My First Bow Buck
by Alexa Loa
My dad, Thomas Loa, and I were hunting our lease–at the time–in Throckmorton, TX. It was already pretty close to the end of the rut, but we just happened to be sitting in the right spot that night.
We sat in that blind many times that season but never saw anything mature enough to kill, saw plenty of nice bucks but they were all too young so we would pass them up every time. I was always taught management is the key on any successful free range lease; we always liked watching our deer grow. To us it’s exciting to see our deer go from babies, to potential shooters, to great mature deer over the years. That evening we were covered up in doe, they were everywhere. We both had our fingers crossed a mature buck would follow one in and two real nice shooters did.
The two bucks came in chasing some does. We watched them for a while, they never left the area and they both had given me a perfect 30 yard shot many times. I couldn’t tell you how many times I glassed both of those deer, I had to make sure I was making the right decision on which one to shoot. My dad kept whispering for me to shoot the bigger one, of course. I just couldn’t do it, there was something about my deer I just knew I had to take that one. So I did, the shot was a little further
I was overwhelmed with excitement. Not just because I had shot the biggest deer of my hunting career, but because I got to share the experience with the person who introduced me to hunting at the age of two and to take it with my family’s product was even cooler. I like to think of it as such a huge blessing to have the opportunity to do what I love to do. I love having such positive support from my parents, and little brother who’s starting to get into it, but also from my loved ones, friends and complete strangers congratulating me on social media. I can’t thank my dad enough for working so hard to provide us with the land we hunt and teaching me everything I need to know to be a successful hunter. This will always be something I enjoy doing with my dad. Nothing beats putting in the work to raise up quality deer with a great hunting partner like him. Hunting is and always will be a huge part of my life and having the opportunity to share my story makes it even more special.
This hunt will always be one of my favorites; I can’t wait to see what next season brings!