Do You Remember Your First Deer? Stories Please!!

[digs68]

Here's mine. I told it on another forum, and thought "first deer stories" would make a very interesting thread.

 Here in mid Missouri, I can remember back in the 70's that if you got a deer at all it was big news. I used to share a small farm with about ten other hunters. We were packed like sardines on that place and most years the kill was zero or one. It was always alot of fun though.
I killed my first deer there around the age of 12 or 13. I had been put on a stand nobody wanted and was seeing nothing. My Dad was adamant that I went to church Sunday morning so my brother brought me back to the farm around 11:30 or so. He told me, "Just follow that fenceline along the woods til you get to the top of the hill and then hop the fence into the woods.". I found a big tree to lean against and relaxed, dozed. A while later, I thought I saw a deer down in the woods. I looked and looked but couldn't see anything. Sudenly, I saw a weird looking yellow branch gleaming in the sun, then it moved!!
I was so excited!! There was a buck about 50 yards in front of me. I was using my brother's 30/30, which I had never shot. I aimed and fired at the buck. He just looked around like, "What the hell was that??".
I worked the lever and fired again. This time he collapsed.
I about freaked I was so excited!! It turned out to be a small eight pointer, but it was a trophy of a lifetime for me and the guys I hunted with back then.
Later, while dressing it, we looked around and could see my cousin's stand through the woods. It was pretty close, but I had no idea. He never said anything cause I guess i was just a kid, and he might have never seen it.
Funny how I can remember that moment so clearly after all these years.
Looking forward to reading your stories!

[1marty]

I'm 67 today but I remember it like it was yesterday. I've killed many deer since then but that one I remember the most. I was 15 and my dad let me at last go deer hunting with him and my two older brothers. He put me in a heavily wooded area and told me not to move until he came for me. I had his old win model 94 30-30 which I just stared at most of the day. A snow squal came up and I couldn't see more than 10 feet in front of me. As the snow let up in front of me stood a four point buck about 30 yards off staring at me. I quickly raised the rifle and shot. I was so excited I don't even remember aiming. I hit the deer in the middle of the neck and it went down. I started yelling for my Dad and my brothers and they came running thinking something happened to me. After many "atta boy" he gave me his knife and said you shot it, you gut it. Back in the cabin he sawed off the antlers and gave them to me. My dad and two brothers are gone but every so often I sit in my den and stare at those antlers and oil that old winchester and remember that day over and over again.

[thejanitor]

This would have been the fall of '82 I was a freshmen in H.S. and we lived along a small river bottom in NW Iowa. I had bow hunted and all, but never shot a deer. I asked Mom if I could go hunt pheasants with her old Ithaca 20 guage single shot. (break action, looked like a lever action '94) I grabbed a handful of shells we had left from years of misc. hunting and went out for a walk.
I walked the ditch down to a waterway in the field and kicked around there for a while, not finding any birds I took a different grassy path back to the grove, when I got to the fence along the field I was in I saw a squirrel jump on a tree about 20 yds away along a small ravine that runs through the wooded area leading back and down to the river. I was close enough and figured I could hit it with a shotgun, so pulled up quick and shot the squirrel. With the report of the gun 3 deer stood up directly behind the squirrel on the far side of the ravine 50ish yds away, two ran away and the other stood looking at me. These were the three deer we had watched all summer a doe and two fawns that were hardly strangers to us. So I yelled and waved my arm and the last one ran off to catch up to mom and sibling. I kept hunting through the grove and when I came back toward the house there was a deer laying by a brush pile breathing very strangely. I leaned the gun against a tree and lifted the deer to its feet and it ran ten yards and fell, I then ran up to the house to get my Dad. He came out and we carried the deer to the barn, I went to the house and called the game warden ( I had just had my hunters saftey class two or three weeks before... go figure) telling him we had a sick deer that was acting very strange. It had strange lumps on the top of the head and I thought it was hurt from a car or something.... (button buck  duhh)  While I was on the phone my mom came in and said the deer died, so I told this to the warden, he said he would come by the next day to see the animal.
When I went back to the barn we rolled the deer over and there in the middle of the rib cage was a single spot of blood. Dad looked at me and I all of the sudden had the "OH NO" look and took Dad out to show him exactly where I was, the squirrel was and the deer stood up. He asked me what shell I had used and I showed him, it was a BB goose load.(black marker on the primer, he and my uncle knew what was what.)... OK so I go pick up the gun and head back to the house and call the warden to explain what we just figured out had happened. He said he would want to see the exact area the next day. I don't think I even helped Dad gut or skin it I just remember him telling me when he had it done that he found two BB holes in the deer one in the ribs and one on the rump.
 I was a young kind of un-experienced hunter but I learned a lot from that experience. I am very lucky it wasn't one of the cows the landlord kept there. I never even gave the far side of that ravine a thought, I also never thought anything except that the deer was sick or something- until that drop of blood on the ribs......
I don't know for sure that Dad believed me or not that it was and accident, But this is the actual account of my first deer.
Now my second deer thats a more normal story we were set up for a drive in northern MN I had my 700 remington 25/06 and........   
thejanitor

