2011 - “That’s a nice buck”
November 15, 2011 • Voyageur Press
Shay Kelley, a 16 year old junior at McGregor High School, has been surrounded by hunters all of her life. Her uncle, Joe Larson, dad, Kurt Kelley, grandma Gloria Kelley and lots of cousins all hunt. “My grandma really influenced me,” Shay shared. “I mean she’s my grandma, and she gets a big buck every year.”
Still, Shay always wondered what her reaction would be when her turn finally came. “I wasn’t sure if I’d like shooting a deer,” she admitted. “I thought maybe I’d feel bad, but I didn’t. I liked it.”
Shay first started hunting 3 years ago. But until this year she had not gotten a deer. “I could have got does,” added Shay, “but I couldn’t shoot them because of the fawn thing.”
This year Shay went out on opening day and sat in one stand in the morning and a different one in the afternoon. It was seeming like a pretty slow year. “We didn’t hear much shooting at all,” recalled Shay. “I only saw one doe.”
The next morning, on their way out, Shay’s Uncle Joe asked her where she’d like to hunt. She thought about the ladder stand that was 17 feet high or the box stand that was about 3-4 feet off the ground. “So I was like, let’s just go to the camp so I don’t have to climb 17 feet in the dark,” she continued. “I chose right!”
At 7:00 a.m., about 45 minutes after they had gotten there, Shay was “head bobbing” a little. “I woke up and I said something to Joe and the deer was just there. When I saw it, I was like, that’s a nice buck. It was really windy and that’s the only reason it didn’t smell me right away.” Her 243 was sitting beside her, so she had to get it ready. “It came out in front of me, it was like 50 yards away, then it went to my right shooting lane. I didn’t see it again until it was halfway out and then my uncle had to holler at the top of his lungs for it to stop. Then it stopped broadside for about 2 seconds and took a look at me and then it was facing me directly. Then it turned a little corner and I hit it.”
Next came the hard part. Joe wasn’t sure whether Shay had a clean shot or not, and they did not see the deer fall. So they waited and waited. “Two and a half hours,” emphasized Shay. “It felt like 20.”
When they finally went to track the deer, they didn’t find any blood. “Then my uncle played a little trick on me,” laughed Shay. “He went and looked for it and said ‘I don’t see any blood anywhere....I think you might have missed it. All I can find is a big buck laying over there.’ I was like "Oh my God!” It turned out the deer had run about 60-70 yards and had fallen. Shay had a clean shot right through the lung. “75 yards, clean shot through the lung behind the shoulder, when it was halfway facing me I had about 2 inch by 2 inch window that I could shoot it and kill it.”
During the interview, many people came up to Shay to congratulate her on her buck. Then Dave Klumpner came in. “I butchered the deer up for her. I’ve never taken 4 neck roasts off a deer in my life. Four neck roasts came off that deer. It was huge!” He told Shay, “You hit it right. It was a perfect, clean shot.”
The big surprise that Dave found was that Shay was not the first hunter to take a try at this deer. “I was cutting it up and my knife wouldn’t go through,” shares Dave. “It turns out there was an arrow in it, just at the top of its back. It must have been last year or something because it was all healed around it. It hit high in the spine, it never got into the meat at all.”
Now that Shay has had a taste of hunting success, she says she’s hooked and will be hunting again. In fact, she has asked Joe to start teaching her to bowhunt.