Nebraskaland

56 Nebraskaland • November 2024 MIXED BAG IT'S A FAMILY TRADITION By Jeff Kurrus Six years ago, Nate Murdoch, a medical doctor in Grand Island, visited his grandfather's nursing home in Holdrege. Nate had graduated medical school and completed residency and fellowship training. He had a nice house and a beautiful family. But when Nate, who didn't hunt as a kid, shared photos of his first mature buck taken on Grandpa Bill's old pasture ground, granddad gathered his friends at the home and said this about his grandson: "He's a hunter." "It struck me as funny," Nate said recently while standing in his Grand Island home. "That was the way he wanted to introduce me to his buddies, 'He's a hunter'." His granddad has since passed away, but that memory remains impactful to the Murdoch family. These days, more than one hunter lives in Nate's house; 16-year-old Bennett and 14-year-old Max have taken on the family tradition — an annual trek to granddad's land near Oxford along the Republican River for the November firearm opener. Last season, this trip brought even more fond memories as Nate witnessed his son shoot the biggest buck they have ever seen. That day, Bennett sat with Nate's cousin, Will, and Max with his dad in ground blinds. The adults left their guns at the truck. "The younger boys get to shoot first," said Nate. "If we make it far enough, the older guys get to shoot." Hunting next to a dry creek bed, Nate and Max saw a nice 4x4 in the morning, but for some reason, Max passed on it. By mid-afternoon, however, when older brother Bennett downed a buck, Nate thought his younger son might have been feeling a little left out. Then, around 5:30 p.m., came the doe. Behind her came a bigger deer. "We knew he was a buck," said Nate, "but we didn't know he was this." The doe disappeared through a cedar thicket about 60 yards away, and as the buck turned to follow, Nate used his "YouTube version of education" on a grunt tube, and the deer stopped. "I didn't want him to go into the timber," he said. Max didn't have a clean shot at the deer's vitals. "You could tell he was a big deer now," said Nate. "But Max was doing a great job of not taking a bad shot. It was very mature of him." The buck started walking again toward the thick timber, and Nate stopped him again with a grunt tube. This time the buck had stopped in one of the narrow windows to shoot. Nate whispered to his son, "Alright Max, there's your shot." "My heart was pumping pretty good," Max said, his quiet confidence contributing to his ability to take a deep breath before squeezing the trigger on his Browning .308 bolt- action, a family rifle. Nate saw the deer jump when Max shot. The buck quickly disappeared out of sight, and Max became anxious. "I thought that I shot him, but I wasn't sure," Max said. "That was pretty nerve-racking." Once they found blood, Max calmed. However, his dad silently began to worry. "We started finding blood but the direction wasn't great," said Nate. "He was going toward the edge of our property. Then, when he made a turn back into our property, I felt a lot better." Twenty minutes later, they found him. After the congratulatory text messages and field dressing the deer together, the hunt became even more of a family affair because of the size of the buck's body. "We'd drag him 15 yards and couldn't do it anymore," said Nate with a laugh, describing the valley-filled land they had to navigate. "We had to get Will, Bennett and my uncle, Tim." Once back, they checked with neighbors. No one had seen this buck. They checked their cameras. Not a single image. To this day, the Murdochs are convinced Max was supposed to shoot that buck, carrying on a family tradition that Nate plans to continue long into the future. Maybe one day the boys will finish their hunt early and dad gets to shoot. But … maybe not. Either way, they'll be there together, another generation of hunters going back to family land along the Republican River. Start, or continue, your family hunting traditions at OutdoorNebraska.gov where you can find season dates, places to hunt or buy your permit. Max Murdoch is all smiles with his buck of a lifetime taken last season. JEFF KURRUS, NEBRASKALAND

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