Lori and her dad, Vernon Ferguson, pose proudly with the 153 6/8-inch trophy that Lori shot on Dec. 1, 2008. Vernon had seen the buck bedded down, and he planned an ambush with several family members. As luck would have it, Lori, who hadn't hunted in several years, ended up shooting the beautiful 10-point trophy.

It was Thanksgiving Day 2008 and Dad was talking about hunting again! He was passing around his video camera, telling everyone in the family about this big buck he'd seen several times during the past few weeks. I was intrigued, so I watched the video. As I watched, I wasn't sure that the buck was as big as Dad claimed it was, but Dad was excited, and that was all he talked about that evening.

At the time, we were not on very good terms. Dad had taken my 5-year-old son, Will, hunting against my wishes. Dad had told me about a new mentor program implemented by the Pennsylvania Game Commission in which you could take a child hunting at any age under proper supervision. I had never heard of the program and I wasn't totally convinced that he wasn't making the whole thing up.

Nevertheless, I argued that, at 5 years of age, Will was not ready to see a deer die. I knew Dad had been working with him, practicing with the crossbow and teaching him where to place the shot on a deer. But I still didn't think Will was ready to see a deer die. I thought it might traumatize him at his young age.

I didn't start hunting with my dad until I was 12 years old, and I felt that Will should be at least a few years older, too. Earlier during the 2008 season, Will had come home from Poppy's (Dad's) house and said that he'd almost gotten a shot at a buck. I asked more questions, and he told me that he'd been hunting with Poppy on three different occasions.

He said he'd been wearing a safety harness and the tree stand they were in had rails on all four sides. But that didn't make any difference. I was still mad. I called Dad and he admitted to everything. Still, it didn't make me feel any better. We hadn't talked much since that time.

OUT OF RETIREMENT
When I answered the phone a few days later on the morning of Dec. 1, 2008, Dad told me he had just seen the big deer that he had captured on video. Dad had already taken a nice 8-pointer back during archery season, so he had been trying to let my Uncle Pablo shoot the big 10-pointer while he ran the video camera.

About 9 a.m., they saw the big bruiser at 150 yards. But the deer went into some thick brush and never came out. Dad climbed down from his tree stand and did a little drive in hopes of pushing the buck past my uncle. However, only three does came out. We don't shoot does during buck season (firearms season) even though it's legal where we hunt in Chester County, Pennsylvania.

When Dad got back to the stand, he told Uncle Pablo that he would go up to the house and do another push. When he was 200 yards from Uncle Pablo, he saw the monster's rack down through the woods. The buck was bedded in some thick brush. Since the buck hadn't cooperated on the first push, Dad was afraid he wouldn't go past Uncle Pablo if he jumped him out of his bed.

So Dad got on the phone and called my brother, Vernon. Vernon was working a second shift, though, and Dad never got an answer. His second call went to his good buddy, Herb. Herb said he couldn't leave work because he was short-handed. Since it was the first day of buck firearms season in Pennsylvania, a lot of people had already taken off to go hunting.

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