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*Editor's Note; Nothing thrills me more than to see a youngster in the field having his photo taken next to the animal they have harvested. Beyond the importance of passing on the hunting experience to a new generation, it brings to mind many happy memories spent in the field with my own sons, now grown. How well I remember the look on their faces so much like young Jacob. In the photo below we see Jacob Knight proudly sitting beside his hard won trophy. This is not Jake's first deer; we had the privilege of chronicling the story of Jake's first deer in another earlier issue of our ModernSportsman.com Home Page Magazine. That first story was written by Big John Knight, Jacob's Dad and an Administrator of our ModernSportsman.com Member Forum. What makes this particular tale so singular is this is Jake's own account of his hunt for this deer. So with out any further ado I'll turn you over to the capable hands of Jacob Knight as he tells you the story of "My Eight Pointer" Jacob Knight sits in the back of his Dad's pick-up holding on to the fine trophy that will soon be hanging on the walls of the Knight home. My Eight Pointer by Jacob Knight Well, it all started Saturday morning at 4:50. Uncle Dean came and picked me up at about 5:45, to take me hunting for Ohio youth gun season. We went out to the same farm I shot that slunger turkey on just north of Waverly. We started out in a big open field that we usually drive the truck through when we get there but this time we came in off of Hoffman lane. Well we sat there for about two and a half to three hours until the cows got out; before we knew it we were surrounded by cows so we picked up and moved to another spot. We walked onto a different piece of property and through some high weeds hoping to maybe jump one up, no luck, but we did see a buck chasing a doe up a hill about 300 to 350 yards up hill then we saw two does at the same spot about a minute after we saw the first two. We walked about thirty yards and sat down on the edge over looking a field covered with tall grass hoping one might wonder in. No luck, we left that spot about thirty minutes later. We decided to go back across the same field and just kind of walk; well, we jumped up a doe, she was about 90 yards away and Uncle Dean said "don't shoot her, you really want a buck besides," he said, and I agree, she would have been hard to get out of there. Next thing I said was, "What do you want to do?" He said, "Why don't we go back to the truck and change into lighter clothing", because it had been cold that morning and it was about 9:45 and was starting to warm up. We said we would drive over to the swamp where our buddy Johnny Voorhees had been seeing a lot of deer during bow season. So we got over there ready to go, I threw the gun on my back and we were off; we took no more than 30 steps and my buck was chasing a doe. So we took off to the left as fast as we could and I heard one of them bleat so we went up a little path to the top of the hill. We looked over to the side and there he was about 35 yards away; he started to run and Uncle Dean said "Shoot!"; it all happened so fast I hadn't even taken off the safety. I took it off and I pointed and shot just like shooting clay pigeons. He stumbled, bumped a tree and was off. All that I said was, man that hurt my ears I guess I wasn't ready for that. We ran down to a big tree, we saw the doe looking at him dying but we didn't know this at the time. Uncle Dean knew I hit him but didn't know how well. He said, "If he comes around the corner bust him again." Uncle Dean went down the hillside and he couldn't find him, he called me down to help him blood trail it; as soon as I get down there he goes. "There he is with pools of blood beside him"; a Texas heart shot through the butt into the heart. I was going to gut the deer but as soon as we cut it open there was just a pool of blood gathered in it so Uncle Dean did it so I didn't mess any thing up. That is the biggest deer I have ever shot in my life. I just think I get lucky when I kill things: last year's turkey 47 yards, last year's deer missed once then shot it at 90 + yards in the head, my first turkey, the Jake, the one I missed the tom and killed the Jake, and this year 35 yards on the run up the but I just think I'm lucky but there's nothing wrong with that. We called Johnny to help us get the deer out but by the time he got there Uncle Dean and I had that bad boy gutted and ready for pictures. Johnny got there and he was ready for the picture time. It was one of the best experiences of my life and I owe a lot of it to Uncle Dean.  One final look at Jake and his eight pointer.  |
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