Do you remember your first deer and your first deer on your own?
I sure do. My first deer was when i was 11. I had hunted about 5 times with my dad and hadn't seen anything. It was the last day of the season and there was about 3 inches of snow on the ground. We normally got down around 9am to go have breakfast with the other hunters but today we said we were staying from sunrise to sunset. It was going later into the morning around 10am and my concentration was starting to disappear. I started playing my gameboy that i snuck along and then my dad asked for a kit kat bar. I took it out and started singing the song he started laughing and i just happened to glance over to see 3 deer coming down the trail right at us. I grabbed my remington 870 and lined up a nice size doe. I squeezed the trigger and saw the deer flinch but didn't run. I shot again and it dropped. We walked over to it and it turns out the first shot broke its shoulder and the second was a double lung shot. I was so happy. Now fast forward 8 years and a 4 point sika deer and another whitetail doe. I am 19 now and this is the first season im hunting on my own (missed the last 3 years due to highschool sports). I went opening day saturday and didnt have any shots. I decided to go sunday and didnt see anything in the morning. I went into the woods and sat down on a log around 10am. About 15 min later some guy comes walking through the woods (private property) and asks if i saw a deer he shot run through here. I tell him no and then catch movement behind him...A small doe stood up about 15 yards from us, i raised my benelli nova, took aim and fired. I dropped the deer with a spine shot. I then proceeded to drag the deer out of the woods and gut my first deer on my own. It was a small yearling (about 50lbs dressed) but it was the first one i killed on my own and did all the work myself. Its safe to say that these are two memories i will never forget....(I did end up finding the guys deer that night he shot a big bodied four point in the back legs and blew its guts out, i cleaned it and drove over to the guys house to congratulate him on his kill, he was pretty surprised to see i dressed it for him and even brought him it).