first hunt
 

Can anyone else remember their first hunt. how when they shot their first animal the adrenaline? Or maybe the shame if your shot missed? :fighting0007:

Yeah I remember the first deer I've shot at and the disappointment I felt from missing it.

I remember my first deer I shot...I still get the adrenaline rush...once that's gone its time to quit hunting..lol

Yup i remember.the old man woke me up and right infront of me stood a nice eight point.was also the first time i gutted a deer.

1st mounted buck was with a bow. I had no idea the s o b even had horns till I tracked it my adrenalin was pumping. I think I fainted when I saw it was a 120" 8.

Same rush still happens today wether it be buck er doe. Thats why I live for the fall.

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. :biggrin:

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! :s2: 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! :hail: I thought hed SURELY hear my POUNDING heart! :busted: 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! :jaw:

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! :happy0157: 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! :fighting0007:

I emptied the gun as the buck disappeared into the woods across the pasture 100yds away! :s7: 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!!! :rock:

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?" :o 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 :s14:

I still remember the look on his face as I shot him.

Good story man. I was on edge reading it.

Thank ya sir! :wave:

My first large game was little knot head whitetail buck. 3 points to a side with one brow tine broken off. The scene was a wooded creek bottom. I was armed with my coyote killer, a Ruger M77V bull barrel 25/06 shooting WW 120 grain PEP loads.

In my youthful ignorance I was using bobcat trapping scent as a cover. I soaked a couple rags in it and hung them in bushes close to my ambush location at the base of a big cottonwood. It must have smelled like there were about 50 bobcats in that little creek bottom.

Along comes this buck and about the time he gets close enough to identify he starts running up and down the creek bottom. I guess he was either curious about all the scent or in full panic at the thought of being surrounded by 50 bobcats.

Anyway, on about his third pass by my location at a range of 40 yards or so I got into action and took a running shot. The shot went high and got his spine. The second shot finished him as he was trying to crawl away, dragging his hind quarters.

I got that little buck mounted by a really bad taxidermist and I still have it. It should be featured in all taxidermy textbooks as an example of what not to do.

That was about 1975 as I recall. I sold the rifle a few years later to get a 270. Wish I had kept it.