Do You Recall Your First Deer?
12-22-2009, 05:42 AM
#11
Spike
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 31
I remember the first deer I shot rather well.
I was 12 and was now legal to hunt in PA, it was 1976 and I was using a .410 with punkin balls. I was hunting with my father and brother on State Game Lands. My father had permission to hunt some posted property that bordered the Game Lands, the land was all hay fields, but gave us access to the back side of the game lands, well in from the roads that everyone else would be coming from and we were hoping that the army of hunters would push the deer back to us. We took our stands on a gas line right-of-way. My father was about 70 yards uphill from me and I was on a shelf created from an old logging road that crossed the gas line. I plopped down on my hot seat as the snow began to fall. I had sat there about a 1/2 hour when out of the blue, a deer came streaking down the log road on the other side of the gas line and sprinted past me at full tilt and I could not get a good look at it before it was out of sight. When I turned back to where the deer had come from, there were 4 does standing there looking towards me. Then a deer came up in front of the does and he had horns! He stood there with his nose up in the air and then looked straight at me, he had 8-points, I was counting them and then put the bead of the shotgun on his chest and fired! He reared up and turned and started running up the hill towards my dad, I was of course calm, cool and collected (yea Right!) - I was yelling to him that I hit him and he's coming up to you Dad - and proceeded to stand in the middle of the gas line, so when he crossed between us, my dad couldn't shoot because I was standing in the line of fire. We were waiting the customary 20 - 30 minutes to follow the good blood trail that the buck was leaving, but with how hard it was snowing, dad was afraid that the blood trail would get covered up, so we started off following the blood trail. We went uphill about 100 yards and found where he'd been bedded down and there was a good puddle of blood, we'd bumped him because we hadn't waited long enough. We decided to wait a bit here because the snow had almost stopped and maybe he'd lay down again. We waited what seemed like an hour (probably 10-15 minutes), dad decided we should get a start on him because he was heading towards the road that everyone usually parks on and enters the woods from there and therefore he was heading right to them and we could lose the deer. We started tracking him again and had gone about 30 yards when we heard a shot from the top of the hill. Dad whispered to me "that was probably your deer, so we better step up our pace a little bit". When we reached the top of the hill, sure enough it was him - someone else had finished him off and tagged him and was dragging him off. My dad talked to him for a while, but to no avail he took the deer. About 4 days later, the guy stopped by our house and gave me the horns from the deer and a few steaks. He explained that he had waited for 15 minutes and didn't see anyone following him, so he field dressed him and that he'd just finished dressing him when we arrived and he told my dad that since he did the work of dressing him, it was his at that point. My dad told him that it was my first year hunting, etc. and I think that he must have felt a little guilty and that is why he brought me the horns. I mounted them on a plaque and have them hanging on the wall in my cubicle at work.
Now, the first deer I killed & got was in 1989, my second year hunting in Vermont. It was a 90 lb. 3-pointer - small deer, but to me it was a trophy. after hunting 13 years, I had finally connected with a buck! I was hunting the woods behind my FIL's house, he'd taken me up in the woods 2 times before the season began and showed me a few log roads to use to navigate myself around the woods (there's about 700 - 800 acres of woods). Well I walked the log road up to the top of the mountain and then back down the north side to where there is an intersection of 3 log roads. 1 leads out to a field, and the other leads around the backside of the mountain. It was about 9 AM, and I was a little tired from the walk up and down the mountain and decided to find a spot where I could see the valley below the road pretty good. I had just poured myself a coffee when I head a shot about a hundred yards or so away from me towards the field. I stood up and got ready in case whoever shot had missed and whatever they were shooting at would come my way. It was then that I saw what looked like a spike to me running with a front leg shot off. It was running through the valley and towards the log road that I was on, so I shouldered my .270 put him in my scope and decided that when he got on the log road, I'd shoot. He landed on the log road, I found his chest and shot. He spun around 180°, I pumped another round into the chamber, found his chest and fired again. He fell back down into the valley, kicked a couple of