We had a busy 5 day New Year's weekend with our good friends from Georgia. It was hot (record heat, actually), but we managed to knock down some deer. Among the highlights we had 3 kids take their first buck, a dad take his first buck with a bow after 15 years of trying, and my son took his first "big buck". Of course we also put a dent in the doe population. We'll start out with some pics of my son's buck. He has been in the stand with me for just about every hunt since he was 2 years old. He started killing pigs at age 7, took his first doe at 8, took a nice mf 8 point and some does last year, and just took a doe and a nice mf 10 last weekend. I can honestly say he has spent more hours in the stand this season than anyone else at the ranch (tied with me), and hasn't been pushy at all about shooting something. We weren't necessarily looking for a trophy, but the stars aligned when an ancient 11 pointer I've been seeing occasionally on trail cameras and had a brief encounter with last year made his way into our pasture Thursday evening about 5:30pm. The .243 (formerly his grandmother's) hit its mark and I watched the buck pile up about 20 yards away from the shot. I managed to snap a pic of the toothy grin that immediately followed and the rest of the pics are self-explanatory. Great day for my son and an even better day for me. I'll post pics and stories of some of the other kills later.

Sounds like a great time. Congratulations on the buck with your son

Congrats to you both!!

Good job dad!

The .243, is it a Remington 788?

Beautiful buck! Congratulations

Beautiful dark horns on that great buck! Congratulations to your son.

Wow
Fantastic buck for sure.
Congrats to you both.
That huge smile in the stand says it all!!!

Very Nice!
Congrat's to you both!

Remington 700

Here's a pic of him on the hoof prerut, if you're interested. The second pic is a closeup pic of the "wormhole" on his left main beam. Pretty neat.

Congratulations to your son, that is one heck of a nice buck.

Good times! Congrats to your son on a fine deer!

Memories are made from times like this. Sweet!

Good job young man.

Good all the way around. Really a good buck. That side pic really shows him off. Thanks for posting. Waiting for more.

Congrats to that handsome young man and his partner, that a dang nice buck

A heck of a Buck Deer.

A few more pics from the weekend.

This young lady took a doe and her first buck. Real nice mature 8. It actually had a little split sticker off the back of its main beam near the base. She hunted every morning and every evening and finally got it done on the last morning, just hours before their flight out of San Antonio. This was her 4th year to try for a buck, with a couple of near misses in the past.




Her younger (but much larger) brother took his first buck with his grandpa by his side. Happy kid, dad, and grandpa.



Another kid with his first buck on the very first evening of the trip. Must have a helluva guide...



An here's his dad with his first ever buck with a bow, and it hasn't been for lack of trying. I was actually posted up in a box stand where I could help him spot and watched it all go down. He made a great shot on him at about 25 yards. The deer only ran about 80 yards within my view, but out of sight from the hunter. He spun out and folded dead as a doornail within seconds of the shot. Of course, I couldn't help texting my buddy to tell him his buck went down but then ran off into the brush. He didn't think it was nearly as funny as I did. But lots of celebrating and bro hugs on this one.



Here's another cull a cousin of ours took over the weekend.



My son doing work with another doe. Sucker weighed 125.




One last pic. One of the families drove from Atlanta to South Texas. We had to rent them a little uhaul trailer to get all the horns and meat home to Georgia. Great hunt all around despite the heat.

Dang, you are single handedly insuring the family hunting tradition lives on. Great and thanks for posting all that.

Looks like a group of happy hunters. I enjoyed the pics and captions.

Action packed weekend!!

Great work with the kiddos!!