Lucy Bland is like a lot of grandmothers who are proud of their grandchildren and quick to tell you about them. She’s also an avid hunter who celebrated her 72nd birthday in grand fashion earlier this year on a deer hunt of all things. While that may seem unusual for some people, not for Grandmother Lucy.

“When I first started deer hunting about 23 years ago, I went hunting with my husband and they put me in a shoot house and put a 30/30 in my hands and told me to shoot the deer when they came by me,” Bland said. “I saw a doe come by my stand, so I shot it.”

Some of the men heard her shoot and came to check on her.

“Where’s he at?”

“He went that away,” she said.

She pointed in the direction the deer went and they promptly found the deer.

“We forgot to tell you that you were supposed to shoot a buck!” they said.

Bland had killed her first deer, a nice doe but she would eat good. The next morning she was back in the same stand.

“I’m looking for horns this time,” she said. “The temperature was freezing, and I looked up and all I could see was horns. I shot him and he ran off into the brush and it sounded like he was tearing bushes down. When they came to help me, they found blood and they found a big 7-point hung up in the bushes.”

“I’ve been hunting ever since and have enjoyed every minute of it,” Bland said.

Bland went deer hunting with her husband and continued after he got diabetes and was unable to hunt. Before he passed away, they got in a club up in Kemper County and he made sure that they’d have a place for her after he was gone. He also asked her to take care of his beloved pet Jack Russell.

“I lost my little Jack Russell earlier this year because he just got too old and in bad shape and I was really upset and didn’t want to do anything,” Bland said. “My son Donald told me to pack my bags and get out of the house and go to the deer camp. So that’s just what I did.”

Bland drove straight to the camp and made it just in time for the afternoon hunt.

“About 3:30 or 4 I saw a big animal heading my way,” she said. “I thought it was a big old cow, so I wiped my eyes and looked again, this time through the scope. Nope, he ain’t no cow.”

Bland settled her crosshairs on the deer’s vitals and squeezed off a shot.

“Ka-boom!” Her Remington 742 rifle roared, and the buck crumpled in a heap. Another victim of the .308 rifle was history.

“He kicked three or four times and that was it,” Bland said. “I got out of the stand and went straight to him and all I could see was horns.”

After making the mile-long trek back to her four-wheeler Bland loaded him up on her ATV loading ramp and it took more than a little effort to get the deer secured on the ATV. She was able to load the buck up with the help of a loading rack her son had installed on the ATV.

When she got back to camp, everybody wanted to know what was going on.

What did she kill? The buck had a nine-point rocking chair rack and weighed in at 207 pounds! The tenth point had been broken off during a fight.

“I can’t believe Daniel’s grandmother came up here and killed the buck we’ve all been after,” said one of the hunters.

“I was going to cut the horns off and dress the deer, but they stopped me,” Bland said.

“Don’t touch that deer,” they said. “They knew he was a good one and wanted to make sure that my family knew how big it was and that we could get it mounted if we wanted, too.”

Of course when her son and the rest of the family found out just how good a buck it was, they wanted her to mount the trophy. It’s not every day that your mother or grandmother kills a trophy deer. But if you can dream it or imagine it you can do it, too!

Call Mike Giles at 601-917-3898 or email mikegiles18@comast.net.