times and then bleated once and was dead. I made sure he was dead and then rolled him over to see it there were more than 2 bullet holes in him when the 2 guys that had shot at him showed up and said that they had missed him clean. I asked about the front leg and they said he was on 3 when they kicked him up and that they had found the tree that one of them had shot, so they knew they'd missed. I told them that this was my first deer (I never considered the one I'd lost as my first because I didn't take him home) and they congratulated me and went off on their merry way. I field dressed him and started dragging him down the log road back up the mountain as this was the way I knew how to get home. It was 9:15 AM. After dragging him up the mountain and back down the other side to my FIL's yard, it was 11:45 AM. My FIL and wife pulled into the driveway about a 1/2 hour later to find my little 3-pointer hanging in a tree and me exhausted standing there. They were happy and excited for me and we took pictures and stuff and then my FIL asked me where I'd gotten him. I told him up on Baker's place where the log roads intersect and he said, good - the drag wasn't too bad, then. I said "What do you mean, not bad - It took me 2-1/2 hours to get it back here and just about killed me dragging it up the log road!" He started laughing and said to me "See the brook over there that goes under the road by my mailbox"? I said yes, he than told me that it starts up where you shot the buck and is only about 300 - 400 yards from the mailbox to where I'd shot the buck and it would have been all downhill from there to the house! Funny now, but not then!
Here's the picture:
I was 12 and was now legal to hunt in PA, it was 1976 and I was using a .410 with punkin balls. I was hunting with my father and brother on State Game Lands. My father had permission to hunt some posted property that bordered the Game Lands, the land was all hay fields, but gave us access to the back side of the game lands, well in from the roads that everyone else would be coming from and we were hoping that the army of hunters would push the deer back to us. We took our stands on a gas line right-of-way. My father was about 70 yards uphill from me and I was on a shelf created from an old logging road that crossed the gas line. I plopped down on my hot seat as the snow began to fall. I had sat there about a 1/2 hour when out of the blue, a deer came streaking down the log road on the other side of the gas line and sprinted past me at full tilt and I could not get a good look at it before it was out of sight. When I turned back to where the deer had come from, there were 4 does standing there looking towards me. Then a deer came up in front of the does and he had horns! He stood there with his nose up in the air and then looked straight at me, he had 8-points, I was counting them and then put the bead of the shotgun on his chest and fired! He reared up and turned and started running up the hill towards my dad, I was of course calm, cool and collected (yea Right!) - I was yelling to him that I hit him and he's coming up to you Dad - and proceeded to stand in the middle of the gas line, so when he crossed between us, my dad couldn't shoot because I was standing in the line of fire. We were waiting the customary 20 - 30 minutes to follow the good blood trail that the buck was leaving, but with how hard it was snowing, dad was afraid that the blood trail would get covered up, so we started off following the blood trail. We went uphill about 100 yards and found where he'd been bedded down and there was a good puddle of blood, we'd bumped him because we hadn't waited long enough. We decided to wait a bit here because the snow had almost stopped and maybe he'd lay down again. We waited what seemed like an hour (probably 10-15 minutes), dad decided we should get a start on him because he was heading towards the road that everyone usually parks on and enters the woods from there and therefore he was heading right to them and we could lose the deer. We started tracking him again and had gone about 30 yards when we heard a shot from the top of the hill. Dad whispered to me "that was probably your deer, so we better step up our pace a little bit". When we reached the top of the hill, sure enough it was him - someone else had finished him off and tagged him and was dragging him off. My dad talked to him for a while, but to no avail he took the deer. About 4 days later, the guy stopped by our house and gave me the horns from the deer and a few steaks. He explained that he had waited for 15 minutes and didn't see anyone following him, so he field dressed him and that he'd just finished dressing him when we arrived and he told my dad that since he did the work of dressing him, it was his at that point. My dad told him that it was my first year hunting, etc. and I think that he must have felt a little guilty and that is why he brought me the horns. I mounted them on a plaque and have them hanging on the wall in my cubicle at work.