[digs68]

Great stories!
Janitor, I saw that exact gun on an auction this weekend. Neat gun!
Chris

[Land_Owner]

I love wasps. They're inspirational on a cool Autumn Day. I killed my first buck while flicking wasps off of the box stand as they tried to remount their former "high ground". I was too naive to know to look for them, climbed into the stand very unceremoniously, and found they were not too pleased with my presence. Fortunately I was REAL lucky and they were cold and didn't swarm. I knocked their nest down, sat down, and as the afternoon progressed and grew warmer they continued to return.  I looked up just after sitting down and saw a REAL BIG buck looking directly at me, probably enjoying the stupid white guy swatting wasps, and it ambled off before I could bring my rifle to bear. A little later in the afternoon, sometime after about 25 wasps had met their Maker from my finger flicking, I made my own history when a spike buck at 40 yards became my first.

[Mohawk]

I was 12 yrs old and on a Thanksgiving hunt November 28, 1986 near Comfort TX. I sneaked off during the noon naps my Dad was taking and sat myself in a box blind about 40 yds from a feeder. I had my Dad's Rem 700 Classic .30-06 loaded with 150 gr Federal "Hi-Shok" SP bullets( Remember those? ). An unspotted doe fawn came by at 12:26 pm and began feeding. First shot broad side at 40yds and clean miss. Deer didn't move. 2nd shot same thing but the deer turned facing directly away from me. Only had one cartridge left. Third shot entered high in the rump and blew a 6" wound out of the top of the back. Obvious spine kill. Probably the smallest deer I have ever taken but my proudest. I remember literally running to the camp house out of breath to tell my Dad. He was shocked that it was taken during the middle of the day when " Deer don't move at noon". And yes he still believes that....... My 7th grade teachers let me put the small framed photo of my first deer on my desk during each class the entire semester following that day....... something that would be taboo today ):  I learned A LOT that day and continued learning from my youthful mistakes. I had three bullets that day. And my first published novel when I was 19 yrs old was based around carrying 3 bullets. That is even how I would sign my book during book signings...... "Always Carry Three!". And as habit, when I killed my deer with my Model 10 .38 Spl ....... yes only 3 chambers were loaded. I think it is a luck thing now while I am hunting. Well, that's my story.

[deernhog]

October 31st 1982 23 years old. I came home from work jumped into my camo and took my bow to a woodlot near my house I had just been given permission to hunt on. I had set the stand the evening before so all I had to do was crawl in for a hour of hunting. Just as I pulled my bow up and dropped the cord back down I saw a 5 point buck eating acorns 15 yards from my stand. I dug out my tab and took a arrow from the quiver that was still on the bow. I drew and loosed a arrow as soon as I put the pin on him. I hit him high and dropped him in his tracks. He kicked and rolled over and I loosed another arrow without even remembering I had done it into his boiler which stopped all movement. I almost stepped out of the tree stand before I caught myself and calmed down. In Oklahoma any bow kill was news and I was pumped. Mine was only one of 37 deer harvested in the county that year with a bow if I remember correctly. I hunted for several years after that and got deer with my bow every year until 1989 when I took a break from hunting because of a new job. When I resumed in 1992 I harvested at least one deer a season until last year when my whole family blanked for various excuses and reasons.

