Day three of Ohio muzzleloader season started like a lot of cold public-land-style sits do: frigid, snowy, and pretty slow. I was in the blind watching squirrels, listening to turkeys light up on the neighbor, and trying to will a “mid-morning warmup” into getting deer on their feet. I even busted out the Jet Boil for a dehydrated lunch because, honestly, it beats a granola bar when you’re trying to stay put. By late morning I was losing a little confidence, but that’s hunting—so I leaned on a backup plan for the evening. For the evening sit, I climbed into a tight buddy stand with my mom—her first time in a tree stand and her first time shooting a muzzleloader. We set expectations: she could shoot whatever, I was looking for does. A buck worked through thick, brushy cover, and the whole shot window was basically “gaps too quick” until he finally hit the edge of the most open trail on the property. She settled in on the rest, took her time, and smoked him with a 250gr all-copper THOR. We heard the crash, found great blood in the snow, and recovered him about 50 yards in—her first Ohio buck, and a pretty awesome pile of firsts in one hunt.