Seventeen year-old Theo Blevins of northern Indiana killed the buck of a lifetime over the weekend, during the Hoosier State's short youth firearm season for whitetail deer. Blevins shot the 19-point Booner on a 40-acre parcel where he lives and hunts regularly, he told Field & Stream, with a bead-sighted 12 gauge he borrowed from his brother.
"I was in the stand before sunrise on Sunday morning, then I climbed down to do some chores around the homestead," Blevins told F&S. "I got back in the stand at 5 p.m., and at 6:40, I saw this guy's giant rack peeking up over a hill behind me."
Blevins knew about the buck, having captured it on trail camera multiple times in the off season. But pictures couldn’t prepare him for the surge of adrenaline he got when it actually showed in daylight hours and walked toward his stand. "I was shaking so bad that I couldn't keep the gun level," the young hunter recalled. "I watched him for a good 10 or 15 minutes as he moved slowly toward me."
This is Blevins' first year hunting whitetails with a firearm, he said. On Saturday, September 28, the day before he shot the 19-pointer pictured above, he killed a doe in a nearby stand—his first whitetail ever. "I grew up learning to hunt from my stepdad on the property," he said. "But this was my first year really hunting by myself."
Blevins said his stepfather, who passed away in 2022, had more than 200 bucks to his name taken during a lifetime of hunting across Indiana and Michigan. "This was his favorite spot though," Blevins said. "He actually shot his biggest buck from the same stand where I shot this deer."
When the buck showed up on Sunday evening, Blevins weathered his bout of buck fever, leveled the semi-automatic Remington, and waited to see how it would approach. "From his body language, I could tell that he was about to veer off on a trail that went left of my stand," he said. "I knew that if he did that, I'd loose my opportunity, so I took a shot at him through a gap in the trees. It hit him in neck, and he was down. That was it."
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Blevins said he hasn't gotten a green score on the drop-tined nontypical but instead plans to wait the 60-day drying period required for an official Boone & Crockett measurement. His first move after killing the buck, and snapping a few photos, was to pay homage to man who started teaching him how to hunt when he was just 10 years old. "We have a little memorial set up for my stepdad on the property," he said. "I went over there and just balled my eyes out. He was an expert. I couldn't have learned from a better hunter and man."
