[kachingchingpow]

My sons football team didn't make the playoffs this year. This is the first in 5 that we haven't played well into November, so we hit the woods hard. On opening weekend, he had a shot at a nicely developed 6pt on a bean field.
As it turns out a 150 yard shot was a little much for a 9yo's first deer. He missed the mark, but strengthened his resolve.

The weekend of the 15th had a perfect moon phase, and again we hunted hard. Mother nature blew a front across the south and the winds were up all weekend long. After breaking camp, and packing the truck up on Sunday morning, I told Conrad that we would "still hunt" the swamp, walking into the wind and hopefully up behind a deer for him to shoot. As we were easing through the swamp (picture the swamp scenes from the movie Southern Comfort), the wind was blowing hard. Up ahead, behind a large cypress tree, there was some scrub oak shaking out of tempo with the wind. We stopped and took a knee. After a minute or two, a large black back emergerd from behind the tree. I began planning an escape route, just in case our company turned out to be a hog. As it continued to rub the tree it turned with the hind quarter facing us, and then I could see the white. It kept circling around the tree, exposing itself more and more. When it got into full view, I told Conrad to hit it. We didn't see the rack until we got over to the animal. His eyes were as big as cue-balls.

As it sit's it's a main-frame 7pt with 3 scoreable ticklers around the left beam (10pt). The end of the left beam was broken right at the fork of 2 tines which would've made it an 11 before the rut.

Conrad will be 10 in about 3 weeks. In 2008 he's shot a 21.5lb tom & 10pt buck. I guess we'd better start working on that 10lb bass.