mounting man

The 29th. Had all my hunting stuff packed,what little i had? Dad took me to my Grand Paps house.
Seemed like a very long trip? Took about 30 minutes to get there.
On top of the mountain i can see trees and forest for what looks like miles and miles.
Pull into Gram and Paps driveway. Cars all over the place.6 uncles,their hunting buddies and Pap,out side laughing and kidding each about who will get a deer! More than a dozen men there in the yard?
I don't know most of them and am shy,i just listen to them talk.
They are kidding each other about the season before and who had missed deer because so and so couldn't shoot straight or because he should go get glasses?
Wow! These guys are all big men. I am 5 foot tall and skinny.
2 married Uncles went home for supper and friends of theirs left to.
Gram had supper on the table and we ate. Dad had left while it was still light and it is dark now.
They told me to get to bed at 9 pm.
Just laid there most of the night? Must have fallen asleep because someone got me up.
House is a little chilly,coal furnace needs stocked up.
November 30. Ate something and they showed me how to dress for the hunt.
My uncle,who is taking me on the hunt,says "I am going to clean the car off and warm it up."
Look out side and there is 6 or 8 inches of snow.Cold and wind is blowing snow in circles.
Uncle says roads are bad and puts tire chains on his brand new Oldsmoble.
Still dark and we put the guns into the car and head to the mountain.
Tire chains making noise like boomp-boomp-boomp.
Turn off the snow covered highway onto a woods road. Parks the car and tells me to watch down over a steep hill by the parking spot.
Uncle says"Stay by the car so if you get cold just set in it and warm up. If you see any deer with horns shoot it."
Other men come i had seen the day before and they head down the road on foot.
Its still dark and very cold and the wind has the tress creaking.
I am standing by the car,wind has my face froze.
It is getting light. All of a sudden shots start and deer are all over the place running and jumping the log road.
Snow blowing,face is cold,hands and feet to. Can't see that well because of the snow flying in circles around me.
I see my Uncles coming on the road. They are covered with snow and pulling 3 bucks.
They load their deer up and are going to put on drives for me??
I see deer but they are too fast for me to shoot at and i can't see any horns?
we go home. I am froze. Call dad and beg him to let me take another day off school. It works.
Next day December 1,1959. Lots of snow and very cold and still windy.
Not much shooting . I am cold and tired but don't want to give up.
My feet have never been this cold ever.
All day i seen 35 or 40 deer ,no horns.
Loosing light,time to go home. No deer!
Maybe next year?
Dad came and took me home. Cleaned up,ate and fell asleep early and dreamed of all the deer i seen and the sounds of all the shoots
December 2,back to to being trapped in a school building and looking out the windows and day dreaming of the days before.
_________________________
WILLY P

alleyyooper

Nice story. My hunting buddies and I would talk of our early days deer hunting. One of my buddies favorite story's was of earning enough money during the summer so he could buy a pair of those green rubber boots that had the raised tag that said insulated. Ya no more cold feet he thought, then he would start a belly rolling laugh and say insulated so the cold could not get out when the feet had turned to a block of ice.


Al

Champlain Islander

Nice story MM and reminded me of my first time. My first solo deer hunting came a few years later probably in the 1962 time frame. Similar weather conditions in northern Vermont and it was at the family camp filled with my relatives. I too was allowed a few days off from school for that undeclared holiday here in the Green Mountain State. I sat on a log at the head of a draw after climbing the mountain in the dark along with some Uncles who told me to sit there. At daybreak the deer started to climb up to higher ground headed for the bedding area after feeding in the fields along the town road. My buck was the 22nd deer I saw that morning and was a modest 3 point. After I got down to where I shot it I waited for an uncle to show up to help me field dress the deer and drag it back to camp.

