One of my favorite hunting memories

One of my favorite hunting memories occurred in 1988. I was hunting with my friend, Ken Bashara, who was the principal at Lincoln Elementary School, which was located where Walgreens is now. Ken never shot a buck in 34 years of hunting, although he admitted that much of his hunting seasons were spent in the shack playing cards, making meals, and having a beverage or two. This year he was going to get serious.
We went to our stands early on opening morning. As I was walking to my stand, I heard Ken shoot. I was hoping that he didn’t shoot himself in the foot.
He yelled, “Ron, I just shot at a trophy buck!” I went to his stand, and he showed me where he had shot at the buck. It was a very close shot, about 15 yards away.
We looked for any evidence of a hit but found nothing. I asked Ken how he could have missed such a close shot. He said that he was so fascinated with the buck’s big horns that he must have shot over the back of the deer. We then went back to our stands to hunt.
At around 4:25 p.m. I heard Ken shoot again. Ken yelled, “Ron, I just shot at another trophy!”
I thought to myself, “Oh no! Here we go again.” I hurried to Ken’s stand because it was getting dark, so we had to hustle to see if Ken had hit the deer. I asked Ken where the deer was when he shot at it.
Ken said, “It was down the blaze by those white birch trees.”
I thought to myself, “If Ken couldn’t hit a deer at such a close shot, how would he ever hit one at over 75 yards?”
We both ran down the blaze, and Ken spotted the large buck lying on its side and yelled, “There he lays!”
I ran over to see a beautiful buck with an 19-inch spread and let out a yell that had to be heard throughout the surrounding woods.
The next week then School Superintendent Tom Strick and the Merrill School Board proclaimed a special “Ken Bashara Day.” Lincoln School held an assembly in the gym for Ken. The teachers planned a skit, poem, and a song, and Superintendent Strick came running in dressed in blaze orange. Some School Board members were present, too. It was a memorable day, one that’s etched in my memory forever,
That season was a turning point in Ken’s deer hunting future. He now took hunting very seriously, and as the years passed, he recorded many successful hunts, bagging numerous bucks, but none as special as the 19-inch trophy buck.
Ken was the best hunting partner I could have ever had, and to this day, I cherish the many memories that we made over the years that we hunted together.