Age is just a number and that’s what this 63-year-old rookie hunter is proving.
John Frederico just began deer hunting at the age of 61, Mark Blazis reports on Telegram.com. This Massachusetts man shows that it’s never too late to start a bobby, especially one that allows you to enjoy the wild outdoors.
Frederico humbly says, “It was the first deer I ever shot. I had it just three times on my trail cameras over the last two years, so I never really expected I’d ever get a shot at it.”
The rookie hunter experienced a range of emotions after taking the deer on his own land.
“I still can’t believe it,” Frederico told Blazis.
Rookie Hunter Scores Impressive Sized Buck
Maybe it’s beginners luck, or years of research on Frederico’s part, but the buck he harvested measured in at 20-points.
Two of its bone-hard, solid calcium brow tines — the ones sticking up vertically over the forehead — had broken off from fierce fighting. The great buck dressed out at 154 pounds, perhaps 50-pounds lighter than normal because of the November rut.
“On December 3, I got up on my tree stand without a clue of what was going to happen. Just before 7 a.m., I saw a buck walk between two trees in a dense spot,” Frederico remembers. “I knew he was a buck — but I really couldn’t see much of his rack. I didn’t know he was the big buck.”
“As usual, I had loaded just one shot in my 12-gauge Mossberg pump. When I got him in my sights, I shot — really calmly — and didn’t notice him even flinch. At that moment, I wasn’t sure I even hit him because he just walked off as if nothing happened.”
It was only then that the rookie hunter started to get nervous. Frederico tried to put a second shot into his gun but fumbled it.
“By then, though, the buck had walked out of sight. I had to get down from my stand to see if I hit him. Not sure of anything at that moment, I walked the trail that circles my property,” he explains to Mark Blazis.
The rookie hunter says that he found the buck conveniently right on the trail about 100 yards away from his stand.
“When I looked at him up-close, all I saw were antlers shooting out everywhere. After dressing him out, I saw that my shot had nicked his heart.”
