My first deer. It was back in '01, the first year for the 3-day PA youth hunt. That Friday I waited for my dad to get home from work so he could take me out back. I stood in the basement, ready to go,waiting for him for an hour past when he normally would get home. I was so sad that he got held up at work and couldn't make it. Finally he got home around 6 and we scrambled out to our stands....hoping to salvage a little bit of the night.

I figured it was a lost cause, but I wasn't going down with out a fight. 10 min after climbing into my stand I heard the crunch-crunch......crunch-crunch of a deer. All of the sudden I spotted brown making its way toward me. One deer, two deer......another, another, there ended up being six of them. The lead one came into 15 yds and stopped in an opening. I was so nervous I began squeezing the grip of my rifle instead of the trigger. I did this for about 30 seconds before I finally put enough of a death grip on the gun to make it fire. Deer exploded everywhere....I couldn't tell which one I'd shot. I saw one I thought was it, butI wasn't sure. I thought about shooting again, but my better judgement told me not to. Then all of the sudden I caught sight of a deer standing about 50 yds away. As soon as my eyes focused on her, I saw her back legs sway....she crumpled to the ground and didn't move. The next thing I remember is turning to my dad and running my finger across my neck, motioning she was dead...all the while jumping up and down in my treestand as my knees nearly gave out.

That was my first deer.....I had only been in the woods for 15 min that day.