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November 18th 2011, MONICA'S FIRST WHITETAIL

By Cody | May 9, 2012

Monica Grona's 2011 Whitetail

What a crazy day it has been… This morning I set out with Rebecca Grona, to try and get a good whitetail for her.   At 10:00am we had a really cool nontypical whitetail come in, with the sun shining and frost covered trees in the background.  A perfect situation for and young hunter, and a cameraman looking for good footage.  As the buck walked by, informed Rebecca that I had the camera on him and that she could take the shot whenever she was ready… CLICK!… I instantly hit panic mode, giving Rebecca heck for not putting a shell in her gun!  Turns out, she had loaded her gun properly, the bullet just misfired.  The primer had a dint in it, but it never went off.  I guess I should have made sure she was using Nosler loads… Too much on my plate I guess.

Rebecca reloaded and prepared for another shot, but the buck bailed on the scene before she could do so… A bad piece of luck, to say the least, but it seems thats the way my whitetail season has been going.

This afternoon we changed stands, and Rebecca's sister Monica became the hunter. Monica is the fiancé of one of my childhood pals Jeffery Colborn, and has never hunted before.  An hour into the hunt, a GIANT, net booner came in from our left, and if I thought we were having tuff luck before, it was about to get a whole lot worse!  The buck walked right out in front of us… Jeff and I coached Monica through the shot and waited for the bang… As a muzzleloader hunter, the disturbing sound of a tumbling bullet broke the silence.  The muzzleloader misfired in the extreme cold temperatures, and the bullet tumbled, barely to the bucks feet!  The booner skipped away, unscathed!!!  The situation was heartbreaking for all of us, but the footage is as entertaining as it gets!  

Five minutes later, an ancient old four by four came in.  We got the smoke pole reloaded just in time for Monica to get a second crack.  And this time, finally, everything went smooth, and Monica is now officially a buck hunter.  This buck isn't as big as the one that got away, but he's still gorgeous!  And one heck of a first buck! 

This is going to be a nasty good episode, with the Grona sisters.

I'm hoping my whitetail luck takes a turn soon.