Hunter: Macy McFarland
Points: 7 (3L, 4R)
County: Hancock
Season: 2020-2021
Hunt Story
My 9 year old daughter Macy hunted a few times last year with a crossbow with no success, but went Into this season determined to get her first deer. She has only missed one Saturday afternoon since bow season opened, passing up shot opportunities at 14 different does and two 4-pointers in Putnam County, and had a close call with a decent 7-pointer in Jones County, but it was her first morning hunt of the year on my Hancock County lease that was the magic hunt for her. As usual she slept for the first 30-45 minutes, but once she was good and awake we practiced to make sure she could shoot sitting down in the office chair that’s in the box stand. She said she was good so I did a rattle and grunt sequence, with a 2nd grunt sequence about 4-5 minutes later. Within a minute I saw the buck walk out Into the logging road and stare back at the stand looking for the source of the noise. He was broadside at 125 yards and she is a good marksman so I gave her the gun and flipped the safety off for her. I watched him in my binos and told her he was mature so she could take him if she was comfortable with the shot. After a minute or so she still hadn’t shot and the buck started to walk on across the road so I stopped him with a grunt. I told her he wasn’t going to hang around much longer and she needed to find his shoulder and squeeze the trigger...the 6.5 Creedmoor barked and down he went. To say she was excited is an understatement...but still not as excited as I was for her. Once we got to the buck I recognized him as a nice 4 1/2 year old 8-pointer we call No Brow as he has really short brow tines. A 192-pound 4 1/2 year old 8-pointer as her first deer was pretty awesome. She is a full fledged deer hunter now and I look forward to many more hunts with her.
