Your first deer

[Pupster]

As this late season slowly winds down, I find myself on stand reminiscing of days gone by. My favorite memory takes me back to the fall of 1983.
As I sat perched on a old burr oak limb anticipating deer movement, I was often interrupted by the rustling of leaves only to be identified as rambunctious squirrels. The evening progressed and the sounds of "squirrels" filled my ears again, I turned quickly to watch the squirrels and to my unbelieving eyes appeared a doe and her two fawns. My heart raced in anticipation of the shot. The lead mamma doe passed me as I drew, I released, "thwack" I'd hit a limb and stuck the arrow right next to her front foot. I re-nocked another arrow, drew and "thwack" hit the same limb, stuck that arrow 2" from the first in the ground. The deer were nervous and moving now and how I don't know, but got another arrow re-nocked and slid an arrow perfectly behind the shoulder of one of the fawns. She didn't go far and that was the fuel that feeds my fire today. I'm sure everyone remembers their first.
Pupster

 

[wisco kid]

My first deer story goes back to when I was 17, about 20 years ago. While pheasant hunting, my buddy and I found a spot along a marsh in a beanfield just covered with tracks. We went back after school the next day. I sat on a folding chair on a peninsula of swamp grass that jutted into the beanfield. I was in about 12" of water, so I wore waders.

Sitting in the cold water, (this was before toe warmers) I got real cold, and when my buddy got cold and walked up, he didn't have to ask twice if I wanted to head in. After walking about 250 yards, we turned around and there were about 30 deer in the field where we had just been hunting!

We went back the next night. Sure enough, I got cold and so did my buddy. But when he came by me, I said.."well, I'm cold too, but last night, the deer came out right when we left. I'm staying."

He walked off and not ten minutes later, about 20 does came out of the swamp where he had been sitting. They browsed for a while then dispersed, feeding into the field. When I couldn't see any of them anymore, four bucks came out right where he was sitting. I longed to be hunting in my buddies spot, but just as time was starting to run out on the evening, they spooked and ran towards me. I missed the first one as it slowly trotted past me at about 15 yards. He was a 10 pt.

The the second one stopped 18 yards away and looked right at me. I was wearing some cheap camo I got at Kmart, but it blended in perfect with the grass I was in and and he didn't see me. He then looked directly away from me and I simply drew and sent one right into his heart. He ran off and I got up and ran all the way home, which was probably about a mile.

The next morning my friend and I went and found him..he only went 75 yards back into the swamp. We never weighed him, but between me my buddy and my dad, he was a load to drag. H was a 7 point (missing one brow tine) with about a 12" spread.

THe lesson I learned about not leaving stand when I'm cold stuck. And since then, no matter how cold I get, I usually stick it out. I've had frostnip and frostbite so many times its unbelievable.