spectr17
12-17-2001, 07:47 PM
Monday December 17 8:28 AM ET.
Grandmother, 88, Leads Deer-Hunting Contest.
NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas (Reuters) - In a Texas contest to bag the biggest buck of the hunting season, 88-year-old grandmother Viola Meckel is the best shot of them all.
She is currently winning the competition in Comal County, north of San Antonio, with a 98-pound deer she gunned down earlier this month from the back door of her rural home.
Meckel said on Friday she spotted the deer and grabbed a rifle she keeps by the door just for such moments.
``I'd had him in the scope several times, but it was too far away,'' she said. ``Finally, I saw the buck coming up into my yard, and I shot him and I got him.''
It was the fifth buck she has downed in the past three seasons. Meckel said her late husband taught her to shoot and she's been hunting for years.
``It's quite a sport. I do enjoy it,'' she said.
Unfortunately, the excitement of the hunt may have been too much because Meckel later had a heart attack and is currently recovering in the hospital.
While the deer is small by hunting standards, it represents a growing population in an area becoming a suburb of San Antonio.
The contest comes to an end in early January. The winner gets a new hunting rifle.
Grandmother, 88, Leads Deer-Hunting Contest.
NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas (Reuters) - In a Texas contest to bag the biggest buck of the hunting season, 88-year-old grandmother Viola Meckel is the best shot of them all.
She is currently winning the competition in Comal County, north of San Antonio, with a 98-pound deer she gunned down earlier this month from the back door of her rural home.
Meckel said on Friday she spotted the deer and grabbed a rifle she keeps by the door just for such moments.
``I'd had him in the scope several times, but it was too far away,'' she said. ``Finally, I saw the buck coming up into my yard, and I shot him and I got him.''
It was the fifth buck she has downed in the past three seasons. Meckel said her late husband taught her to shoot and she's been hunting for years.
``It's quite a sport. I do enjoy it,'' she said.
Unfortunately, the excitement of the hunt may have been too much because Meckel later had a heart attack and is currently recovering in the hospital.
While the deer is small by hunting standards, it represents a growing population in an area becoming a suburb of San Antonio.
The contest comes to an end in early January. The winner gets a new hunting rifle.