January 3, 2012
Five youngsters, five bucks in Pennsylvania. (Story by Phil Conklin)
The idea for the Pennsylvania youth hunt all got started while I was on a mule deer hunt in Wyoming with Morning Creek Outfitters. Matt Taggart was filming that hunt and asked me do a break away clip, telling viewers “We’ll be right back with our ‘Child in the Wild’ portion of the show”.
Helping youth get started in hunting has always been a passion of mine, and a lot of kids have gotten their first deer here on our farm. I discussed the idea with Jack Peterson and we got the okay! Getting participants was easy - we already had six boys and their dads coming out to hunt the first couple of days and they all had doe and buck tags. Nate Robertson was just down in Virginia and he agreed to come up for a couple of days to film for us.
This was all going to be a cake walk, right? We had the boys, the photographer, the deer, great weather, all coming together for a great hunt! Too bad things don’t always go as planned. One of the boys, Taylor Robinson, had to back out due to major surgery the week before deer season. The weather forecast was really good right up to the last day, and then changed to rain for Sunday and Monday, the first day of the hunt. Then three days prior to the first day of the hunt, I was reviewing the game laws for antler restrictions and found out that doe season didn’t begin until the following week in our management area! (Some of the state is doe for the full two weeks of buck season, and this year they changed ours to just the last week.)
So, I had a real problem. The easy “everybody gets one” idea had become much more difficult. How would I get these boys all a buck? They would have the second week to fill their doe tags, but Nate would have to return to Virginia by then.
The boys and their dads arrived on Sunday afternoon and we wanted to film them shooting some targets, but the rain was pouring down, so that didn’t work out. So, plan B - Nate arrived from Virginia and we built a fire in the fireplace at the cabin and put on the “Beyond Belief II” video, while Nate began interviewing the boys. I wish we could show all of the interviews, some of the boys were hilarious! After a filling supper of cornbread and chili, we talked about who was going to hunt where. We had three groups and only two cameras so we were hoping to at least get a kill shot somewhere! We got the boys all excited, telling them about the big bucks we had seen.
Monday morning dawned without rain. We got everyone up the hill to the tree stands, and before Nate and I had even made it to our stand, my son Jeremy called us to say that twelve year old Hunter Behling had shot a nice ten point at nearly 300 yards! Jeremy had the other camera but the cloudy weather meant that we didn’t get good video. Thank goodness for the Huskemaw scope that allowed a clear shot even with low light! We got Hunter’s dad, Josh, and his brother Stephen over to see the deer, then Josh took Hunter and his deer down to the barn to skin it out. Stephen got back up in the stand with Jeremy, and we ended up getting three bucks out of that stand!
Nate and I went back to the other end of the farm and passed the next several hours with Jake Larsen and his dad Scott and my nephew Joey Harden in the 8x8 tree house. We saw quite a few does and spent the day talking and helping the boys get set up on some of the does so they would be comfortable with the gun if a buck came along.
The tree house is right beside my shooting range and about 3:00 we all got down on the ground and turned the shooting bench so the boys could get set up for a possible shot across the valley. We had Jake on the gun and were going over basics when I looked over toward the left to my 300 yard target and saw a buck grazing in the hayfield! We got Jake turned around and onto the buck. We got his scope dialed to 275 and made sure he had a good rest. At his shot, the deer ran down the field and jumped the fence into the woods. The deer had reacted immediately on the shot, so I wasn’t sure that it was hit - I was very happy to find the deer 20 yards from where it had jumped the fence! It was a nice 8 point with half of one side broken. The look of worry and concern on Jake’s face turned to a big smile as he looked over his buck.
While we were admiring Jake’s buck, the phone rang and Jeremy was telling us that eleven year old Stephen Behling had also gotten his buck! We loaded up Jake’s buck and went out to see Stephen’s deer. His was a spike that he shot at 300 yards with a 6.5-284. He was one excited boy!
That ended our first day. We were three for five - that is to say, we had three very happy boys and two rather disappointed ones!
The second day was less eventful. Nate was still with us filming but could only stay until noon. My two nephews, Alex and Joey Harden, were the hunters for today. We put 16 year old Alex in the lucky tree stand and we went back to get in the tree house. Again, we didn’t even get settled in when Alex called and said he got a big buck. Back in the buggy we went and rode the mile out to the other end of the farm. There we found Alex with an eight point that he shot at 100 yards! He had found three bucks together and he shot the best one. We got his deer loaded up and took it down to the barn and skinned it out. By this time, we had four out of five happy boys. Nate had to leave, so Joey, Alex and I went back up to the tree house and watched does for the rest of the day. Fifteen year old Joey was really starting to feel the disappointment set in – he had to go back to school on Wednesday and would get only a couple of hours in the evening to hunt.
Wednesday was a nice day and I finally was hunting alone. I reflected on how well the hunt had gone and hoped the footage that Nate had gotten would be good enough to air. I saw a couple of bucks that I passed on and wished that Joey could have been there. At about 3:00, Alex and Joey came riding up on the quad and I told them about the bucks I had seen. For two hours all we saw were does. At 5:00 we spotted a really nice eight point across the valley and ranged it at 516 yards. I knew it was a very long shot for Joey, but I had done all I could to pass the time the three previous days, letting him aim, dry firing and practicing supporting the gun front and rear. He was using my 7MM Signature Series rifle and I knew the gun was up to the shot. As the deer finally turned broadside and Joey fired, the buck dropped right there, a perfect shot! I think I was more excited than Joey was! Five boys got five bucks in three days, three of them on film - and yes, we got Joey’s shot with my little Sony camera in HD!!
Well, I ended the season without getting a deer, the first year since I was fourteen that I failed to make a kill. I had two doe tags and numerous opportunities but didn’t take them. On the last day of the season, at the last hour, I spotted for Jeremy as he harvested a doe at 1000 and a second at 925 about 30 seconds apart. Two shots, two dead deer! There is nothing like the Signature Series rifle with the Blue Diamond Scope. Too bad the shots didn’t make it on tape - we got good audio but the recoil of the gun moved the camera and missed the shot… maybe next year!