(I wrote this story for an English paper, it's funny just read it.) I wrote about how much I couldn’t wait until deer season to come around and in late October the wait was over. I told them that if I shot something I would write about it to tell them what happened. I shot a deer in October but it wasn’t anything to brag about and I was a little down because of basketball starting up and the weather not cooperating. It gave me less time to get into the woods because you can’t really hunt when it’s warm, the deer don’t move very well, and skipping basketball practice, we won’t even go there. Well like I said October was okay but it was here and gone. Next thing I knew it was coming up on Thanksgiving Break, sweet right?, not really, see while all of you were sleeping in and figuring out what to do for the day I was at basketball practice for a good part of the day. Now what I’m going to tell you now could be hard to believe but it’s true. The coaches decided to give us Thanksgiving Day and the day before off. So what was I going to do with myself? I figured nothing better than to head out and get some good hunting in. Now I know we have had one the poorest winters I can remember. At least for me because there’s nothing better than hunting in the snow. If you can think far enough back you’ll be able to remember that on the day before Thanksgiving we had the first and pretty much only significant snowfall we had all year. By about 1:30 or 2:00 in the afternoon we had about 2 to 3 inches on the ground and it wasn’t slowing down. Needless to say I was going hunting. My dad and my friend Justin went too. They had been hunting this new spot hard for about two weeks and knew where they wanted to sit. I had never been there so they just sent me to a spot about a mile across a field. We were all loving the snow and my dad was going to drive us all out. We got to the woods and by that time which was about 2:30 we had at least 4 inches on the ground. Everything was going great. I didn’t like where they told me to go but oh well I got to go to the woods. It was a long walk but I made it in about 15 minutes. I was up in my tree at about 3:00 and I was tired, sweating, and had snow piled on me. I wasn’t seeing anything after about a half hour so I sat my bow down and hit my grunt call a little. Nothing. So I just kicked back and relaxed. In front of the tree I was sitting in was a big oak tree so the only place I couldn’t see and wouldn’t you know it… about 4:30, as soon as I let my guard down, I saw around the tree, snow falling off the thorn bushes about 40 yards away. It was time, I leaned around the tree and there he was coming into my grunt with his head down on the trail. He was coming in and he was coming right for me so I couldn’t pick my bow up. I had to think fast because he got to within about 10 yards and started to quarter the other way once he didn’t see any other deer, so I stood up, grabbed my bow, and let out my patented “Meamp”, he stopped… THUMP! The arrow was off and so was he. He was stumbling but moving fast and he went over the hill past the brush… CRASH! He went down but I didn’t know because I couldn’t see at the time. I waited about 20 minutes and then went to get the guys. We went to my stand and didn’t find the arrow or blood, not good but we kept walking and there he was against a tree. He was down. Justin and I dragged him out of the woods and field dressed him while dad went and got the truck. It was so wet dad backed his truck into the woods and we ended up dragging the deer about 2 miles and pulling his truck out with the tractor but it was worth it. The buck was 285 lbs, had 10 points, and a 20 inch spread. I’m still waiting on the mount but the meat sure has been good and the mount shouldn’t be much longer.

Ryan Queen