My son is home on leave from the Air Force and we finally got a chance to go hit the woods. Our main goal was coyote and our secondary targets were hogs... after we set up, which was about a half hour before dark, I told my son deer season is still in and if we saw a legal buck we will shoot him because family members have asked for some meat. Well... no shit, about 2 or 3 minutes before legal quitting time for deer, this deer steps out. My son was on the thermal and said it was a doe. I was still on day glass and saw what looked like a legal length main beam so I shot. Turned out to be a unique buck with a nice drop tine. I even had my 5-round magazine in my AR15 so I was legal from top to bottom...





We stayed put for an hour calling but no luck so we decided to move to another location. The boy on gun...



We got set up and it wasn't long until various hogs crossed our path... my son was dead on with his aim tonight and he went eight for eight with the longest kill coming in at about 150-175 yards. He managed to take a very large boar with really nice cutters.



A group of five came by and he managed to get four of them. We continued to call but despite hearing yotes in the distance, none came within detection range. We gathered up the hogs for some pics and called it a night.





We had a great night afield and I got to do some father-son talking which was nice. I miss my son being home but I'm very proud of what he is doing. I look forward to out next time afield. If all goes well, I'm headed out to WY (where my son lives) for mule deer in October where he says he can put me on a buck.

Awesome! I’m glad your son was able to go hunting with you while home on leave. That’s a nice buck and hogs.????

Congrats, especially on the family aspect.
Now a question, as I'm clueless how you do it.
You shot a buck, and hung out for quite awhile afterwards.
Are you bringing 5 coolers loaded with ice, and quartering the deer up?

I've seen guys deer hunting in SW Florida, but never got to see the field dressing routine.
In for any info , as I'll soon be Florida man myself, and wondering how its done.

Ps. (I've shot plenty of deer, but usually its between 20 to 40 degrees when I've done it.)

It was a cool evening and turned colder during the hunt. We gutted/cleaned it at about 1am... no issues.

The cooler/colder it is the longer you can delay. If I shot the buck on a 70 + degree day, I'd have had it skinned, gutted, cut up within two hours.

Nice!  Looks like it was a productive evening.

Cool. Thanks for the reply.
Do I remember that you are in central Florida? I see that it's 64 degrees in Everglades city right now. It's 40 here.

I bet they are wearing mittens and ski parkas on Ft Myers beach.

Want to come out to California and take care of some of these pesky things?  This was on my way home from Costco the other day.

I moved from south Florida to Southern California, giving up alligators for coyotes.

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Interesting...

We got gators, raccoons, coyotes, deer, pythons and bears. (City life but in the woods.)
Have to keep my garbage in the garage.

Freaking coons tear up my yard nightly and sometimes want to come in the house during the day.