“Nick… Slowly, grab your bow.” Grandpa whispered with a quivering voice. It was a cold, November day. Typical. But it was a bit nippier than usual which made it a perfect night to go hunting. Little did I know that today would be a milestone in my hunting career.

“Nick wake up you have school today!” Mom hollered through my doorway. It was tuesday. Still the start of the week. I HAVE to go to school? I thought. I did my daily morning routine. Wake up, eat, brush my teeth, get dressed, and get on the bus. I went to school, sleepy as possible. But it was feeling like a typical day until I got a text from my mom during break. VNT VNT. I looked at my phone. It said, “If you want to, grandpa will take you hunting later today.” At first I thought, Nah. But as the day went on and I got home, I thought What if I get the big one that’s on the property?! So I decided that I would go. I started to get my hunting camo together until my brother interrupted me.
“Are you going hunting?” Justin questioned.
“Yah, Mom texted me at school that Grandpa will take me out.” I replied.
“Can I go with you and hunt from my stand?” he asked.
“Sure, as long as you don’t steal my buck.” I said with a grin.
We both got our stuff together and found our bow cases. When Mom got home, the first thing we did was pack our stuff into her car. We went back inside and talked while we grabbed a snack. Then we hopped into the car to head over to Grandpas house. Grandpa has a 8 acre lot over by The Mines Golf Course. My grandpa is an amazing hunter. He has multiple bucks of a lifetime and has killed multiple different kinds of animals. He is a decorated hunter so he knows his stuff. When we got there we chatted until my mom left. Once she left we went straight to business. We got our thin layers on and then our thick layers. We weren’t gonna be cold. We double check to make sure we had all of our equipment. Bow, check, release, check, hat, check, baklava, check, phone, check. I had everything. So we started the journey to the blind. We chatted about little things. Just some small talk to pass the time. But once we started to get close to the blind we didn’t talk. We better not spook something. I thought. As we came over the hill, we saw the blind. Justin parted off to go to his stand. I wished him luck and we went our ways. Grandpa opened the blind up and we hopped in.
  As we got settled in, we started to chat again. The conversation drifted away quickly and we focused on the outside of the blind. My bow sat there hanging on a hook on the ceiling. I slowly faded away staring outside of the blind. I had fallen asleep. I woke up to a loud CRACK! like wood breaking. Was that a deer?? I thought. We waited quietly for a few minutes to see if anything would show up. We guessed that it was just a tree branch breaking and falling. After what felt like an eternity, we finally got some action.
“Nick are you hearing this?” whispered my grandpa.
“Yah, what do you think it is?” I questioned.
“It might be a deer.” he responded.
And he appeared. Coming over the hill was a beautiful spike, whitetail. He was a nice fat deer.
“Nick, slowly, grab your bow.” Grandpa whispered with a quivering voice. I grabbed it as slowly and steadily as I could but I was shaking because of the adrenaline rushing through me. The deer walked right down a path and stepped right up to where I needed him to go. He put his head down and started eating the apples that we had set out. Bum Bum, Bum Bum. All I could hear was my heart pounding and the sound of apples crunching. I attached my release to my bow’s string. I drew back. I took a deep breath. Weeeeshh, Woooooo. TWANG, went my string as the arrow flew through the air. The broad head struck the deer in the shoulder area. He bolted right past my brothers stand.
“Oh. My. Gosh. That was awesome!” I exclaimed to my grandpa.
“Good shot buddy! You hit him good.” Grandpa said. My phone vibrated. It was my brother. Did you just shoot that spike? he asked Yeah, did it look like I hit him good? I questioned. Yah, I saw blood. he responded. Good. I said. We waited it out until dark to see if anything else would show up. Nothing did so we headed back up to the house to tell the good news. My mom and dad were at the house when we got back. We conversed about what had happened. We gathered up and decided that me, Mom, Justin, and Grandpa would go out and look for blood. We went back to where we saw the deer last and went from there. Blood here, a little blood there. The trail started to become harder to track with very little blood to follow. After about an hour of searching and a 300 yard trek, my grandpa said “Nick, I think we better give up.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because he’s right there!” he said as he shined it on my deer. We were as happy as could be.
Grandpa and Justin went back to the house on the quad to go and get the sled to bring the deer up. I took pictures on my phone while we waited for the quad. We were ecstatic. They got back and we tied his antlers to the quad and put him on the sled. When we got to the house my dad was sitting outside grinning from ear to ear. I hugged him and we started taking pictures.
Later on we took the deer to a processor to get meat from it
As we took the pictures I was very grateful that god sent me this awesome creature. I love hunting even more now.