By: Gabriella Kendus
I had an eventful day Saturday. It was Delaware Youth Waterfowl Day and also the second day of Delaware’s October antlerless deer season.
My dad and I went to our local hunting club and got into our duck blind. I had a really good feeling that I was going to see some ducks. I was super pumped because this pond is particularly nice for wood duck hunting. The pond is surrounded by woods and perfect for woodies.
Right at legal shooting time we heard some other kids shoot at a nearby pond. There were about nine shots, so we knew they’d scared some ducks. About five minutes later, I heard ducks flying, but I couldn’t see them. Then, out of nowhere, two ducks dropped down to the right of me. I could barely see them, but then two more dropped directly in front of me. (We set up our decoys in a way so that the ducks had to land in front of us.) Both ducks gave me perfect shots for my Remington 11-87.
I brought the gun to my shoulder, and bang! I hit the first one, although most of the pellets hit the water. The gun was big for me, so it was hard to get down on the sights. I shot the second one just before it flew up. Neither was fully dead so I shot each of them again. In total I shot four times. You can’t imagine the look on my face when my dad brought back my first two woodies.
Next up, deer hunting. My dad and I drove to my grandparents’ house where we took a power nap, then headed out to a farm we lease. We got into our stand at around 3:45 pm. We had no action at all until around 5:15. A nice doe came into the bean field at about 120 yards, and another younger doe trailed about 40 yards behind her. We watched them make their way closer for forty-five minutes. I had really thought they’d walk straight in front of our stand. All of the sudden the big doe headed back into the woods not to be seen again.
The smaller one kept on coming though, and I was okay with getting a shot at her. She was about 100 yards when my dad heard something behind us. I turned and saw a raccoon, so I told him he heard a raccoon. Then a car honked. I heard sticks snap behind me and out comes a button buck straight in front of me. He gave me a perfect fifteen-yard shot, so I took it. I shot behind the front leg into the lungs. He bucked up, and then ran almost straight into the stand. We got down from the stand and followed the blood trail. He didn’t even make it 25 yards.