MOBILE, Alabama -- Joseph Langan had practiced all week with his bow in preparation for his first hunt with it on the morning of Jan. 29.

The bow had just been tuned to meet his expanding draw length and fitted with a new peep sight. New arrows and broadheads completed the upgrade.

Most importantly, the draw weight was increased to 45 pounds, 5 pounds above Alabama's minimum requirement, but the weight at which the 11-year-old's father, Mark Langan, felt would ensure his son could make a clean, one-shot kill.

With each arrow shot during the week, Joseph and his father gained confidence in his ability to do just that.

"By mid-week, he showed me how much he was improving. I told him we'd take it up to camp and give it a whirl," Mark said.

Joseph said it helped during practice that in the back of his mind he continuously saw the picture of the bush-hogged area amid a pretty oak flat where he would be set up in a ladder stand.

The game-camera pictures he'd seen of two shooter bucks taken not far from the stand -- combined with plenty of acorns still on the ground to attract does even as the breeding season heated up -- amplified his excitement as the last weekend of the season drew near.

"That whole week, I knew I wanted to go to that spot. I knew something good was going to walk in there," Joseph said. "It happened."

He shot a 170-pound 11-point that has a realistic chance of making the Pope and Young record book of deer killed with archery gear.

With a wide spread, good mass and decent tine length, it green-scored at 132-6/8 inches. Even after the required 60-day drying period and deductions, Joseph's buck should still qualify above the record-keeping organization's 125-inch minimum.

"We don't see deer like that," said Mark Langan, an avid archer who's hunted with his sons Joseph and Skylar, 13, at Ravenwood Plantation Hunting Club in Washington County for the past five years. "I've been doing this (bow hunting) for 20 years and I've never shot a deer like that."

Joseph, who's hunted with his dad since age 5 and has already killed five racked bucks with a gun, said he decided to challenge himself with archery gear so late in the season purely for the change of pace.

"It got a little boring for me to gun hunt. I'd already killed a buck with my rifle, so I decided I wanted to bow hunt," he said.

Joseph was so pumped for the hunt that he was in bed at 9 p.m. to ensure he could make the early wake-up call a morning hunt demands.

"Before I climbed up, I did a couple of pushups to be sure my muscles were loose so I could pull my bow back," he said.

Mark was still helping his son get set up just as dawn was breaking when a hog wandered into the area, but it spooked when Mark headed toward his stand.

"That hog came back not long after Dad left. I drew my bow back, but he got behind some trees at about 30 yards and I couldn't get a shot," Joseph said.

When the woods settled back down after the hog left, Joseph began short rattling sequences with a rattlebag over the next three-quarters of an hour.

"I had waited about 30 minutes when I heard a bunch of squirrels go nuts, then they quit," he said. "About 10 minutes later, I heard something coming through the (Rousseau) cane. I looked, and all I saw was white, thick antlers sticking up. I knew he was a shooter."

But the buck seemed to have another destination in mind and began working his way farther out of bow range. As the buck walked behind the thickening cane stand at 50 yards, Joseph stood up and grabbed his bow just in case.

That was a good decision.

"There was this small puddle of water out in front of me 20 yards or so and, for some reason, he turned and walked right to that puddle and got a drink," Joseph said.

As the buck turned broadside to leave, then stopped quartering away, Joseph drew and centered his 25-yard pin on its vitals.

At the shot, the buck whirled and headed for the cane. Joseph heard him crash.

"I think I just got a good buck," the ensuing text message to Mark read. It was 8:45 a.m.

He began to notice how shook up he was while waiting for his father.

"I kept seeing him walking head-on to me and could picture his width. I knew he was a really big deer. I started shaking a lot," he said. "When I was up there, I wanted to get down bad."

When Mark reached his son 15 minutes later, Joseph was still in the tree, following one of Mark's rules designed primarily for safety reasons during rifle season -- "don't get down until I come get you."

"We looked for a good while and couldn't find any blood trail. I started worrying that he hadn't hit him good," Mark said.

"I got a little worried," Joseph added.

Then Joseph found a speck of blood.

"I looked up from there, and saw that big white belly not 25 yards past that speck," Mark said.

After the hugs, high-fives and general euphoria abated, father and son realized the animal was the buck with the wide antlers still in velvet they'd gotten on camera at night only one time in October.

Joseph's arrow had pierced its heart.

Rounding out a good weekend for the Langan brothers, Skylar killed a nice 8-point with his rifle the same afternoon.

"That Sunday was the last day for them because of school, so it was a good way to end it," Mark said.