East TN Whitetail

My brother-in-law and I have always hunted the first Youth Hunt since I was in 5th grade, so we already had this weekend planned. Saturday the weather wasn’t too pleasing, so we went later that day around noon. There was lots of rain and the deer weren’t moving at all that day. So we decided to hit the woods early the next morning. We wake up around 5 or so and get in the stand by 6:30. The sun is still coming up so I decide to take a nap. I just remember waking up to my brother-in-law tapping my arm, saying, “Shelby! Shelby! Wake up!! Big buck over my right shoulder!” I didn’t believe him one bit. I said, “No way, you’re joking”. And sure enough as I’m looking at him, I just see a rack stick out from behind him, at like 30 yards. So I start freaking out and trying to get the gun set up. I started to get upset because it looked like I he was leaving and going into the thicket, but he changed direction. He started climbing this ridge and he gets at about 100 yards and is quartering away so hard, that he’s almost completely facing away. My brother-in-law stops him… I squeezed the trigger then… “CLICK”, it was a dud. The buck is still looking around, I racked another one in there, then… “BOOM!!!” He kicks and runs off and we start celebrating! Most of that was a blur. I call my family and tell them and then we start heading down to find this deer. We look for like 20 minutes trying to find blood, I started to get worried, but I knew I made a good shot. Then we finally find blood and start tracking. We track for like 200 yards and all I remember next is my brother-in-law saying look right there, and I look at him and he gives me the biggest hug. We run over to him and look. I made a perfect shot, right behind the shoulder. Then we took some pictures. I gutted him and helped drag him out. We take him for my family to see.