Now, the first deer I killed & got was in 1989, my second year hunting in Vermont. It was a 90 lb. 3-pointer - small deer, but to me it was a trophy. after hunting 13 years, I had finally connected with a buck! I was hunting the woods behind my FIL's house, he'd taken me up in the woods 2 times before the season began and showed me a few log roads to use to navigate myself around the woods (there's about 700 - 800 acres of woods). Well I walked the log road up to the top of the mountain and then back down the north side to where there is an intersection of 3 log roads. 1 leads out to a field, and the other leads around the backside of the mountain. It was about 9 AM, and I was a little tired from the walk up and down the mountain and decided to find a spot where I could see the valley below the road pretty good. I had just poured myself a coffee when I head a shot about a hundred yards or so away from me towards the field. I stood up and got ready in case whoever shot had missed and whatever they were shooting at would come my way. It was then that I saw what looked like a spike to me running with a front leg shot off. It was running through the valley and towards the log road that I was on, so I shouldered my .270 put him in my scope and decided that when he got on the log road, I'd shoot. He landed on the log road, I found his chest and shot. He spun around 180°, I pumped another round into the chamber, found his chest and fired again. He fell back down into the valley, kicked a couple of times and then bleated once and was dead. I made sure he was dead and then rolled him over to see it there were more than 2 bullet holes in him when the 2 guys that had shot at him showed up and said that they had missed him clean. I asked about the front leg and they said he was on 3 when they kicked him up and that they had found the tree that one of them had shot, so they knew they'd missed. I told them that this was my first deer (I never considered the one I'd lost as my first because I didn't take him home) and they congratulated me and went off on their merry way. I field dressed him and started dragging him down the log road back up the mountain as this was the way I knew how to get home. It was 9:15 AM. After dragging him up the mountain and back down the other side to my FIL's yard, it was 11:45 AM. My FIL and wife pulled into the driveway about a 1/2 hour later to find my little 3-pointer hanging in a tree and me exhausted standing there. They were happy and excited for me and we took pictures and stuff and then my FIL asked me where I'd gotten him. I told him up on Baker's place where the log roads intersect and he said, good - the drag wasn't too bad, then. I said "What do you mean, not bad - It took me 2-1/2 hours to get it back here and just about killed me dragging it up the log road!" He started laughing and said to me "See the brook over there that goes under the road by my mailbox"? I said yes, he than told me that it starts up where you shot the buck and is only about 300 - 400 yards from the mailbox to where I'd shot the buck and it would have been all downhill from there to the house! Funny now, but not then!
Here's the picture:
12-22-2009, 05:46 AM
#12
Fork Horn
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Kentucky
Posts: 201
I killed my first deer, a nice 5 point buck, in November 1994, on the second Saturday of the rifle season at Yatesville Lake WMA.
I was using my brother's Remington 742 in .30-06 but had switched ammo to Remington 180 grain core-lokts after the spectacular "failure" of Winchester 150 grain Powerpoints (bullet totally disintegrated on impact) on a spike buck the week before (we retrieved that little buck after finding it by sheer luck).
My wife had accompanied me and was setting back against the tree to my left asleep. The buck crossed the ridge at about 8:30 after having been missed four times that morning (you could hear each shot getting closer). I awoke my wife when I saw the deer and scoped it, verifying it was a buck (I thought it was an 8-point). My shifting around and my wife's startled reaction was noticed by the buck, which made a dash for a nearby thicket.
Scanning along the trail through the thicket in front of the buck, I found a TV sized hole in the thicket a little over 100 yards away, and waited for the buck there. As soon as his chest met the crosshairs, I fired. He took three steps beyond the shot and stumbled, got back up, took one step up the hill and fell back down, where he rolled about 20 feet down the hill.
I was thrilled with my first buck, my wife was there to see me take it, my brother joined us thirty minutes later (he knew the sound of his own rifle). He is mounted on my wall in the living room, even though I have killed a number of larger bucks since then.
I was using my brother's Remington 742 in .30-06 but had switched ammo to Remington 180 grain core-lokts after the spectacular "failure" of Winchester 150 grain Powerpoints (bullet totally disintegrated on impact) on a spike buck the week before (we retrieved that little buck after finding it by sheer luck).
