2017 - Not about to break tradition with dad
Abby Schoeben has hunted alongside her father, Todd, for as long as she can remember. This year, the tradition paid off in a big way when she harvested an impressive 184.1-pound, 11-point buck and claimed the Bann’s Big Buck Contest title
November 21, 2017 • Voyageur Press
The buck was taken Sunday of opening weekend at a hunting location the family affectionately calls “the Ranch.” The hunt became even more memorable because Schoeben’s boyfriend, Cole Hoover, had just harvested a big buck of his own.
“I was in the stand with my dad when Cole texted me that he had just shot a big buck and he sent a picture,” Schoeben recalled. “He had just asked me to go with him, and I was thinking that maybe I should have gone.”
Although Schoeben occasionally hunts with Hoover, she wasn't about to break tradition with her dad. It turned out to be a good decision.
About 45 minutes after receiving Hoover’s text, Schoeben and her father spotted movement along the woods. A few does emerged first, followed by a much larger deer at the edge of the woods.
“Then, my dad saw a big deer on the edge of the woods, but we weren’t sure if it was another doe,” she said.
Her father took a closer look through his binoculars and quickly realized what they were seeing.
“He said, ‘That’s a buck ... that’s a buck!’” Schoeben recalled.
She quickly positioned herself for a shot.
“I barely had time to look at it and pulled the trigger. I didn’t want it to go back in the woods,” she said.
When Schoeben saw the deer kick up its legs, she knew she had made a good shot. The excitement was shared by both father and daughter.
“It was pretty crazy,” she said. “I was pretty excited.”
Soon, another question emerged: Whose buck was bigger?
The couple took their deer to Bann’s to be weighed, where Schoeben’s buck tipped the scale at 184.1 pounds.
“Cole saw that mine was 184-plus pounds and he said, ‘Yes, mine is bigger!’” she recalled.
Schoeben reminded him that his buck weighed 183 pounds.
“I reminded him that his was 183 pounds, and he said, ‘Oh yeah.’”
In the end, the friendly competition mattered less than sharing in each other’s success. Schoeben had a trophy buck, a contest victory and another memorable hunting story to add to a family tradition.