- January 1st, 2007
- Hunter:Dave Reisner
- Location:Iowa
- Weapon:TC Pro Hunter
- Animal:160" 11pt. Whitetail
Story as told by John O'Dell:
On the evening of December 30th Dave and I decided to try and change our luck. We decided to take along my five year old son Jacob on his first ever deer hunt. The season was wearing on Dave and I both with mild weather and slow deer movement so we thought bringing Jacob along would help to brighten our spirits. The hunt started off in a comical way with Jacob and Dave a little confused about if they were talking about bugs or bucks. Finally we had Jacob squared away and he was helping us to look for bucks. Sure enough right before dark a really nice buck showed up. He was probably a mid 140" 10 pointer which Jacob named "Grand Finale". Jacob told Dave to shoot the buck at least a dozen times (like father like son I guess) but true to his word he was holding out for Mr. Big, as he wanted to shoot a fully mature deer. It was a fun hunt and I am definitely looking forward to future hunts with Jacob.
On the afternoon of January 1st Dave and I headed out to one of our favorite farms with high hopes of harvesting a good deer. In an effort to mix things up we opted to skip the morning hunt and so we went pheasant hunting with some friends and family. We had a great morning harvesting more than a dozen roosters so we thought maybe '07 was off to a good start. We had a high pressure system following several days of rainy, cloudy, and windy weather and we finally had a NW wind so we could hunt our famous bean field that is corn and Biologic this year. The evening started out slow as far as the deer movement and so Dave went to his customary napping. The first deer to show up was a spike buck followed by some does and fawns. At about 10 minutes till 4 four a nice 2&1/2 year old 8 pointer came into the field. Then to my surprise at 4:00 on the nose I looked up and could not believe my eyes. A fully mature 5&1/2 year old 11 pointer was standing at the edge of the field. After several tense moments of the big buck weaving in and out of the stripped corn he finally presented Dave with a 140-yard shot. He made a perfect shot with our new TC Pro Hunter and we knew the big buck wouldn't go far. After a quick recovery we finished up this years hunting season with Dave's biggest gun kill ever a 160" 11 pointer. We recognized this as a buck that we have pictures of from two seasons prior as a 3&1/2 year old. The "magical bean field" has been very productive for Dave and I over the years and this year was no exception with my 152" 14 pointer and Dave's 160" 11 pointer. We are done hunting now for the year and I can't think of a better way to finish up our season.