Take That Rebekah!

Landon Milling, 11, of Sumner, finally got some bragging rights on his sister, Rebekah, after taking a buck and this doe in Worth County on Dec. 9, 2023.

I love my sister. I truly do, but sometimes she just really rubs me the wrong way. I’m 11 years old, and Rebekah is four years older. I’m told that is usually the case with brothers and sisters. For instance, I have been deer hunting with my dad many, many times, but I dad never killed a deer. Heck, I’d never even seen one from the stand.

Rebekah went with Daddy twice a few years ago, and bang, she kills a fat doe. Nothing to it. Of course, she hasn’t let me live it down. So yeah, sometimes she rubs me the wrong way.

Thanksgiving morning 2023 was going to be different. Daddy was taking me to a friend’s house, and he had shown me some pictures of bucks at the deer stand we were going to. I could hardly wait. I was dreaming of killing my first deer, and of course it had to be a buck. Rebekah hadn’t done that.

We settled into the box stand into a couple of cozy office chairs. The morning was calm and about 40 degrees. You couldn’t ask for a better morning to be out of school, hunting with dad, with great weather and the potential to take my first buck.

The woods began to wake up as it cracked daylight. A few squirrels barked a greeting and some birds began their early morning songs. It was perfect. I was happy and ready. And then, my stomach growled. It continued to growl and grumble until I had to ask my daddy if we could go home. I wasn’t feeling so good. We were both disappointed as we trudged back to the truck pretty quickly.

Daddy drove home a little faster than usual, and then about a mile from our house as the sun was rising in front of us, there was a brief flash in front of the truck. The flash was very quickly followed by crash. This wasn’t how it was planned, but with Dad’s help, I had gotten my first deer… a really nice buck, too. Yet, I still had not seen a deer from a deer stand, as Rebekah happily reminded me.

Fast forward to Dec. 9. We were going to try again at another friend’s deer stand. I prayed the day before we went that God would bless me with one of His deer.   

Dec. 9 was a pleasant morning, not too cold and not too hot. As we parked the truck, we saw the first deer of the day. That’s got to be good sign, right? I just felt like it was going to be a good morning. We got into a short box stand on a 5- to 6-acre mowed cotton field with some corn poured out about 60 yards from the stand, and Daddy began to see deer almost immediately through his binoculars. I had left mine at home.  One of the deer he saw was a buck, but it was too early and too dark to do anything about it. Was that going to be my only chance?

Not much later, Daddy spotted a buck about 60 yards to his right, but there was a problem. I am sitting on Daddy’s left. This would take some maneuvering as I worked over into Daddy’s lap to shoot out the right-side window. On a quiet, early morning way out in the woods, that kind of commotion sounds like a freight train inside a deer stand. When I was at last in position, Daddy could no longer see the deer through his binoculars. However, I could see him through my scope.

Boom! Daddy couldn’t see the deer when I shot, and it startled him.

“What are you shooting at?” he said.

I told him that I could see the buck and took a shot. However, he didn’t like the fact that I shot without him seeing the buck, too.

“You can’t do that,” he said.

He then gave me a fairly heated safety talk.

“I thought I taught you better than that,” stuck out in my mind.

Daddy was upset, and I got upset, too. I knew I had shot at a deer but slowly became convinced that maybe I actually had not. After all, Daddy is always right…well, usually.

As the skies lightened more, I pouted a little and Daddy fumed a little.  He asked me if I wanted to stay or go home. My thought was that if we go home, I can go back to bed, but if we stay I may see another deer. We stayed.

Ten minutes later three does emerged 100 yards away and browsed toward the stand. Daddy asked if I wanted to shoot one of them. Heck yeah! I wanted to shoot the biggest one to beat Rebekah.

My lack of luck continued. They spooked a little and worked their way out of view without offering a decent shot. However, a short time later another and bigger doe stepped into the field. Daddy said you better shoot if you’re going to. He bleated, but she didn’t stop. She kept coming.

Finally, she did stop 50 yards in front of us and looked right at us. Daddy almost screamed out the side of his mouth, “Shoot!”

My rifle boomed, and she fell on the spot. Before the echo from the shot died away, I told Daddy, “Let’s go!”

I was excited, and so was Daddy.  He had to calm me down a little. The next 10 minutes were painfully long, but we at last got down and went to my deer. My deer! My first deer! I thought.

We drug my doe over to the side of the field and left to get the truck. We were so happy about my first deer that we had almost forgotten about the buck I shot at earlier.

As we walked to the truck, Daddy said let’s check and make sure that I hadn’t hit the buck earlier that morning. We turned that way and almost immediately saw the buck laying where I had shot it. That 8-point buck was my first deer. The doe was my second.

“I told you so,” I shouted.

Daddy called me Deerslayer Landon. We whooped and hollered and high-fived. What a morning!

When we calmed down a little, he told me to drag the buck the 25 yards or so to the other deer while he went to get the truck. Now I think I mentioned I’m only 11 years old, and I’m not too big either. However, thanks to wet grass and a wild adrenaline rush, I dragged my 8-point buck over to my doe.

We loaded both deer onto the truck, prayed a prayer of thanks to our great God, and Daddy painted a bloody cross on both my cheeks. We took some pictures we will cherish the rest of our lives. Then, we proceeded to do what every proud successful deer hunter does—we started calling people and hauling my deer around to show them off to our friends.

Take that, Rebekah!