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Tim Williams Tells How His Grandson Bagged a Monster Buck with CVA Accura

Editor’s Note: Most of the time when you tell the same story from two-different perspectives, the reason is there’s a difference of opinion as to what actually happened. However, in this tale told twice in our blogs, you’ll read a completed story of a grandfather and a grandson who have created the memory of a lifetime that neither one was expecting on a day afield with the CVA Accura at the end of September. Fifty-five-year-old Tim Williams of Holy Cross, Iowa, owns a 220-acre farm that he and his family and friends hunt for deer. On this day, he hunted with his 10-year-old grandson, Brady Hartgrave.

I had put out trail cameras on my farm, and we’d seen quite a few nice bucks on these cameras before hunting season. But the buck we’ll be talking about that my grandson bagged never showed-up on any of my trail cameras. Brady and I were hunting during the youth deer season, so Brady could take his first deer, which I was planning on being a doe. We were in an elevated hunting shack about 20-feet off the ground. As we spotted a doe that was walking right toward the hunting shack, I said, “Brady, get ready, here comes a doe you can take.” He was bringing-up the gun and putting it on the edge of the hunting shack, and I was sliding a pad under the gun to make a better rest. Then Brady told me, “Grandpa, there’s a big buck down there.” I told Brady, when I saw the buck, “No, Brady, he’s not very big. He’s got some velvet and some grass hanging in his antlers.” I actually did know how big the buck was, but I didn’t want Brady to get too excited, which he would have if he realized that the buck in front of him was the biggest buck I’d ever seen in my life.

After the hunt, I ranged the distance from the shooting house to the place where the buck stepped-out with my Bushnell range finder three different times, and the distance was exactly 100 yards. I’d loaded the gun with two 50-grain Pyrodex pellets with a 250-grain Shockwave bullet on top of the powder. Brady was looking through a 3x9 Simmons scope when he spotted the buck. I only had set the scope at 4x for Brady, because I wasn’t planning on him shooting more than 50 yards. So, I thought having the scope at 4x would be just right for the shot Brady would make.

When I saw the buck, I was scared to death that Brady was going to miss him, since this magnificent buck was the biggest I’d ever seen. Although Brady had shot tin cans in the back of the house with a Savage .17, he’d never had to shoot at this distance with this size gun. However, I felt confident that Brady could do it, because I’d been teaching Brady to shoot for quite some time. Before Brady took the shot, I told him over and over, “Brady, aim for the shoulder. Try to shoot the buck in the shoulder.” I thought of the number of times that Brady had shot a soup can hanging on a string 50-yards away with my .17 rifle. I felt like if Brady was calm and would shoot like he’d been shooting, he really had a chance to take this monster-sized buck. Brady would hit the can every time he shot the .17. When Brady pulled the trigger, I couldn’t see anything because of the smoke from the powder, but I heard that “whack” sound a bullet makes when it hits a deer.

Once the smoke cleared, I could see the doe that had been coming toward our hunting shack looking back over her shoulder in the direction to where the buck had been standing. When we came out of the shooting house, I wasn’t sure whether Brady had shot the deer or not, because I couldn’t see the buck. But before we left the shooting house, Brady told me he could see the buck kicking the grass and that he was sure he’d gotten the buck. After we came out of the shooting shack, I reloaded the CVA Accura and handed it to Brady, just in case the buck got up and he needed to get off another shot. As I encouraged Brady to walk slowly to the spot where he thought the buck had gone down, he kept saying, “Grandpa, I know got him. Grandpa, I know I got him.” The buck had been standing in high grass in a field that had been set aside for 10 years. When Brady shot, the deer had his antlers in the trees on the edge of the field and was making a scrape. When Brady and I got close enough that I could see the buck, I grabbed hold of him, wrapped my arms around him, kissed him on the cheek and said, “Boy, you just shot a monster. This is the buck of a lifetime.” Brady kept saying, “Grandpa, Grandpa, I just shot a big deer!”

Field dressed and skinned, the buck weighed more than 200 pounds. The taxidermist we took the buck’s head to said that this particular buck was about 6-1/2-years old. The buck had two dropped tines and was a non-typical. I bet I’ll never shoot a buck as big as Brady’s first buck. My wife Susie is so proud of Brady, she put the buck’s antlers on the kitchen table, and that’s very uncharacteristic of her. The antlers have to dry for 60 days, and my wife’s like a pit bull, protecting those antlers until they’re dry and can be officially measured. We’re going to have the antlers scored by an official Boone and Crockett scorer.

Later, as I began to remember the day, the buck and how excited Brady was, I think back to when my brother and I went to Cabela’s to buy two muzzleloading rifles. We’d intended to buy Thompson/Center rifles, but when we saw the CVA Accuras with the thumbholes in them and brought them to our shoulders, we both agreed we were going to buy those rifles. Boy, I’m so glad we did. After the hunt, Brady said, “One day Grandpa, I’m going to buy my own CVA rifle.” And I told Brady that if he kept working, mowing the grass and saving his money, he could get a CVA rifle. But until then, he can use mine.

I told the man that I worked for that I had to take off this day, because it was youth season, and I wanted to take my 10-year-old grandson Brady deer hunting. I’m really glad I took the day off to spend it with Brady. Brady’s buck green-scored 196-1/8-gross and the net score green was 183-5/8.