Skyla Crowley

Girl hits two deer with one shot!

What a showoff!
 While most hunters shivering in a deer stand in the morning hours are excited to bag a buck or a doe, along comes 11-year-old Skyla Crowley of Ghent who knocks off one of each with a single shot.
 “I shot a deer for you,” Skyla reminded her father, Andy Crowley, on the trip home Saturday morning after she felled the two animals while only pulling the trigger once.
 Andy took his daughter deer hunting for the first time last season when she was 10 years old. But the father-daughter team didn't spot a deer within shooting range during that outing.
 So, the two went out again this year, setting up in a friend's deer stand west of Ghent on Saturday morning.
 “It was about 7:30 a.m. and I needed to have Skyla home by 9 a.m.,” said Andy. “We were sitting in the stand and we had heard some shots off in the distance about a half-hour earlier.”
 After hearing those shots, Skyla turned to her father and asked if he thought the deer got scared off.
“Let's just sit here a little longer,” I told her. “Maybe they scared them this way.”
 Moments later, Skyla spotted a small buck that was hobbling as if it had been wounded or shot.
 “I didn't see it right way, to be honest,” Andy admitted. “Then I spotted the buck in the trees. And I also saw another buck and three other does nearby.”
 Andy wasn't interested in taking a shot at the deer. This day was for his daughter. This was her hunt. He wanted Skyla to at least get a chance to take a shot, whether or not she hit anything, just to gain the experience.
 A week earlier, in that same vicinity, Andy and Skyla had come across a couple of fawns that excited the young hunter.
 “I want to teach her the right and wrong way to hunt,” said Andy. “I don't want her shooting the little ones. Just like when we go fishing. I teach her the ones to keep and the ones to throw back.”
 Andy and Skyla continued to keep an eye on the buck that was hobbling slightly.

 “I told Skyla that's the one we'll target,” Andy said. “We watched it for over a half-hour. It didn't know we were there so it wasn't in a hurry at all.”
 “The buck finally started making its way to the fence line where Skyla would have a clear shot at it. I noticed the other buck and does had cleared out by this time.”
 Because of the movement of the buck, Skyla would have to leave her window and shoot it out the window her father was watching the deer from.
 “I leaned way back so she could look out my window and locate it,” he explained. “I just told her to shoot when you've got a shot.”
 Skyla took careful aim. Bam! Down went the buck.
 “I got it,” said Skyla, excitedly. “I shot two of them.”
 “I had to open the door to look,” said Andy. “I saw the buck laying there motionless. And then I saw a doe beside it was down, too. We never saw the doe on the other side of the buck before that.”
 Skyla's shot went completely through the six-point buck and hit the doe in the back. Andy got down from the deer stand and put the “kill” shot into the doe to relieve it of any suffering.
 “Am I going to get into trouble?” Skyla asked her father, unsure if it was legal to kill two deer.
 “No, you're fine,” her father reassured her, pointing out that his deer tag was not used.
 Andy then called his friend that owns the deer stand to tell him about the rare hunting experience.
“He didn't believe me,” Andy laughed. “I told him to come down and bring his truck to pick them up and I'll drag the deer to the fence line.”
The Crowleys plan to dress out both deer. And as they are sitting around the table eating a deer steak or munching on some deer sausage, the conversation will most likely turn to the day when an 11-year-old girl knocked down two deer with one shot.
For this is one hunting trip that they will be talking about for a long time.
 

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