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So, my daughter had just turned 16, she got a part time job as a pie cutter, most of her shifts involved weekends which was fine until we hit the deer opener, I asked her boss if she could have the day off, he said, the morning yes, but he’d need her for the afternoon.
That afternoon rolled around, we had seen nothing that opener morning, off to work she went. I said you mind if I try? She gives me a hug, “Good luck dad, shoot a big one.”
Well, that afternoon, I shot the biggest buck of my life. Got it home late, dressed and hung, took the tenders and the backstraps called it a tired night, it was 17 above.
Long about midnight my daughter piles into my bedroom flips on the light and says congratulations dad.
She says, “Dad you think there’s another one that big?” And there I think I lied a bit, and hoped a bit more, and maybe told some sort of a truth, when I said, “Honey there’s lots a big deer in these woods.” She gave Mr.
Sleepy Dad a hug and off to her bed she went.
Next morning after church, she stayed later every Sunday because she taught Sunday school to younger kids. She came home before noon we got bundled up and back to the cabin we went. I lit the stove, it was in the mid-70s in no time, we had a big boiled lunch and after cutting up the rest of my deer that morning and most certainly after a long day yesterday I said to her, “Would you mind if I took a nap?”
“No dad, you get some rest.”
I said well shoot a big one.
How long later, not quite sure, but I heard dad, dad, dad, buck, big boom, the rifle went off, then she says so loud, “Dad, he’s down, he’s right in the trail down.”
We got bundled, I looked out the window I could only see the back third of a deer. When we walked up to it in my daughter’s second year of deer hunting, she shot the biggest buck that has ever come off of our hunting property, ever, to this very day.
- The Trout Whisperer
