Do You Recall Your First Deer?
Many moons ago my father had the nerve to place a 30-30 in my hands almost a full decade before I was eligible to get my driver's license. LOL! Heck, I was driving before that. Dad placed me behind the wheel on some dusty back roads here in MN and I never looked back. No, really, I never looked back. I was too scared to take my eyes off the road in front of me. LOL!
Back then we wore red flannel long sleeved button up shirts. Not these hi-vis fluorescent orange requirements they have today. He was at my side as we left the pickup and started still hunting down an old logging road. The Winchester 94 felt like a solid piece of steel for those little hands at the time. Dad always either followed or was at my right side. As we crested over this rise over-looking this over-grown clear cut, we still made out the outline of a deer... a Big deer! He pointed to it about the same time I spotted it. He didn't have to say a thing. My instincts kicked in.
As I raised the rifle to my shoulder, I recall seeing only a dot at the end of my gun as I was using open sights. This buck was about a hundred yards away as the crow flies. I pointed the rifle and yanked the trigger. The buck did a 360° spin, then a 180° spin. Suddenly my dad pulled the gun from my hands and emptied the gun at him as the buck hopped away into thicker brush. He yelled to me to go back to my uncle, who was with us on this hunt, and get more shells. Don't know why, but as I came jogging along, my uncle knew what I needed and started digging in his shirt pocket before I even reached him. LOL! You know what? Honestly, this just hit me and I NEVER thought of it until now... my uncle knew because of the many successive shots! Duh!
My father pursued with the Winchester 12 ga. with slugs. About half way back to the spot where I made the shot, I heard a shot echo in the distance. I knew what happened. As I got closer, I could hear him yelling for me. I saw where the buck ran and the blood trail was nothing like I've seen even to this day. Even Ray Charles could have followed it. When I caught up to my dad, he was drenched with blood from following the trail. He told me he caught up to the buck which was down and he finished it off. Like I didn't know. LOL! He was excited too I guess!
It took years for me to realize I really did get that buck. I had thought, being a kid and all, that HE is the one who killed him, not me. I know now though. When I fired, I hit the buck's neck which was why there was so much blood. The unbelievable part was his gutted weight, so I'll leave that out. Let's just say it was a very very heavy buck! LOL!
On a special note, this was an 8 point buck and thinking back and looking at the pic, he was in the upper 130's to lower 140's. You know what we did with that rack? Threw it away. We weren't into big racks at that time. Can't believe he/we did that. Back in the day, all the rage was how heavy a buck was and not his headgear size.
That was my first buck, shot off hand a 100 yards away in the neck. I can still remember it. Dad is gone now, but he's still alive in the memories we shared in the hunting woods!
So, do you remember your first deer? Let's hear it.
iSnipe