Syracuse.com - Tales from Woods: A teenage girl's first deer and a guy who successfully hunts with a home-made bow

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"Me and my dad were in the woods screaming and hollering," the girl said. "You probably could have heard us a couple miles away."

A proud Trista Kuhn with her 7-point buck. Submitted photo </p> Trista Kuhn was out hunting with her father, Greg, in the town of Camillus last Saturday and said she decided to pass on a “decent-sized buck” and two doe.

“We wanted a bigger buck,” the 15-year-old Camillus girl said.

Sunday morning, a bigger buck stepped out from some goldenrod into view.

“He came out of nowhere,” she said. “He stood there for a good 15 minutes looking in our direction.”

The buck then quickly turned and started to head back in the weeds. Kuhn said it was then that she pulled the trigger on her Browning 12-gauge shotgun.

“He probably went a total of 10 feet and dropped right there,” she said. “My dad couldn’t believe it. He didn’t have to track him. It was my first deer ever.”

She said she and her dad started celebrating.

“Me and my dad were in the woods screaming and hollering,” Kuhn said. “You probably could have heard us a couple miles away. This was a huge accomplishment for me, and I am so proud of myself. I showed up all the guys and it feels great.”

Kuhn’s buck was a seven-pointer. She said its antler spread was about 18 inches, with 6-inch brow tines. The left beam of the antlers was missing.

“It probably broke off when he was fighting (with another buck),” she said. “He would have been an 8.”

John Carroll and his deer that he got with his bow. Submitted photo

Homemade bow

Bowhunter John R. Carroll, of LaFayette, likes to do things the old-fashioned way.

He sent in a picture this week of a 3-point buck he shot “at 12 paces” on Oct. 28 with his homemade bow.

“I made this hickory self bow by cutting the tree on my property and then shaping and tillering (it),” he said. “I have shot three deer with it so far.”

A self bow is a bow made from a single piece of wood.

“The bow is 45 pounds at my draw length and is quite a challenge to get a deer close enough to shoot,” he added.

Carroll said he got the 3-pointer “a day before Hurricane Sandy.”

“I know it’s not a big buck, but for me it is a joy just to harvest a deer with (a bow I made myself),” he said.

He said the picture he sent was taken in his barn “because Hurricane Sandy was blowing outside” at the time.

Tales from the woods

Have an eye-opening, lesson-learning or downright funny hunting tale? Send it to [email protected]. Pictures would help.

View the full article on The Syracuse Outdoors Blog