The Buck I Thought I Missed

The Spring of 2013 I bought my very first bow, a Mathews Passion, I was in love. I spent the rest of my Spring, Summer and Fall days practicing. Due to being out of town I had to miss the first few days of opening season but when I got home my first priority was to get in the stand. I put in hours and hours, and more hours just waiting, praying that something big would walk in. I knew that I had quite a few big boys in the area thanks to my trail camera. So I waited, determined to get my first buck, passing up so many perfectly acceptable bucks because I knew I would get a big one. I kept getting told “your first buck is your hardest, just take whatever walks in first” I wouldn’t listen, I didn’t want “whatever walked in first” I wanted something to be proud of, and I definitely wanted to kill it with my bow. With season coming close to an end I started to feel discouraged, maybe it just wasn’t meant to be for me to get a big guy, but then God didn’t let me down, December 15th, 2013, it was a Sunday morning and my boyfriend Tyler said let’s go hunt today, but let’s use the muzzle loader, I told him I really really wanted to use my bow, but he ended up talking me into the muzzleloader, so there we are, sitting in the tree line, watching as doe after doe walk by, freezing while sitting in the snow covered field, I saw antlers… I immediately looked through the scope and saw an 11 point buck with a 5″ drop tine. As you could imagine I started shaking uncontrollably, he walked right to us and just kept coming to us. The closer he got the more nervous I got. He was 150 yards in a pack of 5 does, just standing there being the beast that he is. About 50 yards to our left were 3 does, and they got spooked and started making a fuss and I was scared to death I wouldn’t get a chance to shoot him. So I focused in and prayed.. At 150 yards, with a gun I had never shot I took a buck of a life time in southern Indiana. He didn’t drop right away, but Tyler was hitting my back saying “Good shot babe! Good shot! You got’em!” I actually had thought I missed, I started bawling to be honest, I couldn’t believe I had just missed a buck of a life time, and my first buck at that. But after a little blood tracking we found him! It was a more than amazing experience. Tyler told me it was very hard not to push me out of the way and take the buck himself, haha. My boyfriends Dad, and two Cousins all came over to help us get him out of the woods. I have gotten a unbelievable amount of recognition for killing this stud. Thank you for reading, and keep hunting!