Daijon Bannister scores twice this past weekend
Daijon Bannister and little brother Connor with Daijon's 8-pointer.
UPDATE 5:04 pm. As a reader pointed out, and politely so, the gun in the top picture is not pointed in a 100 percent safe direction. Daijon’s dad, Steve Crawford, submitted a comment below in which he took full responsibility. He and I have traded a few emails this afternoon discussing this. Steve sent in the lower picture a little while ago. It’s clear to see what happened. He shot the picture of Daijon, then when Connor got in the frame Daijon moved over. As I wrote in my comment, sometimes excitement gets the better of us. This is not the end of the world.The gun was unloaded. There was no accident. I really do see this as a teaching opportunity, which is why I commend Steve for allowing me to keep these pictures up here. This is something that other readers can look at and learn from, and that might eventually help prevent an accident. END UPDATE.
Steve Crawford sent these shots and this great story about a fun hunt with his sons:
“Daijon Bannister scored a touchdown Friday night and a nice eight-point Saturday evening. My 9-year-old and I walked up to help Daijon with his deer as it was starting to get dark.
We were all three talking and cutting up as I was showing Conner the ” ins and outs” of field dressing when we heard something creeping up the side of the mountain. We just knew it was a deer, so I asked Conner to hand me my muzzleloader and then to be real still and not move.
Daijon Bannister with his Botetourt County eight-pointer.
I saw antlers so I got the gun up and waited for it to come out from behind a tree about 15 yards away. As soon as he did, I shot. The five-point didn’t go far. I know a lot of people wouldn’t shoot a buck this small, but its a small tract of land and it was the first time Conner had been with me and seen a deer before, during, and after the shot. Great teaching moment! It was too dark to get any good hero shots together with both deer.”
Daijon’s touchdown, by the way was on a 3-yard-run for Lord Botetourt in its game against Northside, which the Vikings won 28-6.
Congrats to Daijon and and his dad for a great hunt. I bet Connor was pretty excited, too!
November 7, 2012 - 11:23 AM
I am very pleased to see young people hunting and I don’t want to sound any different but that gun in the pic is pointing up at that young man . Please if anybody is reading this make sure you explain every gun should be treated as a loaded gun and should always be pointed in a safe direction . Congratulations on the kill .
Yes it is, no excuse for it. We had just taken a picture of Daijon and the deer when I asked him to slide down a little to let Conner in the picture, which makes it so the barrel is about at his elbow. All 3 of us knew his gun was unloaded as we had just talked about it and checked it as I put the gun across the deer moments before. As I was hitting send on this email I even had the thought someone would probably comment on it, I was right.
Mark Taylor, you just had to throw that in there about the outcome of the game! Haha! Oh well….
Steve — Sorry to open the wound re: the game! Hey, Daijon’s TD was a bright spot, right?
I appreciate Michael bringing this up, and I really appreciate you quickly responding. As soon as I got the shot I thought, “Well, this could end up being a teaching moment.”
Michael handled this the right way, pointing it out but not being a jerk about it.
I was actually thinking about my first spring gobbler. I shot it, ran to it while carrying my shotgun, picked it up and walked back to my buddies with my gun. Only after we started taking hero shots did I realize that I hadn’t yet put my safety of my semi-auto on. Still sends shivers down spine.
The point being, it’s not hard to make mistakes when we are excited. The key is to hope those mistakes don’t lead to tragedy, be thankful when they don’t, and to learn from them.
Steve I understand and once again I wasn’t trying to ruin the moment . Great job on getting our youth out in the woods .
Two nice bucks and a great story. Daijon and Steve are both deserving a lot of credit for “Manning Up” on the gun photo, yes we all got a refresher on gun safety but there is not a one of us that hasn’t learned something from mistakes we have made in handling guns. These men handled this situation perfectly. I applaud both of these men and wish all three of this crew many more great outings together.
Congrats on two great bucks!!! Daijon and Connor’s smiles are what it’s all about. Great story!
Way to go Dajon on your double harvest!
congratulations on your fine bucks!
And STEVE, Kudos to you on your mentoring of those kids. I know you have a very full plate and make many sacrifices of your own time to get those children out there. Those kids are blessed to have you !