By Gabriel "Gabe" Borges
-- My name is Gabe Borges, and I'm 10 years old. I shot my first buck on Sunday, Oct. 28, 2007, at 8 a.m. It was about 5 a.m. when my dad woke me up that morning. I got all my stuff on and headed out with my dad and my brother, Christian, for the morning hunt.
Christian was dropped off at his stand about 5:45 a.m. Then Dad and I walked to our stand along an extended power line. Sunday morning was beautiful. The weather was clear and somewhat cold. After sitting for a while, we saw a big doe walk out. My dad wanted me to take the doe, but I did not shoot.
Then at about 7 a.m., another doe walked out of the woods and my dad said to take aim. So I got ready, aimed and shot. The doe jumped up in the air about 3 feet and ran. I told my dad I thought I hit it in the side. My dad said we should wait and look for the doe in a couple of hours. Since it was so early, we stayed in the stand and waited to see if anything else would walk out.
At 8 a.m. a doe and two fawns walked out and crossed over into the hills. Just as they were going to walk into the woods the two fawns looked deep into the trees. I looked back and a big buck walked out about 30 yards away. My dad said, "Shoot him!" When I looked through the scope the buck was walking away, but my dad made it stop by making a noise. It stopped and I shot. The deer ran very fast back into the swamp, and my dad said I might have missed.
He did say that the buck ran off with his tail down and that sometimes means the deer has been hit. I was so upset that I might have missed. We waited for some time to pass before we went to go look for blood. When we got down from the stand we looked and looked and did not find even a drop of blood. My dad said we should go back to the house and get Mr. Randy and his dog, Blacky.
I told my dad I knew I had to have hit the deer because I put the scope right on it when I fired. When we got back to the stand, we let the dog go, and in about 5 minutes, he found the buck about 100 yards away.
I was so happy! After we took a bunch of pictures we went to look for the doe. Blacky found her in about 10 seconds. I couldn't believe my first youth hunt.
Gabriel "Gabe" Borges
New Orleans, Louisiana