Andrew Lair – Troy, OH
Andy started bow hunting with his friends when he was fifteen years old. He grew up in a rural area and his grandfather owned a farm. Since then, many years have gone by, and Andy has trodden through life and through fields, harvesting deer, and raising a family of his own, and still holding onto a dream of getting a shot at a monster buck!
It was a November day during gun season of 2007. Andy had gone out to the field late the day before to see if there was any action. He walked to the corner of the woods where two fence rows came together. He hunkered down in the fence row to observe this new area. Andy saw lots of deer sign, and after last shooting time he quickly scouted around and picked a tree stand location for the following day. He would be back with his Thompson/Center Omega .50 caliber muzzleloader .. hoping to smell the black powder as it burned through the barrel for a victory shot!
Ron Zeiler
You see, Caleb is neither an early riser nor one to sit still for minutes let alone hours. Every year he tells me how he’s ready ’cause he’s older and wiser now. Kolby, his eight year old brother and the youngest of my wife, Kathy, and my four children, thinks hunting is “boring”. I don’t know if Caleb had been allowed to watch or listen to too many campaign ads or what, but he began applying pressure to go along hunting way too early this year, just like the candidates, and he was relentless, just like the candidates.
Little did I know that his campaign promises held about the same amount of “take it to the bank” truth as the politicians’. He must have caught me in a weakened state after a barrage of candidate phone calls and ads when all I could think about was getting to the mountains to shoot at something, because I told him he could go – big mistake to give in too early, as I then heard “how many more days till we go” at least twice a day for months.
Tom Krans
Levi Schiefer – Cross Lanes, WV
Randy Keller – Illinois
The rut was just around the corner so we both were rattling antlers. I had one big buck come Running in on me so fast It caught me off guard. So I sat there dejected and running the scenerio over and over in my mind and after I quit crying I hit the antlers again.
After enough time to make me start weeping about my missed opportunity I rattled another VERY nice buck in and had plenty of time to get set and just wait.
After what seemed like hours he gave me the perfect shot.