Austin Brimeyer, who plays golf for the Dubuque Hempstead High School team, gave new meaning to "shooting your age." And it wasn't about birdies or eagles, it was about bucks.
On Wednesday, around 4 p.m., Brimeyer, 16, harvested a 17-point (non-typical) white-tailed deer buck while bow hunting on his family's property in Dubuque County.
Driving home from school, Brimeyer decided the rainy day was as good as any for hunting. He climbed to the top of a 14-foot tree stand. After waiting about an hour, Brimeyer tried to lure a deer with a grunting call. It worked.
"Five seconds later, I saw one's head pop out of weeds about 70 yards away," he recalled.
The animal approached the stand, and at about 15 yards, Brimeyer launched his arrow at a perfect angle. It hit the deer broadside and exited. The deer ran in the direction from which it came. Brimeyer could hear sticks breaking in the woods. A phone call alerted Austin's dad, Tom.
"He said, 'Dad, I just hit a monster buck,'" said Tom, who joined his son and a friend tracking
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"I knew he was big, but not 17 points," said Austin, who bagged a big 12-pointer last year and knew what to expect. "I was shaking. I was trying to keep it all together. I had never seen the buck before."
The trio had another surprise: There were some Christmas lights wrapped around the antlers. Austin surmised the deer was rubbing against a decorated tree in someone's yard.
The news traveled fast. John Digman, a neighbor and avid hunter, was impressed.
"He's out a lot in the woods a lot, hunting with a couple of his friends," Digman said. "If he's not in school or in sports, he's in the timber all fall and winter. If there's something to hunt, he'll hunt it. He's a go-getter in the timber.
"A guy hunts his whole life for a rack like that. He's 16 and has two very impressive animals."
Tom estimates his son has hunted since age 7.
"He's pretty seasoned, about nine years of hunting for a little guy," he said.
Austin said he climbed his first tree stand at 4.
"I hunt during the fall and winter, pick mushrooms in the spring and fish and golf in the summer," he said.
How do you top a 17-point buck?
"A lot of guys tell me I don't deserve this, wait five to 10 years," Austin said. "I'll go out and try to make it happen again. You just don't know what's out there when you're out there."
