MERIDIAN —    Clara Grace Bozeman has been deer hunting with her dad, Harvey, for a few years now and recently completed a very memorable season. This year Clara Grace, a 16-year-old Tri-County Academy student, harvested a nice seven point early in the season and was ready to go again a couple days before Christmas. Clara Grace’s dad, Harvey Bozeman, had a prior commitment and let his son Swayze be the guide on this trip. “Swayze’s killed a bunch of big deer and has really been scouting a lot for us this year, so he wanted to go with her,” Bozeman said.

    “Dad dropped us off and we rode the four wheeler to the stand,” said Clara Grace. “We got there kind of late and we scared some deer out of the field when we went to the stand.” Clara Grace and Swayze got up into the elevated deer house and settled in. A big buck that Harvey had caught on a game camera came out and stayed awhile but it was too far to present a good shot and it ran off before it got into range and never returned.

    “A big eight point came out and Swayze said ‘you’ve got to shoot it’ and I said are you sure it’s big enough,” said Clara Grace. “I like to get Dad’s opinion because he’s the only one I go hunting with and I wanted to make sure Dad would approve. Swayze said it would make Dad happy if I shot it. I thought it was big too, but I just didn’t want to shoot something Daddy wouldn’t like. So I shot it and he ran out of the field,” she continued.

    A few minutes later the brother and sister got down and headed to the scene of the shot. “I picked up the blood trail and followed it into the woods and found it not far from the field,” Clara Grace said. The monster buck weighed in at 208 pounds, sported a massive eight point rack and had a 19 inch inside spread.



New Year’s buck



    Clara Grace and her dad were back in the same stand about a week later on New Year’s Day. Clara Grace enjoys deer hunting and wanted to kill another big buck and finish out her limit.

    “Me and Dad had a bunch of folks hunting with us that day and we put them on their stands first and then we fed the cows so we got to the stand late. It didn’t take long before some does and small bucks came out,” said Clara Grace. “I was really getting frustrated because I wanted to kill a really big buck and then it came out.”

    Her frustration didn’t last long, however, as a massive buck came out into the field. “Oh my goodness, there he is, there’s Bull Shark,” said Bozeman. Bull Shark was a nickname they had for a buck seen on game cameras over the previous couple of years. On second glance Harvey realized that it wasn’t Bull Shark, but it was a great deer anyway, too good to pass on. “This ain’t him, but you’ve got to shoot this one.”

    Clara Grace centered the crosshairs on the monster buck and squeezed the trigger. When the rifle roared and the smoke cleared, the young sharpshooter had harvested another monster. This buck was magnificent and sported nine points with 22 inch main beams and four inch bases on a massive frame even more impressive than Clara Grace’s Christmas Buck. The monster weighed in at 225 pounds, proving to be even bigger than her kill from a week earlier!

    “She did what she normally does, stuck the gun out the window and smoked him,” said the proud father.

     “The boys have missed plenty but I don’t,” said Clara Grace. “She’s cool under pressure and has never missed and that’s a fact,” exclaimed Harvey Bozeman. And what a way to end the season and fill out her limit by killing the two biggest bucks of her life, one week apart from the same stand! 

 

    Contact  Mike Giles at 601-917-3898 or e-mail him at mikegiles18@comcast.net.