Chase Jones chose the wrong day to stay in bed.
The 12-year-old is normally eager to join his father, Mike, in a deer stand. On Nov. 26, however, just five days into Alabama's 2014 rifle season, the sleep-addled youngster wanted nothing more than to remain under the covers.
With or without his son tagging along, Mike prefers to be in position before daybreak. It was still dark when he climbed into a stand on his father-in-law's 110 acres near Wilsonville.
Ten minutes after sunrise, Mike spotted a doe and a buck walking up the nearby driveway. The buck was so big and so close, he didn't have to waste time deciding if it was worthy of a bullet.
"I popped him," Mike said. "It was just that simple. I had one chance to take a shot, took careful aim at his jugular and squeezed the trigger. I knew it was a good one."
Because he couldn't find any blood, Mike wasn't sure he hit the buck, at first. But his doubts fell away when he saw it.
Mike says the buck should've been his son's.
"I would have let him shoot that deer," he said afterward. "Chase got up every day before that hunt, and he's gotten up every day since. He jumps right up, like ‘Okay, I'm ready to go.'"
The Shelby County bruiser is a new No. 4 among Alabama's rifle-taken Typicals. Its BTR composite score is 188 3/8 inches.