super_hunt54

Deer season 1955 (sometime in November) was my very first 100% by myself deer hunt. I'd already taken several deer over the past 3 or 4 years but pops or Great Gramps was always by my side. This year the old men decided I was plenty big enough to go it alone on our property on the mountain. 3:30am finds me up, dressed and my mom already having me some bacon, eggs, and biscuits all ready to go. Took a breath and they were gone!! (Growing boys tend not to chew ) Get out to the barn and saddle my Walker. The mare was looking at me a bit crosseyed being this early and horses and darkness don't go along well together but she relented. I knew every single inch of our property as well as the neighboring properties and pretty much the whole dang mountain to be honest. Old LouLou knew that I guess and she was a very trusting horse. Not like our Arabians. Checked the little .30-30 out and double checked that I had everything I needed. Struck out to the southeastern part of the property that was laden with Oaks and a nice little "valley" that I had been scouting for the past couple months. Knew there was a pretty big boy in there from the trees he was practically knocking over rubbing! I hobble LouLou up top so she can graze while I am hunting. Make my way about 3/4 down that valley to a spot behind a fallen tree that I had set myself up for. Get all settled in and start the waiting game. For some odd reason, squirrels have never been afraid of me and tend to climb on me and let me pet them quite a lot. I had 2 such little friends keeping me company right at dawn. One on my shoulder eating peanuts that I had brought with me and the other in my lap eating my dang walnuts I had packed for myself! (little rascals) I hear some leaves crunching towards the top of the other side of the valley. My little buddies bolted off as my attention was drawn to the noise. I see an absolutely beautiful buck with MASSIVE shoulders and a crown on his head that was glorious! I easy my little .30-30 up to my shoulder and rest it on the log. Take careful aim and wait for that perfect presentation. I got that perfect opportunity pretty quickly. Gently squeezed the trigger as the old men had been drilling into my head since I could walk and down that buck went!! And down, and down, and down all the way to the bottom of that "little" valley! I get off my rear and head down to my prize! After 20 minutes of field dressing and cussing trying to get this absolute monster back up the hill (damn thing weighed more than 3 times my weight, I was a scrawny 9 year old) I hid it under a couple of pine bows and headed up to old LouLou. I had some rope but nowhere near enough for the task I had in mind. So up on her back I go headed for the house as fast as her long walker legs would go!! The old men (great gramps had come over to visit) had heard the shot and saw me flying across the field on my horse, both with grins more suited to a clown face than a father and great grand father, as I reign in with my mouth flying faster than my horse could ever run telling them of the huge monster I had down and I needed some help. It was just too big for me to drag out. The old man saddles his horse and grabs some rope even though he was thinking the whole time that it was probably just a dink but I was all excited this being my first "alone" hunt. So we arrive at my spot and I take the old man down to where I had the deer hidden. I pull the bows off and I basically get called anything and everything other than a white boy!!! The old man had never seen a whitetail deer this size (he hadn't hunted deer outside of TN) body wise and the 162 1/8 rack wasn't too shabby either The deer field dressed at just under 200 pounds (that's a BRUTE in TN) He's mumbling to himself all the way back up the hill to his horse to bring the rope down and we use his quarter horse (LouLou didn't like to pull things) to drag it up. We get the beast back to the house where Gramps is just staring at the monster we just drug up. That old man couldn't have had a prouder look on his face and made me the most beautiful mount and wall hanging of that rack and hide. Gramps figured the age on that buck was around 6.5 and when he looked at the front hooves he thought it was a buck he himself had been after for the past 2 years. Talk about a "chest thumping" moment! I had scouted, tracked, and taken a buck that my 100% Cherokee Indian gramps, who basically hunted and trapped for a living, had failed to get!!!

Needless to say, I was hooked for life. I was already on the line before that but that experience landed me totally. For many years I meat hunted but was always after that bone as a primary focus. After gramps died I pretty much stopped rack hunting since he was my Taxidermist and also the only man on this planet I cared enough to impress. My old man was a good man and he's pretty much the man who taught me to shoot but it was my old gramps that taught me to hunt.