My youngest daughter has hunted hard this year and every time I've offered up "do you want to go hunting?" she has answered an enthusiastic "yes". She has killed several with a rifle and one with a crossbow in past years, and she was insistent that she wanted to connect again this year before gun season came in. We came so close on Friday evening but the young buck that night just knew something wasn't right.

Saturday evening we were hunting a double stand that I had never hunted before. The evening was pretty uneventful outside of watching a lone doe feed for about 20 minutes 200 or so yards away in a neighbor's field. Then with about 15 minutes of legal time left I saw a deer moving across our back field probably 150 yards out. We were 50 yards deep in the woods and the winds were howling, so I figured no way he could hear a grunt call. But I got on the grunt call hard anyway. He stopped, turned on a dime, and RAN right to our tree. It all happened so fast it was crazy. I stopped him with a hard grunt and Sydney thumped him at a mere 6 yards, right in the shoulder, shattering the offside leg bone. He bounded about 40 yards and crashed. I was so proud of her and she has been on Cloud 9 ever since. We took some photos yesterday in the daylight hours in between church and her basketball tournament.