Another deer hunting story from Wayne County, OHIO.

IMHO, that 20ga load was probably a slug.

Enjoy.

Lew
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Hostetlers are fans of youth season
And Evan's 15-pointer is the proof

By ART HOLDEN Daily Record Outdoor Editor Published: November 26, 2012
4:00AM

WOOSTER -- Heath Hostetler is an avid whitetail deer bow hunter, and
he's also a fan of the Ohio Division of Wildlife's weekend set aside
for youth to gun hunt deer.

His two boys are fans as well.

Over the past four years, the Hostetlers have made good use of the
youth season, and last weekend, 13-year-old Evan Hostetler was one of
over 9,000 Ohio youth to find success during the two-day season. The
John R. Lea seventh grader dropped a fine 15-pointer while hunting in
a ground blind with his father in East Union Township.

"That's the best thing the state has done, giving kids the opportunity
to get the first crack," said Heath Hostetler. "They're the future of
the sport, and if you don't get them started, the sport may not be
here in the future. I enjoy seeing a child shoot anything, a doe or a
buck, so the two-day youth season -- I'm all for it.

"You're hunting at the end of the rut with a shotgun, you can't get
any better circumstances than that for the youth."

Getting his children started in hunting has been important to Heath,
and Evan, for one, is glad his father has taken the time to teach him,
and his older brother Graham, the ropes.

"Dad's great, because he's been able to teach us the basics, and now
we're learning more about strategies," said Evan. "He shows us how to
hunt woods and ravines, fields and do deer drives.

"I'm lucky to have a dad who puts me on deer."

Heath says its partly luck that he's found places to take some nice
whitetails over the years, but notes that it's been different
locations for different deer. The one constant is that Heath likes to
hunt out of ground blinds.

"In a ground blind, you're going to give off scent," said Heath, "so
we spray doe in heat around us. I recommend to anyone using a ground
blink to spray that. We use three-legged dove seats and make ground
blinds."

Reading the terrain and time of season puts the Hostetlers in the best
possible situation for success.

This past weekend, that meant setting up on the edge of a picked corn
field, and overlooking a ravine, where Heath was hoping a young buck
would work its way up to feed on the edge of the field. Instead, it
was a 15-point bruiser.

"Dad said, 'here comes a monster,' and I got my gun up," said Evan.
"It must have just gotten up from being bedded down because he still
had frost on his antlers.

"I think it's the best I'll shoot the rest of my life," Evan added of
the deer that green-scored 169. "It's going to be a hard to beat this
one."

Evan shot the deer with the same Remington 20 gauge his grandfather
gave to Heath when Heath was a young teen.

"It's gone through three generations," said Evan, who also uses the
gun to rabbit and dove hunt.

Evan's brother Graham, a Waynedale freshman, took a 6-pointer with a
crossbow back in October.

"It's all about taking the kids out and getting them a shot at deer,"
Heath said. "They're going to be grown up before you know it."