The first buck I shot was in Upstate Western NY and it was the last day of the season and I am the only one who hasnt got a deer yet. My buddies strart to drive a hedgrow and low and behold, out comes a nice 8pt. I aim for the shoulder and hit him in the neck. Didint know how I missed my mark but at least it was in the neck and it was a bang flop. My first deer!I was so proud. So, when my buddies made it to the spot, we rolled the buck over and it was all gang green from the brisket down. Kept the antlers but didnt even attempt the meat. F&G came out and issued me a new tag about 2 hrs before the sun went down. No venicin for me that year. My rear sight had got knocked loose and thats why I didnt hit my mark. Serves me right for not checking it for THE WHOLE SEASON! [:@]

Power - did you ever find out why it was gangreen?
As for the sight, its things like that that I chalk up to lessons learned.

And all the non-hunters think this is all fun a games. Just get up, go out and shoot your game and come home and brag. If they only knew the trials and tribulations we put ourselves through...................

A buddy and me went to my cousins in Ohio for the after thanksgiving gun hunt several years ago. On the second day of the season he shot a 17 inch 8pt with 8 and 9 inch g2 and g3, a nice big body buck. As luck would have it the buck ran down into this deep holler. We started dragging that buck out, but our out of shape bodies made it tough. So we went back to cuz's house and pick up our 4 wheelers. He had a 2 wheel drive 220 kawazaki and mine was a 400 4x4 polaris. We loaded the buck on his bike and started up the hill. The ground was very soft from recent rains and very very steep. His bike wouldnt make it up the hill, so I threw him a rope. I latched mine around the ball and he tied his in a slip knot and his frontrack. I told him you had better tie a better knot than that. He said hell that will hold it wont take much to pull me up. I pulled him a few yards up the hill and all of sudden my bike shot forward, when I turned around all I saw was his bike filpping over and over with the buck on the back and his ML on the handle bar gun rack. He jumped off when he saw the knot coming loose. I said why didnt you holler when you saw the knot slipping he said he didnt think about it all I wanted to do was get off. When it was all said and done he had broke the scope off his ML and one side of the rack off the buck. His 4 wheeler was ok except for bent handle bars, but at least he wasnt hurt.

put a buck deer concrete statue I had bought at a yard saleyears ago and my wife didn;t like to the mountains day before buck. My buddy and i loaded onto the UTE and took it to our friends stand and placed it about 150 yards away in the brush. Well 1st morning it's getting lighjt we hear pow, pow pow pow pow and then a cussing streak about 20 minutes later. He was shooting that thing and watching peices fly off it thinking he hit it good! But it stayed up on it's feetso he keeps on shooting. The whole camp and most of the gys up the valley new the joke and I truly think I could hear laughing through out the valley that morning.To this day whenever me or or the other guy leaves the camp the day and night before buck he follows us out the door to see what were up to or doing!We still swear we don't know who did it!! Which makes it even better......

Never did find out what happend to that poor buck prior to me putting him down. At the time we figured that it had been gut shot and never recovered but to be honest, we really dont know. Could have been a wound from a barbed wire fence that got infected or who knows what elseit could have been. Its too bad he had to wait for me to put him down, im sure he was in pain. As for the sight, yup, my own stupidity. I was 16 and my first hunt. I pay a lot more attention to those (not so minor) details now to prevent that sort of thing happening again.

One more story. Upstate/Western NY. Have to use a shotgun, no rifles. We put a Hastings barrel on our 870s cuz the Hastings barrel is rifled and we shot BRI 3" Mag .50 cal saboted slugs out of our 12 guages. Nice combo. My hunting buddy Steve was out on opening day one year and about a half hour after sunrise, I hear him shoot. Then about 5 min. later I hear another shot. I figure its a finishing shot. I stay in my stand and wait to see if he comes out of the woods and about 10 min later he did. Empty handed. I come out of my stand and meet him in the middle of the field he was walking through. Asked him what happened and he, nonchalantly told me he got a small buck butit was in the thickand needed some help dragging it out. So we walk into the woods and get to his stand and he stops. Im looking around and I dont see any buck. He just stands there grinning. I look at him, he looks away to his right and about 25 yards away is a big ole Tom. Must havehad a 7" beard, big ole spikes, a very nice bird. Head was missing. He shot that bird with a deer slug right on the mark at 25yds. I was impressed. So I figured that was that and started to walk to the bird. He says, wait, we need to get the deer. I says, you got a turkey and a deer? He says yup, lets go. We walk about 75 yds from his stand and I see it. It was a monster. 12 pt White Tail. Hole right behind the shoulder, bang flop. Remmington 870 12 gauge, 75 yds, BRI 3" Mag .50 saboted deer slug. Nice friggen shot, on both animals. He tookthe turkey first and just let it lay and then the real trophy was taken 5 min later.

