Last weekend Tommy and I decided to head out to a local spot and try to shoot ourselves a doe. Tommy's son Jack is 6 and really wanted to get out and hunt with us so we figured this would be a great opportunity to bring him along to sit in the blind with us. We're both tagged out on bucks so it would be a fun, relaxing hunt and hopefully Jack would get to see his first deer get shot. Long story short two deer pop out of the woods at 70 yards about 10 minutes before the end of legal shooting light. One is distinctly larger than the other so we immediately think it's a doe and a fawn. I never glassed the larger deer for some reason - only looked at it with my rangefinder as it was heading our direction. I did glass the 2nd deer and clearly identified it as a button buck. Again, I'm thinking doe and button buck fawn. The larger deer gets to 35 yards, I confirm Tommy is filming and let the arrow fly. Perfect heart shot, deer runs 80 yards and piles up. Jack is all pumped up as we get out, grab the arrow and let him handle the tracking job. He grabs the flashlight and off he goes. It's an easy recovery and we're all having a great time until Tommy walks around the front of the deer and says "Oh, it's a nubber." Aye. I remember my first thought being "Great. Graf is going to kill me." For those who watched this week's show you know ol' Graf was in fine form letting me have it good. I'm a big boy and I can deal with it. Although Todd seems to think I'm now cursed and will never shoot another deer as long as I live. We'll see about that. So yeah, there you have it. I failed to properly identify the deer before I shot it and took out what was probably a future Booner on Tommy's farm. Certainly not my proudest moment but the fact is we had a great time, it was a fun hunt and little Jack was loving every minute of it. He stood over me as I field dressed the deer and watched every move while asking questions and taking it all in. The next day he helped Tommy butcher the deer and enjoy some tenderloins on the grill. Button buck or not, it's hard to beat that experience.
Awesome man. Jack will remember that button for years. Congrats on breaking in that new bow. Sent from my LGLS991 using Tapatalk
Fact is, 99% of those button bucks will relocate before being mature. When it comes to pure best practice for deer management, your better off shooting that nubber than you are shooting a 2-3 year old based on their tendency to relocate. Congrats on the deer!
That's the biggest button buck I've ever seen so I can see why you misidentified it as a doe and fawn
At least you admitted to not even looking. Some try to say they couldn't see the nubs when looking for them. Congrats! I'm sure you guys had a good time.
I just lost like 70% of my respect for ya...would have been all of it but at least you didn't shoot it in the neck or take a quartering to shot.
Shameful, just shameful. The kind of crap doesn't fly once you get to Pro status like Stan Potts, etc. Get it out of your system now.
