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 Tricia Hefner, 11, of St. Louis, poses with her first buck, shot in the Marshall Junction area on her first hunt. It was the first of two bucks she took Oct. 27, the first day of the two-day youth deer hunting season. (Photo by Eric Crump/Democrat-News.) [Click to enlarge] |
It was the first day of the youth deer hunting season.
It was the first day of her first hunting trip.
And within four hours, Tricia Hefner of St. Louis had bagged her first deer, a six-point buck, while hunting near Marshall Junction.
Hefner and her father, Terry Hefner, had been in the stand for a few hours Saturday, Oct. 27, when they spotted two deer.
After they watched for a while, one of the deer spooked and ran, but the other stayed and soon Hefner told her father she thought she had a good shot.
"She said, 'I could shoot him,'" said Terry Hefner, who has been hunting for 22 years and is primarily a bow hunter. "It was a heart-shot at 50 yards. It was picture perfect."
"I was excited. I wasn't expecting to get a buck," Tricia Hefner said. "I was expecting I might get two does."
Terry Hefner said his daughter had been shooting for less than a year and had been to a practice range about six times, but she had showed a good deal of aptitude for the sport.
The Hefners delivered the buck to Smith's Food Bank, 445 W. Maple St., Slater, which participates in the Share the Harvest program.
But the excitement wasn't over for the Hefners. A local friend of the family, Ron Scott, called later and reported that Tricia had bagged a second deer the same afternoon, a button buck.
"She wasn't even touching the ground as she walked around" she was so excited, Scott said.
The Hefners took the second buck home, he said.
The two-day youth season is over, but firearm deer season for adults begins Saturday, Nov. 10, and continues through Nov. 13. The second gun season is Nov. 17 through Nov. 20, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC).
According to the Web site, hunters took 235,054 deer in the 2006 firearms season and donated 161 tons of venison to Share the Harvest program.
On the Net:
Contact Eric Crump at marshalleditor@socket.net
