HuntingNet.com Forums - My deer rifle remembered!

This probably should be posted somewhere else, but it has to do with deer hunting and just thought I'd share it with you, guess I'm being sentimental.

On another forum a member posted a story of opening his mouth when he shouldn't and having to eat his words and it got me to thinking about what happened to me. So here goes my story.

My son is 35 now, I started him deer hunting when he was around 7 or 8 (hunting with me). I was in the military with a wife and two kids and I'll assure you money was tight. By the time he was 10 yrs old, I had gone to Sears, Roebuck, & Co. and bought him a 7 mm mauser ( you could buy them from Sears for about $15.00 back then, just had to pick the best out of a barrel full). I already had a 8 mm mauser and I semi sporterized both of them. A year later I saw a new Remington 760 pump, 30-06 in a local gun shop. I thought that was the best looking rifle I had ever seen. Needless to say, I scraped and saved every dime I could to buy that rifle. When I got it, my son probably thought the same, because that's all he talked about.

That deer season, my brother, my son, and I were at our deer camp. One afternoon my son killed a nice 6 point (eastern count) buck. He had his chest poked out and I believe his got as big as a basketball. He was really picking at me and his uncle. He had killed a doe and a spike the year prior to this but he was really proud of that little deer (me too). Well he made the statement that he was going to show us how to do it again and was going to kill an 8 pointer the next morning. I tried to explain that he shouldn't get his hopes up to high. Well he said, "If I kill an 8 pointer will you give me the pump rifle", and dummy here said sure, "If you get an 8 pointer in the morning, the rifle is yours".

The next morning I droped him off at his stand. I didn't sit down good in my stand when he fired his rifle. Any parent that has a child hunting will understand, when that rifle went off I couldn't stand it, had to get down and go to him (I know this was young for him, but he grew up shooting guns from the time he was four and I trusted him). When I got to within sight of where I droped him off, he came up into the road dragging a nice 8 pointer. I believe he said something like, "Can I hold my rifle now".

I couldn't back up, I handed the rifle to him. I must add, might head got bigger than his. I had to hunt the rest of the season with my old mauser. He told me he would keep that rifle the rest of his life. As I said earlier, he's 35 now and still uses that old rifle, he's got two boys and says he's going to pass it on to them.

Yes, I opened my mouth one time to many, but that's one time I've never regreted.

Just some thoughts from a hunter and most of all, a father.

dog1