I was 14 in WV where I grew up--20 years ago---. I had hunted hard since I was 10--out every day of thanksgiving week every year. Had not even seen a horn that I could determine. This particular day, I was out with my neighbor on his hunting club and had walked down this long ridge top from the road. it was breaking daylight and I was overlooking this patch of laurel when a buck was crossing down the ridge from right to left about 50-60 yds. When he stopped I pulled the trigger--POW--he started running right at me and ended passing within about 5 yds--POW--I shot from the hip shooting his front left leg off at the knee. He rolled into the holler, kicked a couple of times and was dead. Turns out, the first shot was dead on in the right front shoulder. He was a five point with a regular 4 pt main beam on one side and just a spike on the other. Also, one of his back legs had been broken off just above the hoof way before and had sinced calloused (sp) over (probably causing the deformity in horn growth as well). I was lovin life. Kept thinkin' to myself that when I was done with him, he only had one good leg left. I then gutted and drug him back up to the road (which took me like 4 hours). He was very gray in the face and my neighbor commented that he must have belonged to the golden mountaineer club (meaning over 50 years old). I'm sure he was probably one tough deer to eat but he sure tasted good to me.

HB
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