About 2 years ago, during deer season  I spent several weekends hunting with my dad and brother at our deer lease in the Texas Hill Country.  Hunting is one of my favorite activities to do with my dad and brother.  This particular year, had been really challenging.  It had been a dry year and we had not seen many deer on the 1800 acre lease.  We had tried several different locations with absolutely no luck.  We knew that there were several deer in the area because of the pictures on our game camera.  There was one big old buck that we had seen in pictures at several different feeders.  Other hunters on the lease also had pictures of this big guy and everyone was waiting to get a chance to harvest him.

 As usual, I was hunting with my dad.  It was early one cold morning.  We were sitting in the Windmill Blind, our hunting blind which was located near the ranch windmill.  Like always, my dad was asleep and I was watching for deer.  I saw a deer walk out of the brush.  I knew it was a buck, but to my amazement, it was the big guy!  I watched him walk between two bushes and under the feeder.  "Dad, there he is," I whispered excitedly.  My dad nearly fell off of the chair when he woke up! 

 Dad told me to get my rifle ready and wait for him to broadside.  This means he needed to turn his side towards us.  I looked at my dad and I whispered, "No, you're taking this one!"  Dad told me, "No, this one's for you to take."  I explained to dad that he had been working hard all season, putting up new blinds, filling feeders, and just driving my brother and me three hours from home to hunt for several weekends, and he had not shot a deer on this lease.  It was his turn to shoot one.  Dad whispered, "he's not going to stay there for long.  One of us needs to take a shot now."  I told him to go ahead and do it!

 I put my gun on safety, put it down in the corner, picked up the binoculars, and anxiously waited for my dad to take the shot.  The deer turned broadside.  Dad took careful aim and the morning silence was shattered with the boom of 25.06 rifle,  ka ka booom, booom, boom, echoing through the canyon.  The big guy was down. 

 After several high fives and a hug, I shouted, "You got him, Dad!  You got him!"  We waited a few minutes and carefully walked down to where he fell.  It was then that we noticed he was even larger than we thought he would be based on the pictures.  We also then saw by the wounds and scars on his neck and body that he had been a real fighter and probably one of the oldest deer in the area.  He was a large Hill Country ten point Whitetail buck.