Outdoors Sports

First buck: Nathan Banach, 9, makes good use of youth deer season

Nathan Banach made good use of his first youth deer season and started Buck of the Week for another year.

By Dale Bowman

Nathan Banach with his youth season buck. Provided photo — Nathan Banach with his youth season buck.

Pete Banach had a problem. Nathan, his 9-year-old son, wanted to hunt during Illinois’ youth deer season, but they didn’t have a place.

“My buddy allowed us to go on his place,” Banach messaged. “First time out. [At] 40 yards with a crossbow, he 10 ringed it. . . . Yeah, didn’t have a spot for gun hunting, so we did it with the crossbow. Definitely a great memory for me.”

With that, Nathan Banach starts Buck of the Week for another year.

Nathan Banach with his youth season buck. Provided photo — Nathan Banach with his youth season buck.

BOTW, the celebration of big bucks and their stories (the stories matter as this one shows) around Chicago outdoors, runs Wednesdays in the paper Sun-Times during the season. The online posting here at https://chicago.suntimes.com/outdoors goes up at varied days of the week, depending on what is going on the wide world of the outdoors.

Submit nominations by message on Facebook (Dale Bowman), on Twitter (@BowmanOutside) and Instagram (@BowmanOutside) or email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com).

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