Well, my 13 year old son had to have surgery this morning to put a couple of pins in a finger he broke Saturday playing basketball.  Middle finger on his left - dominant/shooting - hand.  
 
But he wanted to hunt yesterday evening, so I thought we'd give it a shot.  He took a few clumsy practice shots before we left, and despite the clumsiness shot it well enough at 30 yards to go for it.    
 
With about 30 minutes of shooting light left, we saw a BIG bodied half rack - 4 or 5 points on that side - that we had a close encounter with last week.  But he was 367 yards away, walking through the middle of a field that we had been hunting, but decided to rest last night   Honestly, had we just sat on top of where I parked my car, he may have had a 40 yard shot at that buck.  
 
Shortly before shooting light ended, another half rack  - a spike with a brow tine on one side - made his way right towards us but was nearly on top of us and had us pinned down, as we were sitting on the ground in the fencerow.  He stopped at 32 yards quartering away, and with one hand mostly useless he sort of clumsily clicked off the safety just loud enough for the buck to hear and he walked off.  
 
Fortunately the doc this morning left his thumb and trigger finger on his left hand unencumbered following the surgery. He said it was so that he could write at school, but we know that trigger finger has a more important job to do over the next 3 weeks while the middle, ring and pinky fingers remain splinted and wrapped .  
 
He was feeling good enough that when he got home he asked if we could hunt this evening.  

Oh forgot this . . .
 
Doc cringed when I mentioned crossbow shooting.  Said he has fixed up 4 or 5 fingers a year for the past couple of years, from shooters who leave their fingers in the path of the strings and cables.  Said that generally, whatever gets hit, gets amputated.  Fortunately, he's only seen finger tips so far, but did say that he had to fix up a 9 year old girl a few weeks ago, whose dad took her out without mom's approval.  
 
So for all the x bow guys out there, keep those fingers outta the way!

Why they do not have shields I will never understand. It is like the lawyers are missing some potential here.

rsquared sorry to here about your boy's mishap.

Sure sounds like he ain't gonna let it slow him down. Kudos to him and I hope he takes a wall hanger.

I was able to make it out this afternoon and sat at the corner of the, use to be bean but now a, wheat field.

Stupid deer!!!


I'm thinking about taking up fishing!

I hear ya BTDT.... sit in stand again from 2:30 until dark ..... saw nothing , yep stupid deer 😜

big tuna go get um I know you will you always do.

Little, legal 6 I saw on Monday evening at 5 yards or so.  He was prowling but not real serious.  Was still munching leaves as he had his nose to the ground sniffing away.

Whacked a buck this morning in the rain. Grunted him in in the misty pre dawn light. Thought it was a nice 8 I have seen several times from this stand. Didn't realize till I walked up on him that it is a big 6 point with no brow tines. Autopilot got the best of me. Saw the three nice points up and thought for sure it was one of the bucks I was after. 

Here he is. WMU 2A.