Trophy Buck Profile

By Shannon Gillette

      In the beginning, I never thought I could shoot a deer. I was scared to death of a gun when I was 13 years old due to the fact that I had shot an old 20 gauge and it kicked pretty bad. My dad got me a 4-10 and promised me it wouldn't kick as much. I didn't trust my dad after the 20 gauge incident so my mom, who has never shot a gun in her life, shot it just to prove to me that it wouldn't kick. So I tried it out and I loved shooting it. My dad bought me tags for for the past 2 years but I didn't work up enough courage to go.  The 2012 youth gun season was coming up and I finally decided that I wanted to go but only on one condition, that my dad would buy me headphones to knock out the sound because it reminded me to much of my bad experience with the 20 gauge. My dad agreed and brought me the headphones. 

      The youth gun season had finally rolled around. We got up and headed to Walmart to get my deer tag, hunting license, and 4-10 slugs. Around 2 o'clock in the afternoon we built a fire to smoke our clothes to cover up our scent. After we smoked our clothes, we headed to hunt a buddy tree-stand over looking a clover and winter rye food plot. As we were walking to the stand there were two deer feeding in the food plot. They got spooked and ran away. We got up in the tree-stand.  I got my harness strapped into the tree while my dad set up the camera. I got the grunt call out and began grunting. After about 30 minutes we heard a deer walking toward us. It stopped for a minute then made it's way into the food plot. Right then we saw it was a buck. My heart started racing. I thought to my self this is actually going down. As the buck started to feed toward us it turned and gave me a perfect broadside shot. I reached down and pulled the hammer back on my 4-10 and took a nice aim right behind the shoulder. I pulled the trigger. The buck spun around, ran about 20 yards and stopped. After about 30 seconds it started to rock back and forth and down he went!

       This was the moment that I'd been dreaming of my whole life! I got such a rush that I couldn't stop screaming and shouting! Looking back on it now I'm really glad my dad talked me into shooting the 4-10. Yeah this buck may be a spike and it may be little but it's my trophy buck and I'm proud of it!