[Rummer]

December 12, 1988-The first day of PA's Doe Season that year.  It was my second year of deer hunting.  I had talked my folks into letting me get a doe permit & take a day off from school to hunt.  I was watching an opening between woodlots on public land.  I heard a shot & saw three deer running thru the opening.  They were 100-125 yards away.  I had never seen a legal deer in the woods before when hunting and decided to a take a shot at them.  I was in a sitting position and aimed ahead of the lead deer.  When the lead looked right (I have no idea what method I used to calculate that!), I pressed the trigger.  When the gun went off the lead doe just seemed to go limp. The rifle was a remington 700 in .308.  I couldn't find an entry or exit hole initially, but when we dressed her out the chest cavity was full of blood, the lungs were damaged and the liver came out in pieces, and the spine was broken.  I was shooting REM 150gr PSP-CL over a reduced charge of 748 (This made the gun really pleasant for me to shoot at 5'2" and 120lbs).  My Dad still hunts with that rifle and kills deer with that bullet.  I think I did everything wrong that day.  I don't believe I would attempt a shot like that now and I'm glad, for the deers sake as well as mine, that I got lucky with the bullet placement.
JCR

[elhoward622]

I was a Junior in high school when I shot my first.  I had hunted the year before with my dad during Christmas break.  We just stalked around and sat on logs; never saw much.  That year I got my first deer gun: a 25-06 Ruger 77.  I had hunted all year and passed up several small bucks waiting for that big one!  Well, I had no luck all year and never got a glimpse of a decent deer until the last day of season.  My uncle posted me in a cotton field and he pushed through an adjacent wood lot.  About five minutes passed and a high rack six point busted out of the woods, in a trot, maybe 75 yards from me.  I came unwound with buck fever, overcompensated, and lead the trotting animal through the crosshairs by about five feet!  The first shot never even came close! The deer took off and three empty cases later he skidded to a halt at the edge of the field: a perfect broadside shot!  I took careful aim, squeezed the trigger, and *CLICK*!!! I decided not to cram a fifth shot in the magazine!  My hopes were dashed, I was depressed, and eyeing my uncles truck that was parked over in the next field for bullet holes.  I moped around camp until the afternoon and decided to sit a ladder where my father had shot his first buck, and 8-point, earlier that season.  I was in the stand for maybe two hours when I hear the sound of dripping water.  I grab my rifle and turn around to see a 16" wide 8-point buck; a sight i can still picture clear as day!  I really don't really even remember aiming.  I just raised the gun, centered the crosshairs on the shoulder, and squeezed the trigger like a seasoned vet.  The deer ran 50 yards and piled up in the brush quickly followed by a jubilant 16 year old.  I still remember all the praise by my uncle for waiting to harvest a quality deer.

[chefjeff]

Man ,who can forget their first one! I was 12 and an older buddy drove us about 50 miles away ,to the Aberdeen,NC area. We met up with some dog hunters ,old man named Arthur Seawell,invited us to hunt with them in the morning.We slept in the car.Soon after daylight the hunt began.We were posted on a dirt road. I had a 12 ga. double and climbed up in a pine tree nearby. No one got in trees to hunt then, but I was a climber with a shotgun stuck through my belt.Soon some other dogs jumped a small buck , he ran by about 20 yards away. I shot both barrels of 00 and folded him up .Excitedly climbing down from my limb( no tree stands then) I fell about 10 feet on my back,knocked the breathe from me. Gun stuck barrel down in the sandy ground.I broke out my knife and crawled toward the dying buck,about to choke. He expired,then the dogs got there and soon plenty of orange hats. It was quite the joyous occasion when I caught my breathe.I've killed many rack bucks since then, but I won't forget that little 3 pointer,whose massive headgear(LOL) I still posess.But then, every set of horns one has holds a great memory.

[ihookem]

Well, I was 14, I had my new Franchi 20 ga. automatic. The year was 1977 in Big Falls Wis. I needed an auto cause I wounded a buck the year before with my Ithica single shot. About 9:30 opening day, I hear one, sure enough a buck at 35 yds. running full blast.I swung around and shot, then another, after the 3rd shot it stops, and off went the 4th shot. I don't know what shot hit him square in the front shoulder but it was dead after a 35 yd run and 3 seconds later. On the last shot it was standing still. I don't know if it stopped cause it heard me shoot or if was just ready to fall over. Never will know.

