The first year I hunted deer (I was 13 years oldI think), I was shooting a semi automatic 12 gauge shotgun (a High Standard Supermatic Deluxe that I still own). We were in a shotgun only part of the state. I was loaded with slugs of course since buckshot is illegal. I heard my Dad shoot his shotgun once, on top of the hill. He had set me on a stump to freeze to death and watch a small opening in the hardwoods. It was freezing cold out, and sitting in the snow on that stump was not my favorite thing to do.

Well down the hill comes this six pointer. It stops about 35 yards out from me. I know I shot, but the Old Man said it sounded like a machine gun down there. I emptied that semi auto of all five shots. I never even felt the recoil and could not have told you how many times I shot. The deer tipped over dead. There was one hit through the front of the brisket (that could not have been mine as I was shooting broadside shots) and his front legs were both shot off (wonder who did that). I must have shot low, and it was because that shotgun was real heavy, I was kind of small,and loaded with lots of bullets.

After my Dad walked down the hill, he congratulated me on my first deer, I gutted it, and he then told me to drag it out. I was never cold after that. I dragged that deer up a hill, down a steep hill (which was easy) and then across a 300 acre picked corn field. When I got to the truck, I was about dead tired, but so proud of my first deer.