Charles County MD...1983 I was 13 years old during the late muzzleloader season snowing to beat all hell. I climbed out of my dad's baker ladder stand and took cover under a low hanging pine. Sitting on my bucket not wanting my dad to get mad at me. I was determined to stay on the stand(or sit) all day. Not paying attention at all figuring nothing moving in this stuff where visability was 50y's at best. I look over to my left and I see a deer walking right to me......T/C Renegade(still have it) on my lap under my blaze orange vest to cover from the elements. Looking left deer getting closer......now closer......It seemed like he was 15yds away......not being able to lift gun up to shoot.....i leave gun across my lap and squeeze the trigger........snap of hammer? Well it got caught in my vest. The buck as I see it is now within 10yds or so looking at me wondering what fool is out in this. I recock the hammer and POW.....SMOKE everywhere my heart beating out my chest(after the shoot always bothers me more). Once the smoke clears and my heart calms down I figured I must have missed. Then I get up and look where he was standing.......and BLOOD!!!!!! Wow I hit him. Followed a 75yd blood trail and hes laying near our creek. Well I was pumped up a nice 6 point 15in inside spread and my first buck and then to have killed him with a blk powder even better. Lunch time my dad comes and get me along with my brother and I tell them the story. Everyone in camp thought I was lying and I was making the hole story up. Then my brother looks at my vest and low and behold there is a burn mark on the underside of it. That evening my dad goes into that stand and finds my bucket... deer fur and guts where i said i shot and all the pieces fall into place. The deer was shot in the neck going into the body on a slight angle coming out his rib cage. 90 grains RS....425g buffalo bullet and a shot that my dad says was 7 yards. I am almost certain my eyes were closed when I pulled the trigger. But none the less I have him on our cabin wall and a picture in my gun room at home. And I have been hooked on blk powder season ever since.
Chuck

jaybez... that was a good one.


A deer hunting story my dad teases me about all the time.. I was young, maybe 13 years old. I was armed with my Dad's Browning, light 12 Auto 5(nothing light about it) shotgun. Dad was worried I'd get lost, so he sat me on a stump under a black choke cherry tree. He told me to watch this trail, and to watch for grouse. We used to be able to hunt both. I had two bird shot shells in my pocket.

Dad had showed me how to flip the select switch on the shotgun to eject a slug and then slip a bird shot in the chamber. And it was cold and snowing. There I sat, all afternoon. Seeing nothing. Then a grouse lands in that choke cherry tree right over my head. I was excited, I locked the selector switch open, ejected the slug, unlocked the switch and pressed the button on the side,and quietly slid the lock closed.

That grouse was not more then fifteen feet over my head when I hit him with a 12 gauge slug. I was so excited, I put the bird shot up through the bottom. So when I closed the action it pulled up a slug. That bird exploded and I could have starred in that Steven King movie "Carrie" I was blood and guts every where, all over me.

When Dad picked me up on his walk out, he saw me and thought I was hurt. Instead I held up a small ball of feathers and told him, I got a grouse... Dad of just laughed. He ofcourse told all the guys I not only could shoot grouse, but gut and skin them at the same time.. What the heck, it washed off..

You shouldn't talk too much about shooting turkeys out of season.

Charlie

15 Years ago my dad and brother went hunting on a piece of land that was paper mill land. Instead of walking down a logging road the trail the took crossed it and you had to go north to get out and south to get to the river which was a mile down. Now this was Thanksgiving and there were to be home about noon when they left the woods the followed my brothers compass which was broke and it took them the to the Logging road but they could not find the cross trail. My dad knowing that North was the way to the road at the logging road said the could walk out that way. He had a wrist compass that showed the direction they were walking when you looked at it he read it back ward and walked the mile to the river. They than had to turn around and walk two miles to the road and another mile to the truck. This was in a rain storm and 32 degree weather.. We sure had some frozen discouraged hunters. I bought them both new compasses for Christmas and went over the instructions with them.
By the way I never fall to mention this when we go hunting every year