Meet Queen Melissa

My husband and I made a deal that if he was still around after archery season that I would have an opportunity to hunt him. Sure enough, the luck drew my way. Between the weather and not being able to sight him for a few weeks, opening day was here and we had sight of him the evening before.

I kept my eye on him and he bedded down for the evening. He liked to camp out near a road, so we made a plan to set up for our morning hunt. Sure enough on opening morning he was right where we expected him to be. We got nervous as we heard other hunters pull up and were wondering if they were going to impede on our hunt. The deer was clearly on our property. We held tight to see what would happen. Sure enough they did the expected and took a shot at him. Thankfully, they missed. He was spooked further onto our property. I was upset, but decided to keep trying. My husband and I practice long range shooting on a regular basis, so I had enough confidence to try a longer shot. We knew at this point we wouldn’t be able to get as close. We let him settle and followed him slowly. We had him spotted again, but in the Sandhills there isn’t much area to hide in sometimes. I had a choice to risk letting him go or to take a longer shot at him. He was out in an open area, we got as close as we could and ranged him at 390 yards. He was laying down resting again. We waited for him to stand and I took a shot. I grazed him, which had me a little upset as I don’t like wounding. But he laid back down at 370 yards and I was able to get my perfect shot at him. It was dead on.

Our hunt was finally complete. I couldn’t do it without my husband. He’s a great teacher, guide, and best support one could ever have. We both love to be outdoors and hunting is our favorite time of the year. Hunting can be challenging at times, but even if we don’t see a thing we are still happy being out in the open. Next year I am hoping to do a little archery hunting myself.

Good luck and happy hunting to all the other huntresses out there!