December 30 - Jaclyn Lindsey Shaw

Hunter: Jaclyn Lindsey Shaw
Animal: 169" Whitetail
Location: Iowa
Weapon: Thompson Center Muzzleloader

The holidays are truly the most wonderful time of the year but I had been looking especially forward to Christmas this year. It was going to be my baby girl Elizabeth’s first Christmas and right after Christmas I began my hunt to take an Iowa Giant with my muzzleloader. The afternoon of the 30th I was running late getting to the farm and talked my husband into babysitting for me and I was off to try for one of the 3 bucks I was after, The Chosen One, Wagon Wheel Buck, or Mule, the biggest one of the 3. My Dad and Brother had decided to run 2 cameras on the hunt in hopes of making my afternoon extra special. We got to the stand about 3 o’clock and the wind was howling! 40 mph gusts had me questioning the guys if this stand was gonna blow over.

We didn’t think the deer were going to move to well in these crazy conditions. They were definitely behind schedule but started coming out to eat in the beans and alfalfa. My brother looked and me and said “only 10 minutes of filming light left”. I was wondering if I was going to have to come back out in this cold anymore and Dad said “there he is”. It was the deer we call Mule!, running right to us chasing a doe. He came all the way into 75 yards and I let him have it! He ran 100 yards and fell over while the camera was rolling, OH YEAH, I was so excited, my biggest buck ever by far.

This buck had shown up only a month ago on our Recoynx cameras and was definitely a gift from above. This is my first ever video kill, I had my Iowa GIANT and the best part of it was my whole family was there to share in this experience .......and the fact I didn’t have to set out in that wind any more :) Jaclyn