[shot1]

I sure can like it was yesterday. My Dad did not deer hunt, just small game. My neighbor and Sunday school teacher told me if I got me a high power rifle he would take me deer hunting. I had just turned 13 years old at the time, it was December. That next spring and summer I worked hard mowing yards, putting up hay, working in my uncles tobacco patch setting it out and doing what needed done. By the end of the summer I had saved up $45.00. A local chain store had what I knew then were 30-06 Army rifles for $40. Dad took me and got one for me. It was a 1903A3 Springfield UNISSUED made by Remington. This was back when deer were very few and far between in the mountains of TN. My neighbor took me that deer season and every season until I went off to college in WV. Neither of us even seen a deer in those years.
after dragging that heavy long Springfield through the mountain brush for 3 years I sold it and bought a Marlin 336 in 30-30 from my Uncle. I was in my freshman year in college and would turn 18 yrs old in Dec. The season in TN was open for two weeks in Nov and had been open for one week already. I had work obligations on Saturdays but the next Monday we would be off school for some reason. I left school on Sunday morning and drove home to TN 3 1/2 hrs drive. I went to my neighbors house as soon as I got home and he was just finishing lunch. I asked if I could go hunting with him the next day. He said that he had been hunting hard for the past week and he was not planing on going on Monday. I told him that I only had that one day and had to go back to school and be in class on Tuesday at 8 a.m. . He decided to go and take me. You needed a 4X4 to get to where you could hunt and he had a jeep. We left his house at 4 a.m., it took a little over an hour to get to where we would hunt. When I bought my hunting permit I did not get a permit for the managed area that my neighbor had been hunting in because it was foolish to pay that money for one day. I dropped him off and went to the other side of the mountain that was in the open area to hunt. I sat on a ridge that had a bunch of oak trees hoping to have a deer come for breakfast. I sat there until noon and did not see anything but some other hunters. I decided to go to the top of the mountain where my cousin had told me that he had seen some deer sign. I sat on this huge bolder that was in a saddle on the top of a ridge between two ridges that dropped off on both sides. I had not been there for 15 minutes when out on the ridge to my right I was something moving. IT WAS A DEER. I did not have any field glasses or a scope on the rifle to look it over with. I thought it was a doe because I could not see any antlers. It came out the ridge toward me but was lower down that I was. It dropped out of sight but in a few minutes it popped out just slightly to my left about 50 yards below me. I still though it was a doe but then it turned it's head slightly and the sun flashed off something between it's ears. ANTLERS. I eased my rifle up as slow as molasses in winter time and got it shouldered but when I cocked the hammer back the buck heard it. He became alert but was looking hard to my left. The sound must sounded like it came from that direction to him. I put the front sight tight up behind his front shoulder with the bead level in the back sight and started my trigger squeeze. At the moment that the gun went off the deer took a step forward. At the shot the deer was knocked off balance and turned a complete barrel roll and landed back on it's feet. It reared up like High-O-Silver on it's back legs and took off down the mountain. I sat there astonished and thought I could not have missed that deer. I climbed down off the bolder and went to where the deer was standing when I shot. There was no blood but there was a sack full of white hair on the ground. I started sliding down the mountain side. It was VERY steep. I could see where the deer had jumped in the leaves so I followed it for about 150 yards down to the bottom of the hollow. There were lots of laurel bushes in the hollow. On one of the bushes I spotted some blood and when I stepped around that bush it looked like you had painted the ground on both sides of where that deer went for 4 feet red. I was the deer laying on the ground about 20 yards away. Now through the whole process of seeing my first deer in the woods while hunting and it was a buck through shooting it I was pretty calm but when I spotted that deer on the ground my legs became rubber and I had to sit down. I sat there just looking at that deer for a good 15 minutes before I could get up and go to it. I was a 5 point buck and it had a BIG body. I gutted it with a knife that my dad had made for me out of an old file. He made some beautiful knives and they would stay sharp. I started looking through my hunting coat and could not find my drag rope, found it on my bed where it fell out when I got home. I just grabbed one side of the antlers and tried to pull the deer up that steep ridge side. I would pull two feet and he would slide back one. I pulled on him for over an hour and had not gotten may be 30 yards. There was a big rotting log there so I pulled him in behind it and covered it up with leaves so nobody would see it and steal it and went to the top of the ridge and got the jeep and went down the mountain to get my neighbor. It took both us is over an hour to get that deer up the STEEP ridge side. That deer field dressed weighed 163 pounds. It was the third largest weight deer taken in the county and the heaviest was 170 pounds. We took the deer to a store that was close to my house and put it into their walk in cooler. I went home took a shower ate and jumped in the car and drove 3 1/2 hrs back to school that night. My neighbor and dad got somebody to skin and cut up that deer for me. I have lost count a long time ago at how many deer I have killed. Lets just say it is in excess of 200 by quite a few but I will always remember the first one like it was yesterday. By the way I had hit that deer between the last two ribs and took out it's lungs and it's liver. I was shooting a 150 gr Rem Core-lokt HP in that 30-30 Win. Funny how a dead deer can travel close to 200 yards.

