Heier wastes no time in getting his first 10-point buck
Levi Heier, 8, of Athens, holds the youth .243 rifle he used to shoot and kill this 10-point buck on Saturday, Oct. 8, during the state’s mentored youth gun deer hunt. Submitted Photo
By Casey Krautkramer, The Record-Review
Levi Heier is getting spoiled as a young hunter. He’s only eight years old yet he shot and killed a turkey during his first time turkey hunting last spring. He also harvested a 10-point buck in his first time deer hunting during the state’s mentored youth gun deer hunt on the weekend of Oct. 8-9.
Some hunters go several years before they are able to shoot and kill a large buck, but not Levi Heier. His parents are Nathan and Lindsey Heier of Athens and he has a 6-year-old brother, Liam Heier. The family resides in the town of Rietbrock a few miles east of the village of Athens. Levi Heier is a second grader and Liam Heier a first grader at Athens Elementary School.
Nathan Heier was a mentor to Levi Heier in an enclosed tree stand on the family’s 30 acres of woods along Black Creek behind their house. Liam Heier, although he doesn’t yet hunt, joined them in the deer hunting stand.
Throughout last summer Levi Heier saw pictures of the 10-point buck he harvested on the family’s deer hunting cameras in their woods.
“He said to me, ‘daddy, that’s the one I want to shoot,’” Nathan Heier said.
Levi Heier shot the 10-point buck at approximately 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 8, while it was eating 100 yards away from the tree stand on a food plot Nathan Heier grew consisting of alfalfa, corn and soybeans.
The buck dropped when Levi Heier shot it but then it got up and ran away. The family found the buck first thing the next morning 40 yards away from where it first dropped when Levi Heier shot it with a youth .243 rifle. Levi Heier killed his Jake turkey last spring with a youth .410 shotgun. He is getting a fan of feathers mount from the turkey and he is getting a European mount of the buck to hang on the wall inside his parent’s home.
Levi Heier also had the unique opportunity to witness his father shoot and kill a 220-pound bear this fall while hunting on his father-in-law Dennis Zettler’s land in Taylor County. It was the second bear Nathan Heier has harvested in his life. Levi Heier will one day get lucky when he bear hunts for the first time too, just like he did when he harvested a turkey and deer the first time he attempted to hunt them.
