It was 5:00 am Christmas morning 2005 and I awoke to such a clatter down in the kitchen.
I go down to see what's going on, and to my surprise there is my then 15 yo son, Max, pouring himself a bowl of cereal at the kitchen table.
I'm thinking to myself... a little old to be "That" excited about opening presents?
"Merry Christmas Max" " You're up early" I say.
He turns to me with a look of conviction on his face,
"Dad, I had a dream last night... A dream, I was going to shoot a big buck this morning... A dream, I was going to shoot a big buck up on the ridge in the"high stand"...
"Well, that's a of a good dream " I say!
I hang around with him till he finishes his cereal and gets his gear on and heads out into the darkness.
It was a really nice morning , about 30 deg. with no wind.
So the story, according to Max, goes like this...
It was about 7:30, a half hr. after daylight, when a group of deer appear on neighbor's property up on a high knoll in the hardwoods. It looked to be a mix of 4 does and fawns, a small buck, and a good shooter buck. They milled around up on that knob for quite a while until it appeared they where going to be making their way over the backside of the hill (they were about 125yds away).
Max, realizing he had to do something, decided to give them a can call.
Being dead quiet, all the deer heard the single call. They stood and starred in his direction until eventually the small buck made a couple yard advance towards him. As a couple minutes passed , the small buck started to move parallel to him so he made another call. The small buck jerked his head up and came running down the hill and right on past Max's stand only to stop about 40yds. behind him in some thicker stuff before he started milling around. The big buck looked on intently while it stood with the rest of the does and fawns.
Curiosity killed the beast, cause it just couldn't take it any longer so down the hill on the same path as the small buck, came the big buck. Fortunately, the big buck broke his run to a walk before Max's stand where a quiet mouth grunt stopped him at about 15yds. where Max stuffed him.
I couldn't be more proud of him then, and still am today!
I'm thinking Max is telling his little brother here " Pay attention Alex, this is how you get it done"!
Merry Christmas everyone!
awesome Christmas story!
