Paul's Big 8 point

[Professor T]

[pauld]

This one has a bitter sweet story. My son Justin and i was hunting together trying to get his first deer. It was a cold and clear morning the kind of morning storys are made from.We were hunting in stand #12 it was a box stand.There was a shooting lane to the left it had a feeder at about 100 yards and at about 150 yards there was a blow down but you could see a little past it.Now on the right side there was a lane it was about 250 yards long with a dip at the end. Ok i think i set this up so u can get the idea what it looks like. The sun was starting to rise and i was peering tru my new binocs and spotted a yearling at the feeder.We got the 243 up in the shooting window and Justin couldnt find the deer in the scope. I put my 280 up and could see the deer the scope on Justins gun was a cheep one, so we tryed to get Justin on the deer with my gun by that time the little deer had stepped into the woods. Justin getting antse. A few minutes went by and the sun started lighting everything up. At this time Justin started coughing a little and i told him if he couldnt stop the deer wouldnt come back out. But he told me he had to get it out or it wouldnt stop Now this is some of the sweet i was talking about i came up with the great idea i would rattle loudly and Justin could cough as loud as he need to and maybe nothing would be lost so thats what we did and when i set the horns back in the bag i look up in the left lane and still could'nt see all the way down the left lane, some more sweet i pick up my new bi's and as soon as i had it focus in the back a big buck stepped up from left to right, i said big buck and as quick as i could get my gun up it was gone. Ok now was panic time i predicted the big buck would come out the right shooting lane so i got Justin set up and told him to see the deer without the scope first and then find him in the scope. From the time the deer disapeared from the left lane to this point was only about 10 seconds. The monarch step out at ninty yards I told Justin get on him the monarch looked tohis left then to the right and started troting straight toward us I told Justin to shoot as soon as he steps to the side. Now the bitter sweet at 45yards he turned to his left our right the lane is only about 12ft wide and he was in the middle already so two steps and he is gone. When his vitals were disapearing in the thickit my 280 rang out and the buck was gone. My son looked at me and said dad i was getting ready to shoot see the bitter coming. So now what's a dad to do,I told him if I did'nt shoot when I did he was gone fa good. So we got down and went down the lane and found blood where the monarch step in and about 30yards later we found the big 8pt. He was 220lbs and 4.5yo. He would be on the wall but when Justin was asked why he didn't shoot he said dad stole my buck. But in hind sight Justin is a much quicker on the shoot now. I always wanted some rattling horns from a deer i harvested so now those are my rattling horns.