Junior hunters: Toad 4×5 Coues
By Samantha Bado, Phoenix

Hunting is a tradition in my family. Everyone in my family and step family hunts, except my mom. I’m a 14-year-old female and have been hunting for three years. In 2007, I killed a very big Coues buck. Bigger than any my dad has killed, and he has been hunting for almost 30 years now. Here’s my story.

It was in mid-October, I think, and I got drawn for Coues deer in Payson. My dad, my uncle and I drove to some friends who live in Payson. They are cool people. They all hunt too, and they have a 14-year-old son and an 11-year-old daughter. We spent the night at their cabin. The next morning, they woke me up at three o’clock in the morning! On our way out, we met up with more friends who all wanted to see me hunt a deer. We had a total of 10 people on this hunt.

We had to take quads to our destination and it was freezing! We must have gone to 10 different spots until we saw a buck. He was small – but still good sized. I was too far away to shoot him so we tried to get closer, and then we saw a buck twice as big! We got as close as we could but it was still pretty far. I ended up taking a shot at him from 540 yards away – and nailed him. He went down in one shot. It was getting dark, so my dad and Cameron (our friend) took off down the hill, and when they got to the buck, all I heard was Cameron yell, “He’s a toad.”

Everyone congratulated me. When my dad got back with the deer, it was pitch black outside. The next morning I woke up late and walked outside to find my deer already skinned. They measured his antler size to be 102 and 3/8th. Amazing, huh? He was only a 4×5. Everyone was amazed that a teenage girl killed that large a deer.

If you have a “Junior Hunters” story you would like to share, please email a picture, story, name and city with subject title “Junior Hunters” to:
HuntingHighlights@azgfd.gov