Ten-year-old Jared and his big buck

Fernie Rod and Gun Club junior member Jared Hutchinson studied for the CORE hunting exam all summer and when his tenth birthday arrived on August 17 he was ready for the test.

The young hunter aced the test and had obtained his hunting number and was ready for the up and coming hunting season.

Three weeks later on September 7 he was sitting in a ground blind with his dad Kevin watching an alfalfa field.  The hunters were watching some does when a small two point whitetail came out.  Jared opted not to harvest the young buck and waited to see if there was anything bigger around.  Just as the guys were about to leave Kevin spotted a larger buck coming out of a draw.  It was a shooter but Jared couldn’t get a clear shot at the buck because of a tree just outside the blind.

They quietly snuck out of the blind to a nearby stump where Jared could see the buck and use the stump as a steady rest.  With his trusty Browning 7mm-08 Jared took the buck down, hitting it twice from a distance of 120 yards.  The big buck was still in velvet and also had some battle wounds from fighting with other deer. His ear was split and his chest had some scars on it. Jared and his dad took the deer immediately to the taxidermist to have the antlers treated so the velvet would not come off.

Jared would like to eventually have the deer mounted and tell everybody the story of the big deer.  Now Jared is on to mule deer hunting as elk season is over. Jared came very close to harvesting an elk this year also. He and his dad were out when the elk were rutting and Jared called an elk in to 25 yards using his Macdaddy call.

“I was shaking like crazy!” Jared said. The elk came in close and Jared’s dad looked it over closely and identified it as only a five spike and told Jared not to shoot. An elk has to have at least six points on one antler to be a legal animal to harvest. Jared’s favourite animals to hunt are elk and deer and he hopes to get a goat draw next year. His favourite treat from the deer meat is jerky.

The big deer has not been officially scored yet as you have to wait 60 days after the harvest date to have it scored.

Great deer Jared! Congratulations!