I got a call from Uncle Ellis on Friday night telling me that we had been invited to hunt a farm that has plenty of deer and the farmer wanted us to bring a pack of beagles over and see if we could help him harvest some of these deer. When we arrived the owner of the farm asked us to shoot any deer possible and reminded us that this farm his hunted once a year so from a spike to a trophy and all does in between need to be harvested. The beagles were turned out shortly after daybreak. Tyler and I were assigned a stand at an intersection where I could sit in the truck and have a 250 yard shot to the end of the lane. Well It wasn't long before the beagles jumped and 6 little beagles sounded like 100 hounds and they were coming our way. The deer came to the road and turned back and went out of our hearing
. Tyler and I were sitting there talking when the farmer pulled up and from the look on his face he wasn't happy. See, we are used to following our hunting club rules and not shooting small bucks and someone had let a big cow horn buck go and the farmer was insistent that all deer be shot on this hunt. When he pulled away, I told Tyler that if we had a shot at a deer and it wasn't a fawn that we would harvest it. It wasn't long before the beagles fired up again and were headed our way but that would come to the road and go back over and over again. Every time that they would get close, I could see Tyler's legs start shaking as he stood ready with his .243. Again, I knew that the road was 250 yards long (range finder). The dogs were swinging for the end of the road and I told Tyler to get ready. The buck stepped out into the road near the end and I looked to see that Tyler had sat down on the ground and was leaning against the truck's front tire with his rifle resting on his knees. He said "Buck Dad"!!! and I gave him the ok to shoot. I watched trough the scope of my .308 and at the crack of Tyler's gun, the buck lunged forward and I knew that he was hit
. I told Tyler to drive us down to where the buck was and when we got there the beagles were coming out into the road and Tyler started catching them up and putting then in the box. I looked down the road about 30 yards and there he lay in the ditch. Even though he isn't huge, Tyler was beside himself. I guess it was the excitement of everything leading up to the hunt. I was in a lot of pain yesterday and after helping me skin and quarter many deer, Tyler dressed his deer and put him in the cooler all by himself. There will be grilled backstraps tonight
. NOTE: The tag is in Tyler's hand and the gun is unloaded.
