On the evening of 9/26/2015 my oldest daughter and I headed to our two man stand. We didn't have to sit long when I noticed movement to our left. I then noticed it was a buck and since my daughter has never killed a buck I gave her the green light to kill whatever she wanted.

With the camera rolling I hear my daughter say it needs to take one more step. The deer took another step and my daughter asked if she should shoot. I explained that if she wanted this deer and she had a good shot then take it. She pulled the trigger on the H&R 44 mag and the deer lunged forward, made a loop, then stopped briefly before I lost sight of it.

I asked if she thought she made a good shot and she said she felt like she did. We talked about the hunt for a few minutes and then I decided to go check for blood. After several minutes I was still unsuccessful at finding any so I played back the video footage and saw that she did in fact hit the deer but it looked like it was a marginal hit. I called my brother for assistance and after several hours of looking and only finding 2 puddles of blood we decided to call off the search until the next day.

On 09/27/2015 we picked up where we left off the night before. Still not finding much blood we decided to just comb the property. A short time later my phone rings and my brother said he found a buck in the creek. I called my daughter, who was dressed to go to a birthday party, and told her the news. I picked her up and we met with my brother. As soon as I saw the deer I knew it was the one my daughter had shot. Unfortunately other animals found it before we did. I took some pics of my daughter and her basket rack 9 pointer. None of the deer could be salvaged so I cut the head off so I can plaque mount the antlers.

I hate the fact that the deer went to waste but it happens to the best of us. I hope I have her convinced that it happens because she was pretty upset about it.

The highs and lows of deer hunting!