nice fork horn with a third point on one side.

Legal light was ~ 6:55, I Heard him grunting somewhere up behind our blind at 7:08 and gave him the "come hither big boy" with a can call.  It's hard telling how close they are when they are behind a ground blind, I thought he was further away. 

Texted a guy who was set up about 250 yards away to let him know I was working on a buck, probably a decent one, and to keep his eyes open.  Put my phone away and Bridget was already on him, I reached over and cocked her gun and she busted him good. 

I'm going to have to order another stock for the kids' gun.  She got a bit of a bump on the bridge of her nose from the scope and my two younger ones can use that one, the one that came on the gun will probably fit her in a couple years and the two younger ones are shrimps, they will never use a full length stock so we will get our money's worth out of it.

We were able to drag it out and lift it onto the tailgate and haul it to the camper to pick up the little ones then over to friends' camp to work on it.   That was nice after being cut up pretty good by blackberries on Saturday. 

Bucks were pretty rutty for it being this early, they were pretty reckless all weekend charging into scrapes and food sources looking for does.   

FWIW, I saw a beast of a forkhorn Blacktail buck from the Sounder train yesterday afternoon and he was acting pretty rutty too.  Flippin monster forkhorn. 

[JakeLand]

Very cool !!! Well done ! Is that a 20 gauge ?

[trophyhunt]

First buck!!! well young lady, you did very good, great deer!!

[redi]

Great job. Congrats

[JDHasty]

Yes it is a 20 ga USH.

They were discontinued in 2016 and I was having all sort of trouble finding one for my kids.   

I had ordered a 10/22 with French Altamont Walnut stock and when I finally got the call that it was in I walked in and saw that Ultra Slug Hunter from the door and figured it was going to be a  12 ga.  Walked over and put my finger into the muzzle and picked it up and took it to the register w/o even looking at the price tag.  Brand new, never fired. 

It will shoot right along side my Deer Slayer II and there are not many slug guns that can actually do that.

It's a really nice setup for kids.  She gets a lot of compliments on it. 

I set up one of our Manfrotto 055ProB tripods with 128RC Video Pan Head and QR plate attached to a small 3/4 plywood table that I was using the Bulls Bag on, but it was a PITA.  I fabricated a different rest setup from some ethafoam for deer hunting this year.  Now we're cooking with gas!  I used industrial strength velcro and can still set it up with the Bulls Bag or sand bags for rock chuck shooting.     

[pianoman9701]

Great looking buck, young lady! You're hooked now! 

[fishnfur]

JDHasty - back from the dead!  Good to see you got through the Covid mess. You found your daughter a great buck.  Now you've got to beat her or you'll never live it down.  Congrats to the young lady!

GJB

[JDHasty]

JDHasty - back from the dead!  Good to see you got through the Covid mess. You found your daughter a great buck.  Now you've got to beat her or you'll never live it down.  Congrats to the young lady!

GJB

We are headed out to the taxi tonight.  .  I guess the gal that takes the little ones to school in the morning went looking in the freezer for some Eggos and the d**n thing was staring at her.  She claims to have been barely able to upright herself and worries about having been traumatized for life. 

The kids attempted to talk her down, explaining to her that any concerns she had regarding attacks on her person by that particular deer ceased to be reasonable last Sunday.   

[Dan-o]

Nice work bud!

[pianoman9701]

JDHasty - back from the dead!  Good to see you got through the Covid mess. You found your daughter a great buck.  Now you've got to beat her or you'll never live it down.  Congrats to the young lady!

GJB

We are headed out to the taxi tonight.  .  I guess the gal that takes the little ones to school in the morning went looking in the freezer for some Eggos and the d**n thing was staring at her.  She claims to have been barely able to upright herself and worries about having been traumatized for life. 

The kids attempted to talk her down, explaining to her that any concerns she had regarding attacks on her person by that particular deer ceased to be reasonable last Sunday.   

  She probably just watched the Dahmer documentary on Netflix.

[JDHasty]

Nice work bud!

Tried to call ya' the other day from the train.  I'll give ya' another try this week.   

[zwickeyman]

Great first buck, nice work

[Axle]

Awesome! 

[OutHouse]

Great job to both of you!

[elkboy]

Love the photo of her with the gun, hanging deer, and woodpile.  You all are living the dream!

Congratulations to the newly successful deer hunter!

[Pathfinder101]

That's awesome!
 

[jason stevens]

Congrats thats awesome!!!

[h20hunter]

Dandy buck

[DeerThug]

Nice! 

[Rainier10]

Congrats to Bridget on a great first buck. Thanks for sharing the story Uncle JD. I always appreciate the way you spin a tale. Rock chucks to big bucks way to keep them in the outdoors.

[JDHasty]

Congrats to Bridget on a great first buck. Thanks for sharing the story Uncle JD. I always appreciate the way you spin a tale. Rock chucks to big bucks way to keep them in the outdoors.

Funny you should mention it the kids are already looking forward to chuck shooting in the spring. 

Bridget has a new AR and I have a Howa Mini in 223 sitting here that I just need time to get bedded into a Boyd’s AT-One stock for the little ones. 

I’m going to get another MGM Contender 17 Hornet barrel ordered and set it up for Bridget and just figure on kissing another of my G1 frames goodby. 

She is a south paw and the right hand bolt CZ 527s are clumsy at best or I would just turn mine over to her.  Bridget is big for her age and the stock she has been using is too short now, but just about perfect for the little ones.  There are plenty of G1 carbine stock sets laying around here so it’s just going to cost me a barrel to get her set up and turn her old rig over to “the kids,” as she refers to them as. 

You can flip a coin, the CZ 527s and the Contender Carbines are equally accurate and both have good triggers on em.  I don’t know that I prefer one over the other for chuck shooting. 

The 17 Hornet is a 175 yard proposition, and the kids want to stretch it out to at least three hundred next year.  The Magpul UBR stock makes an AR about as good a 300 yard chuck shooting outfit for Bridget as a person could ask for. 

I don’t get much shooting in the field in any more, it’s just as much fun to let the kids get all of the shooting.   

[boneaddict]

Congratulations to both of you! That’s gotta be a great feeling when they get it done.  Hopefully she didn’t feel the bite of the gun too much.

[JDHasty]

Thanks everybody. 

Here's a photo of the tripod setup of which I spoke.  Manfrotto 128RC VPHs are dead silent, smooth and stable.  We also have a half dozen of them.  055ProB tripods are practically indestructible quick to set up.  Here is a hint:  Professional photographers government contracts frequently come with an equipment list that is to be supplied and becomes the property of the photog after.  That is how I picked up our tripod legs and heads on the cheap.   

The table is just 3/4 plywood with three 1/4-20 T Nuts sunk in so that it can be centered or offset over the pan head.  Does the table need to be that wide?  It depends, a crossbow will take a kid's thumb clean off.   I don't want the kid's forward hand anywhere near the finger remover.  That hand goes on the tripod handle or the tripod column.  Period. Full stop.  The table will also accommodate a Bulls Bag, but that was a secondary consideration.

Regarding the length of the ethafoam channel.  It's fine, works great, but shorter is better.  I just haven't decided where to cut that one yet.  The channel we used in the blind is glued up from black ethafoam and is shorter.  That white one was for Beta testing before I started cutting and gluing the black foam I had to pay good money for, the kids use it in the yard for target shooting.   

[castie2504]

Outstanding! Love seeing these types of success stories! Good work