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Steve Crawford sent in this shot of his son, Daijon Bannister, with the eight-pointer he killed in Campbell County. Steve included a great story so I’ll just let him tell it:

” Its not the biggest buck, obviously, but it was his first for the year and sometimes the whole hunting story is what makes the deer a trophy, as is this case.

We live in Daleville and were going to be hunting Campbell County where firearms season was  still going. The property isn’t very big and deer mainly just pass through it, so I had a thought that we might go somewhere in Bedford half the day, so we had to bring the muzzleloaders, too.

In all the confusion, we left the 3-inch 00 buckshot shells at home that morning. He is more comfortable with the shotgun as he hasn’t had any success with a scoped rifle. He reluctantly carried my rifle and I carried my muzzleloader but we didn’t see any deer that morning.

We went to my parents’ house in Lynchburg to have lunch for my mom’s birthday. I “borrowed” some shells from dad so Daijon could carry his trusty ol’ 12 gauge that evening. Sure enough, with about 10 minutes left of legal light, this basket racked 8-point came through at just 20 yards.

I always cringe when I hear the shotgun go off….I think of not having a blood trail and Daijon, not having the experience a lot of kids his age do, not making a mental note of where the deer was when he shot and the last place he saw the deer. I actually thought I heard the deer crash from where I was sitting, but wasn’t sure.

Daijon did a great job directing to where the deer was when he shot, and then pointed me off in the direction it went. He joined me and we hadn’t walked maybe 20 yards and I spotted it laying just out of sight (it was getting dark) from where he had been sitting. I was happy to not have to come all the way back out the next day to find it, but even happier that he had made such a good shot and did all the mental “after-shot” work to make finding it easy!

Daijon got a late start in his hunting career, but he is going to be a good one!”

This is just a great story about a great father/son hunt. Daijon’s smile is just fantastic in this picture and I bet Steve’s was even bigger when he was taking the shot. Congrats to both Steve and Daijon!