Deer season 1955 (sometime in November) was my very first 100% by myself deer hunt. I'd already taken several deer over the past 3 or 4 years but pops or Great Gramps was always by my side. This year the old men decided I was plenty big enough to go it alone on our property on the mountain. 3:30am finds me up, dressed and my mom already having me some bacon, eggs, and biscuits all ready to go. Took a breath and they were gone!! (Growing boys tend not to chew ) Get out to the barn and saddle my Walker. The mare was looking at me a bit crosseyed being this early and horses and darkness don't go along well together but she relented. I knew every single inch of our property as well as the neighboring properties and pretty much the whole dang mountain to be honest. Old LouLou knew that I guess and she was a very trusting horse. Not like our Arabians. Checked the little .30-30 out and double checked that I had everything I needed. Struck out to the southeastern part of the property that was laden with Oaks and a nice little "valley" that I had been scouting for the past couple months. Knew there was a pretty big boy in there from the trees he was practically knocking over rubbing! I hobble LouLou up top so she can graze while I am hunting. Make my way about 3/4 down that valley to a spot behind a fallen tree that I had set myself up for. Get all settled in and start the waiting game. For some odd reason, squirrels have never been afraid of me and tend to climb on me and let me pet them quite a lot. I had 2 such little friends keeping me company right at dawn. One on my shoulder eating peanuts that I had brought with me and the other in my lap eating my dang walnuts I had packed for myself! (little rascals) I hear some leaves crunching towards the top of the other side of the valley. My little buddies bolted off as my attention was drawn to the noise. I see an absolutely beautiful buck with MASSIVE shoulders and a crown on his head that was glorious! I easy my little .30-30 up to my shoulder and rest it on the log. Take careful aim and wait for that perfect presentation. I got that perfect opportunity pretty quickly. Gently squeezed the trigger as the old men had been drilling into my head since I could walk and down that buck went!! And down, and down, and down all the way to the bottom of that "little" valley! I get off my rear and head down to my prize! After 20 minutes of field dressing and cussing trying to get this absolute monster back up the hill (damn thing weighed more than 3 times my weight, I was a scrawny 9 year old) I hid it under a couple of pine bows and headed up to old LouLou. I had some rope but nowhere near enough for the task I had in mind. So up on her back I go headed for the house as fast as her long walker legs would go!! The old men (great gramps had come over to visit) had heard the shot and saw me flying across the field on my horse, both with grins more suited to a clown face than a father and great grand father, as I reign in with my mouth flying faster than my horse could ever run telling them of the huge monster I had down and I needed some help. It was just too big for me to drag out. The old man saddles his horse and grabs some rope even though he was thinking the whole time that it was probably just a dink but I was all excited this being my first "alone" hunt. So we arrive at my spot and I take the old man down to where I had the deer hidden. I pull the bows off and I basically get called anything and everything other than a white boy!!! The old man had never seen a whitetail deer this size (he hadn't hunted deer outside of TN) body wise and the 162 1/8 rack wasn't too shabby either The deer field dressed at just under 200 pounds (that's a BRUTE in TN) He's mumbling to himself all the way back up the hill to his horse to bring the rope down and we use his quarter horse (LouLou didn't like to pull things) to drag it up. We get the beast back to the house where Gramps is just staring at the monster we just drug up. That old man couldn't have had a prouder look on his face and made me the most beautiful mount and wall hanging of that rack and hide. Gramps figured the age on that buck was around 6.5 and when he looked at the front hooves he thought it was a buck he himself had been after for the past 2 years. Talk about a "chest thumping" moment! I had scouted, tracked, and taken a buck that my 100% Cherokee Indian gramps, who basically hunted and trapped for a living, had failed to get!!!

Needless to say, I was hooked for life. I was already on the line before that but that experience landed me totally. For many years I meat hunted but was always after that bone as a primary focus. After gramps died I pretty much stopped rack hunting since he was my Taxidermist and also the only man on this planet I cared enough to impress. My old man was a good man and he's pretty much the man who taught me to shoot but it was my old gramps that taught me to hunt.