Yep I'll NEVER forget it... Nov 1985, I was 14yrs old & my stepfather had taken me deer hunting with him a couple of times the previous season but I just sat unarmed beside him as an observer. The previous Christmas he had given me a new 30/06 Rem ADL with a 3x9x32 Tasco on it. He had sighted it in so I never shot it before that cold, opening day of gun season in the Ozarks of southern MO.
So dawn breaks, I'm sitting by myself, perched about 12ft up in a big oak tree on a "stand" that consisted of a few 2x6s nailed across the branches. The tree was on a point that jutted out into a pasture & my stepfather was around the corner about a quarter of a mile. I had on jeans, a flannel shirt & a down coat. I was COLD Jack!
A few minutes after light I catch movement out of the corner of my eye & THERE HE STANDS 60yds away! A nice, fat, 120 inch MO Ozark 10 pointer!
I thought hed SURELY hear my POUNDING heart!
But he didn't, he just moved on around the edge of the pasture & was now about 50yds away & by then he had "grown" to what I was then sure of was just barely smaller than a bull elk!
I was in a trance & really kinda froze up, unsure what to do? Then the buck turned to begin walking back up into the woods!
OH YEAH I'M SUPPOSED TO SHOOT HIM! So I just slapped the crosshairs "on brown" & sent a 180grain round nose Corelokt towards it!
As the 30/06s crack echoed thru the hills the buck fell down, stumbled back to his feet, spun 180 & HERE HE CAME ACROSS THE PASTURE with me shuckin shells out of that ol ADL as fast as I could operate it & I didn't touch nairy a hair on him!
I emptied the gun as the buck disappeared into the woods across the pasture 100yds away!
I'm pretty sure I just JUMPED out of that old rickety "stand" & by the time I hit the ground my ol 06 was reloaded & ready to take up the pursuit! I hurried across the field & as I stepped into the woods ol Bullwinkle stood up 10yds away along a hogwire fence that he was in no shape to get over. (My 1st shot struck him in the right ham & drove lengthwise toward his chest.) Again I threw the crosshairs on brown & torched the ol 06 off once more! The ol Corelokt slammed thru the bucks spine above his front shoulders, I saw the buck roll & 4hooves flew thru the air & when he landed on the rocky soil I had my 1st deer!!!
As I drug the buck up into the pasture here came my stepfather in his Bronco. As he was hangin his head out the window he said with his infamous sheepish grin, "MAN how many did you kill?"
We loaded the buck up onto the tailgate & carried it back over to the stand. He threw a rope up into that tree and we dressed it right there. That morning cemented my lifelong love of deer hunting & is perhaps my most fond memory I have of my stepfather as he passed to cancer in late Jan 2005