[336SC]

Remember mine like it was yesterday.  November 1965 and I'm 13 years old.  My uncle Jack got me into guns and hunting as my Dad did not allow guns in his house.  We wake up @ 4:00am to a pulsing rain outside.  Uncle Jack asked me if I still wanted to go and I look
at him like he got three heads.  We load up his 1953 Pontiac straight eight and head to our planned spot.  Walk to our spots in the dark and the rain and I'm all set up 50 yards from Uncle Jack.  I crawl into a small hemlock and wait for first light.  I have my Uncle Jack's
Win 94, .32 Win Special across my lap loaded up with 170gr Win Power Points.  Uncle Jack always told me that if I see a doe, don't give
my position away because a buck might be following her.  Well around 8:00am, here comes a little doe, then a big doe, then a buck with what I thought had to be the biggest rack in Pennsylvania.  I had not moved up to this point but when the buck came along I stood up quickly, lined up the sights on that .32 Special and let one fly.  The deer scattered and my hearts pounding in my ears.  Never
felt the recoil from that Win 94 and that surprised me.  I go down to where he stood at the shot and there is hair, blood, and bone fragments all over the place.  Uncle Jack comes along in a minute or two and helps me track the buck before the rain washed all the blood away.  He didn't go far, maybe 50 yards but he doubled back on us and took us a bit to sort things out.  When we found him I gave the loudest yell heard this side of old big muddy.  I was one happy kid that day.  38 deer later and I'm still full of the giddyness
everytime I have one down on the ground.  Uncle Jack has long since passed but I own that Model 94 in .32 Special and everytime I
wipe her down I think of Uncle Jack and that rainy day back in 1965.  Uncle Jack sold that .32 Special to me when I came home from overseas.  Paid him what he spent on it in 1948, $50.00.  It's priceless to me and always will be special to me, along with Uncle Jack my
hunting mentor and true friend. 
336SC

[IOWA DON]

I hunted deer in the fall of 1965 when a junior in high school. During that 9-day season (2 weekends and the week days in between), I hunted every possible hour both weekends and most of the evenings after school and only saw one deer. It was a doe and my permit was “buck-only”. There were not many deer in eastern Nebraska in those days. I did not get a deer permit the following year as there were not enough for everyone who applied. The first deer I shot was in November 1967. It was from an area south of Plattsmouth, Nebraska near the Missouri River. At that time, I was 18 years old and a freshman at the University of Nebraska (at Lincoln). Again there was a 9-day season and not many deer. I had hunted all of the first weekend and all of the second Saturday. Week days were out because I was away at college. I got the deer on the second Sunday, the last day of the season, after hunting about half the day.
The weather had been dry and, although I had not seen a deer, I had shot a coyote which I called in. It snowed Saturday night and there was 3 inches of snow on the ground by first light. I had to park my car at the top of the last hill and walk down to my hunting area along the river as the hill was too steep to get back up with snow on the road. I crossed a track from a doe while walking along the road and then a much larger track which I knew was from a buck. I could tell the tracks were fresh as it was snowing hard. I followed tracks across a field and into a large timber which was bordered on the other side by the river and continued tracking the deer for the next 3 hours or so. He was leading me around in circles within the timber. I was tired and the snow on my clothes was melting so I was getting wet and cold. There was a lot of brush within the timber and my 7 MM Weatherby with its long barrel was not handy to carry. Finally, I saw the deer through the trees about 25 yards away. Luckily, there was an opening in the tree branches between my rifle and his shoulder. I fired; he ran 15 or 20 yards and was dead by the time I got to him. His antlers were pretty ordinary but he had a very large body. The problem was that there was 6 inches of snow on the ground by then, the deer was too heavy for me to drag, I was more or less lost within the woods, and was more than a mile from my car. I headed off in what I thought might be a good direction and luckily came to a field in a couple hundred yards or so. Even luckier, the field was the one on the way back to the road. I finally got back to my car and drove to my parent’s house. My brothers were there and agreed to help me get the deer out. That was not easy. We took my dad’s truck and parked it at the top of the hill and hiked back to the deer by following my previous tracks. We tied the deer to a pole and attempted to carry it “Indian style” but it was too heavy. We ended up dragging it on the snow, stopping every few yards to rest up. It took 2 or 3 hours but we finally got it the mile or so to the top of the hill and loaded it into the truck.  It was by far the most work I ever put into getting a deer.