On January 23, 2004 my dad and I woke up at 4:30 a.m. I got dressed while my dad was oiling our guns. We signed out for a location we had hunted twice without seeing a thing. I didn’t really want to hunt this stand but it was better than the stand my dad suggested.

We were walking to our stand and wee busted by several deer we could not see. Maybe this was a good sign. I climbed up while my dad hung some Pee Willy wicks. He climbed in and we watched it become light. We sat perfectly still until 7:30 a.m. I kept hearing noises in front of us, but could not see anything. I closed my eyes and relaxed for a few minutes.

I turned to the left and slowly opened my eyes and standing 20 yards from the stand was a doe. At first I thought it might be a button buck because it was alone. Then out stepped another doe. I told my dad and he told me to slowly get my gun up.

I clicked the safety off, made sure the crosshairs were where I wanted them; I then squeezed off the round from the 308. She stumbled and fell; I reloaded my gun and started smiling. I was the happiest kid in the world.

The color drained from my face when she got up and started to walk away. I raised my gun to shoot again but could not get the cross hairs on her. She went behind some brush and I could not see her. We waited in the stand for a half hour. I kept begging my dad to get down and lets see my deer.
While we sat there another deer came in. It was a small button buck. We finally got down and looked for blood. But that was not needed; my dad saw her lying at the base of a small hill. My first thought was she was fat. We took pictures and got the four-wheeler and returned to camp. We weighed her and she was 120 pounds, the largest doe harvested at our club this year. I held the record!

Alex Harkins
4924 Coshatt Drive
Birmingham, AL 35244
Age 11