My wife had accompanied me and was setting back against the tree to my left asleep. The buck crossed the ridge at about 8:30 after having been missed four times that morning (you could hear each shot getting closer). I awoke my wife when I saw the deer and scoped it, verifying it was a buck (I thought it was an 8-point). My shifting around and my wife's startled reaction was noticed by the buck, which made a dash for a nearby thicket.
Scanning along the trail through the thicket in front of the buck, I found a TV sized hole in the thicket a little over 100 yards away, and waited for the buck there. As soon as his chest met the crosshairs, I fired. He took three steps beyond the shot and stumbled, got back up, took one step up the hill and fell back down, where he rolled about 20 feet down the hill.
I was thrilled with my first buck, my wife was there to see me take it, my brother joined us thirty minutes later (he knew the sound of his own rifle). He is mounted on my wall in the living room, even though I have killed a number of larger bucks since then.
12-22-2009, 06:44 AM
#13
Fork Horn
Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 162
Quantico Marine Base, 1992 I think. Walked into the tree line off of a power line. I noticed the leaves were all sturred up. I put my custom made, dangerous as hell, climbing treestand my uncle gave me into an oak. After I saw a little deer in the thicket I waited. I heard something next to me and a big buck was right beside me. I waited for him to go behind a tree, drawed my bow, bent around like a pretzel to get the shot on my right hand side. Let the arrow go and it dissappeared into the woods. We had to go back to game check to get a two hour track pass so we were not late, then we found it not far from I last saw it!
12-22-2009, 12:39 PM
#17
Dominant Buck
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: On an Island in Vermont
Posts: 22,605
My first was when I was 15 and hunting out of our family deer camp in VT. It was opening day and my father walked up the mountain and left me off about 1 mile above the camp. He continued up the ridge and told me to stay up on a big rock until he came back down. The rock gave a great view of a ravine and there was a deer trail coming through it. At day break the does started to come up the mountain from their feeding areas down in the valley. I watched several small groups come up and no bucks. Suddenly I could see a deer all alone and it has antlers. It turned out to be a 3 point but I was thrilled to get a chance. I was using a Remi 742 with a Redfield scope. The deer was broadside about 70 yds and I held firm on the heart area. I shot and the deer ran a few steps and tipped over. My uncle was a few hundred yds below me and came up after hearing the shot. He showed me how to field dress the deer and we both dragged it down to camp. That was about 46 years ago and it was the last time I needed help dressing out a deer. He taught me well.
12-22-2009, 01:02 PM
#18
Site Buck Guru
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Racine, Wisconsin
Posts: 5,922
Dec. 7, 1968 7:24 AM
15 yard running shot with a 35 lb recurve, cedar arrows and Bear sharpen-with-a-file broadheads.
Hand painted coveralls (from my dad's work), $1.25 dime store hunting knife, masking tape bow camo and my Sunday going to church rabbit fur lined gloves.
I certainly remember that deer.
15 yard running shot with a 35 lb recurve, cedar arrows and Bear sharpen-with-a-file broadheads.
Hand painted coveralls (from my dad's work), $1.25 dime store hunting knife, masking tape bow camo and my Sunday going to church rabbit fur lined gloves.
I certainly remember that deer.
12-22-2009, 01:05 PM
#20
Fork Horn
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Slapout, Alabama
Posts: 227
I was 16 years old and I was hunting on a buddy of mine's private land. I sat with him one day during the rut in a big shooting box. This box was located on a big food plot where deer crossed early morning. We sat for a while seeing plenty of deer but never could get a shot. Finally about 9:30 a deer came strolling into the field. We looked at him and thought he was a cowhorn spike so we decided to kill him. I put the crosshairs on him a pull the trigger. I shot him with a Sako .30-06 and he went about 20 yards and piled up. We got down and went to drag him up and noticed it was a broken up 8 pt. Tines were broke off everywhere and his left beam was snapped right after the G2. I have this deer's rack hanging on the wall to remember how i shot it and to remember my best friend was right beside me.