Me and my 14 year old son Cole Abney were sitting in the stand early on 10/03/21. At about 8:30 a.m. he spotted this buck rubbing a tree before making its way towards us. He crossed in front of us broadside at about 30 yards when Cole shot. We werent able to wait to long before getting down and tracking due to the fact that it had started raining. After tracking for a while we had lost the blood trail but were able to pick it back up a little ways away where the buck had crossed a trail. From there we had good blood up to the edge of the lake that boarders the back of our property. Hoping we could pick up the trail on the other side we got our kayaks around and headed out. As we paddle across Cole had spotted something sticking out of the water about 3/4 of the way across the lake. We paddled over to it and realized that it was his buck, it had expired while trying to cross. Luckily there were a couple duck hunters coming across the lake that helped us get it back to our side.(a big thank you to them)