Back in “the day” you might hear about a buddy getting a deer from the buddy himself, or another friend, or down at the general store, or at the check-in station (often the same place as the general store). Nothing is so simple today. I was down in Connecticut, celebrating Thanksgiving with family, when my daughter told me my friend Jim back in Underhill got a buck. My daughter, Maddie, had just received a “tweet” (from Twitter) from Jim’s daughter – with a happy picture of Jim attached. News travels very fast these days. Now to be politically correct, Jim’s daughter’s photo didn’t show Jim’s deer, only Jim sitting down with a BIG smile on his face.

Here is a picture of Jim’s buck that he was smiling about. I stopped up to take a look at the deer on Sunday and to ask Jim about the particulars. He shot the deer in Underhill, around 7 AM on Thanksgiving morning. He was a nice 6 pointer and weighted in at 166 pounds (the deer, although that could probably apply to Jim too…though not the 6 points). Jim said he was waiting for some deer to move through a ledge cut he had scouted. Sure enough he saw a big doe start through the cut, followed by a smaller doe. Immediately after the does passed through, along came the buck. I think Jim said it was about a 50 yard shot. He dropped it with a couple shots from his Ruger Model 77 30-06 with a 3x to 9x Leupold scope.

To the right is a picture of Jim being supervised in his barn by his Lab Abby. Jim said he always wanted to get a deer on Thanksgiving Day. Just another blessing to be thankful for, living here in Vermont. And while news may not travel like it used to, nothing changes the shear excitement of hunting or filling your tag.

Congrats Jim and good luck during muzzle-loader season!

I’ll work on the formatting in future posts. I’m still trying to figure this damn thing out!