Dad, daughter, deer. BIG deer.

Jeff Kunkel of Hillsdale, Mich., shares the following story about his daughter Emily's second buck of the 2010 hunting season:

My 12-year-old daughter and I enjoyed a very exciting hunt together November 28. She has had a great season: We’ve been out together seven or eight times, she tagged her first buck in October, and then also took a doe during the second day of firearm season.

We have a little parcel that we hunt in Indiana near the Michigan state line, and earlier that afternoon I asked her if she wanted to slip down there for a hunt, as it was the last day of the Indiana firearm season.

We have a blind location that’s good for a southern wind, and we slipped into place just before 4:30. It’s been a productive spot for us over the years – several kids have taken does from that stand, and my 14-year-old son tagged a 2.5-year-old buck there a couple weeks earlier.

Just before 5 p.m. a button buck came running out from the cover to our immediate right, and then re-entered the brush just a few seconds later. Immediately after he went out of sight a doe came trotting out and stopped about 30 yards in front of us.

Although the deer was close we weren’t certain if it was a doe or a button buck, so I whispered to my daughter to wait a second until I could get a closer look at the deer, and then I proceeded to fumble around in my backpack attempting to find my binoculars while also keeping an eye on the deer. Then a few seconds later the doe started to trot away as a buck came charging out.

I do my best to attempt to remain calm and collected when hunting with the kids – usually I have the presence of mind to remind them to take their time, pick a spot, etc. In this case though, the pace of how fast everything was unfolding along with the size of the buck got to me, and I became a little frazzled.

After the fact my daughter said that what she heard me say was “Big buck! Big buck! Shoot him! Cock the gun and shoot him!" 

I’ll readily admit the deer had me shook up. Thankfully she did take time to carefully aim before squeezing off the shot, and as he ran off an easily visible stream of blood was pumping from the area just behind and slightly below his shoulder.

My standard protocol with the kids is that even on a shot that I’m completely confident with, we wait a while before beginning to track. But with the visual verification of the shot placement there just wasn’t any doubt that she had killed him. As a matter of fact, the thought that kept running through my mind was let’s hurry up and find her buck while there’s still light, because I want to get some pictures of her with her deer before it gets dark. Much to our satisfaction he had died just a short distance beyond where he went out of sight.

When she first picked up his antlers she had as big a grin on her face as I’ve ever seen from a successful hunter. We then decided to quickly head back to the truck and get the camera, and when we got there she said “I’m so excited I’m having a hard time catching my breath, Dad.”