Two things are clear: Joe Harris’ farm has big deer, and his children know how to shoot.
It’s not for lack of trying that 10-year-old Joey Harris hasn’t spent much time in front of a camera, at least not while wearing hunter orange and gripping a dead whitetail.
The boy came close last year, but the buck that would’ve landed him on the cover of this magazine just took the stage a little too late in the day and a bit too distant. He wanted to take a poke at it, but his dad, Joe, wouldn’t let him.
If you’re Joe Harris’ kid, you might be able to skip school a time or two during Pennsylvania’s too-short rifle season, but you don’t take iffy shots.
There was nothing iffy about the distance or the light when the same buck showed the following morning, a Saturday, but Joey wasn’t behind the gun. His sister, 14-year-old Paige, was sharing the stand with Joe.
Two things are abundantly clear: Joe Harris grows big deer on his 280-acre farm near Danville, Pa., and his children know how to shoot.
Two years ago, his oldest daughter, Hanna, shot a 16-pointer that wound up on the November 2011 cover of Rack magazine. That Northumberland County buck is the state’s No. 1 Semi-irregular in the BTR’s rifle category (its composite score is 209 2⁄8 inches). Hanna was 16 when she shot her deer, the ninth largest ever felled in Penn’s Woods. Paige was hunting from the same stand when opportunity knocked in 2011.
The whole family knew about the 19-pointer long before Joey saw it at 150 yards in the fading daylight of Dec. 2. They suspected it was either the offspring or brother of the whitetail Hanna shot in 2010.
“The buck started to show up on trail cameras about mid-September,” Joe said. “It was also seen on other farms in the area.”
When the 2011 rifle season opened on Monday, Nov. 28, almost a dozen family members were scattered over the Harris farm. Paige hunted with her mother, Maria, while Joe took Joey.
"Neither my wife nor I carry a gun when we are in a stand with the kids,” he said. “We devote all our attention to helping them with their hunts.”
Paige’s day ended early because of basketball practice. She’s on the team at Danville Middle School. It was Wednesday before she could return to the stand.
“I skipped half a day of school so I could hunt,” she said. “We went out early. Dad and I sat in Mommy’s stand — the one Hanna had sat in the previous year — but we saw only a few does.”
Thursday night, when the family was returning home from a late indoor soccer match, the big buck from the trail camera photos crossed the driveway in front of their car. The whole family got to see it from just 25 yards.
Joey skipped school to hunt the next morning, but he was back in the classroom that afternoon. After school, because Paige had more basketball practice, he and his father returned to the stand.
“Just before dark, we saw the buck at 150 yards,” Joe said. “Joey wanted to take the shot, but I felt it was too far, and the light was very poor. After I took a look through the scope, I decided Joey wouldn’t be shooting that night.”
Saturday, Dec. 3, was Paige’s turn.
“Dad and I were up early and out to the stand well before daylight,” she said. “It was quiet in the woods when, just after sunrise, we saw a couple of does off to our left. We watched them as they moved around, while still keeping an eye on the rest of the field. About 8:00, two more does appeared to the right side of an oak flat. We watched them carefully, as they were acting kind of nervous, like something else was nearby.
“A few minutes later, this buck came out of the pines and into some hardwoods thick with saplings. It was weaving through the saplings, heading for the open oaks,” she continued. “It was about 120 yards away and headed nearly straight toward us. I was using a shooting rest and was ready for any clear shot. When I thought I had the right angle, I squeezed my .243’s trigger.”
“I was watching through the binoculars when Paige fired, and I saw the buck hunch up as it turned and bounded off,” Joe said. “By the time it had gone 20 yards, it was out of sight. I was pretty sure she’d hit the buck, but I couldn’t pinpoint where. So we sat, waited and talked.”
The does that were with the buck were in no hurry to leave, so father and daughter watched them until they finally vanished. That’s when Joe got down while Paige kept a watchful eye in case the buck reappeared.
When Joe reached where he thought the deer had been standing, he started to look for sign.
“I knew I was close, and then I found some blood,” he said. “I tracked back a few yards until I found some white hair, and then walked a few yards in the direction the deer fled. There was blood, but not as much as I would’ve liked. I had a gut feeling the shot had been too far back, so I returned to the stand. We decided to go back to the house and gather a support team.”
“We called pretty much everybody we knew who was hunting on the farm that day and explained what happened and what we planned to do that afternoon,” Paige took up the tale. “We wanted everyone to spread out in a circle along the woods where we thought the deer might’ve gone, and then Dad and I were going to start following the blood trail and see where it went.
“When everyone was in position, we started following the sign. I don’t think we went very far before I saw the buck bedded down on a logging road. I told Dad, ‘There it is, there it is!’ Then dad saw it and said, ‘Shoot! Shoot!’ And I did!”
“When I first saw the buck, it was almost curled up in a ball,” Joe said. “It appeared to be weak, but it got up and started to walk away. That’s when I started telling Paige to shoot. It was probably only 25 yards away.
“She made a good shot, and the buck went down, and I mean DOWN. It was right at the edge of a steep drop and, when it fell, slid all the way to the bottom. Fortunately, there’s another logging road down there. That made retrieving it easier.
“I got a little excited after that,” Joe continued. “While attempting to unload my gun, I jammed it. I told Paige to get on down there and, if the deer started to move, shoot it again.”
“As soon as I got down to the buck, I started counting points,” Paige said. “When Dad finally got to me, we celebrated with high-fives and a hug before calling the rest of the gang. I stayed with the buck while Dad went back to the house for the four-wheeler. By the time he returned, several family members were there with me, and we continued to celebrate all the way back to the garage,” she said.
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This article was published in the Winter 2012/2013 edition of Buckmasters Whitetail Magazine. Subscribe today to have Buckmasters delivered to your home.