Hunting Washington Forum

Big Game Hunting => Deer Hunting => Topic started by: PolarBear on May 17, 2007, 05:56:35 PM


Advertise Here
Title: Your first deer?
Post by: PolarBear on May 17, 2007, 05:56:35 PM
Dman got me thinking about first critters.  So..  What was your first deer and how old were you?
I shot my first deer when I was 6 at my Uncle's farm in Alabama.  I was turkey and squirrel hunting with my 10-22 along the edge of a corn field.  I sat down to have a snack and a 2x2 whitie popped out.  I hit him in the neck at the base of the head.  He fell, got up and started to stumble off.  I shot several times and hit him in the neck again.  After he made it to the woods I got my Uncle to help me find him.  We tracked him for what seemed to be a hundred miles but was probably a couple hundred yards.  We found him dead in a pile of berry vines at the edge of a creek.  My Uncle was more excited than I was.  I didnt like the fact that the buck didnt die right away like squirrel and rabbits do.  I swore that I wouldnt shoot another deer until I was old enough to shoot a big gun.  My Uncle had it mounted and I gave it to him to keep at his house.

Ok, lets hear some good en's!
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: boneaddict on May 17, 2007, 06:59:55 PM
I was 13 and it was the last day of the season. I had missed a chacne at a huge 6x6 the day before.  My dad was at work and it snowed about 18 inches of fresh snow.  My dad had to plow snow, so afterward my brother borrowed the truck.  We almost slid off the mountain until we chained up, but finally got up on the moutnain at about 10 am.  We finally got to a spot and went out, splitting up.  I was hiking and sweating and took my glasses off.  I spotted a deer.  It was about 100 yards away and moving.  I could see his little spike antlers.  I had my 25-06, the first year I hunted with it.  By the way, that is what cost me the giant the day before. Anyhow I hit it with the first shot right in the heart.  I managed to put two more into him before he slid into the deep snow.  The first one killed him.  My brother showed up and made me gut him without any help.  It wasn't too far out to the truck.  We got home with my first deer and then I had to skin him.  Of course he didn't help me.  I hung him up by his head and went to work.  I almost lost my finger, but got it done.  It was a fun adventure.  I've killed a deer every year since.  Learned how to gut them a little easier and faster, and learned how to skin them right.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: GOcougsHunter on May 17, 2007, 09:32:56 PM
My first was when I was 19 up on Church Mountain in Whatcom county.  Bivvied 2 and a half miles in.  Got up the second morning and hunted the snow line. 30-06, ten yards, small forkie.  Late season.  No tracking involved.  Haven't used a rifle on deer ever since.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: WAcoueshunter on May 17, 2007, 09:53:10 PM
My first deer was a doe I shot in the Twisp area.  I think I was 14.  First buck came a few years later near Pomeroy.  First big game animal was a calf elk I shot on the West Bar back when it was a 3-day hunt with 75 tags.  I was about 12.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: WDFW-SUX on May 18, 2007, 07:14:00 AM
I just got my hunters ed card that summer I was 12...

I shot a fork horn blackie in my grandparents yard with a 30-30. 

I liked it so much a couple weeks later I went with my uncle and shot a 3x5 bull in his yard with the same 30-30.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Ridgerunner on May 18, 2007, 07:58:35 AM
I was 16, it was opening weekend and hot and dry.  Hadn't seen a buck all weekend,  we were getting ready to head home when I asked my dad to drop me off about a mile from our cabin.  I told him I would sidehill hunt to the cabin, then we could go home.  Not ten minutes into it a forkhorn stands up about 100 yards uphilll from me.  Boom, first shot nails it in the spine, he goes down but is still moving, he tries to get up so I shoot again, and again.  I'm not letting him get away.  Finally he dies.  I went up, checked it out, tagged him and practically ran all the way back to our cabin, get my dad to come help me get him out.  My dad being the non-hunter that he is thinks we should carry him out indian style on a pole.  So we tie the legs up and try doing that.  Never again......Thankfully we didn't have far to go.  That first buck is a sweet memory, took 4 years to get him, if I had a clue what I was doing it wouldn't have taken that long.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: jackelope on May 18, 2007, 08:08:26 AM
Upstate new york out of a treestand when i was 14 my first year hunting deer. i shot at a spike whitetail buck and missed from about 35 yards(buck fever ;))when i regained myself i looked atnd there was a 5 pointer(3x2) standing there looking at me. he spooked and ran aways out to about 80 yards where i hit him in the spine and dropped him...another shot put him down for good from about 20 yards. got a deer or 2 or 3 every year in new york till i moved here.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: kirkl on May 18, 2007, 08:10:47 AM
I think i was 12 or 13, me and a guy went to Lopez island for those small blackies, we were driving down a road and see a deer in the middle of a field so we pull in and ask if we can hunt and they say yes, so we go back out and the deer had moved into a small thick tree patch by the road so my buddy goes in to push it out and im sitting in the field waiting. Well it comes out and i take a running shot and miss then it stops and i shoot again and hit it. It takes off into some other woods and we track it down and its dead.  We thought it was a doe originally but when we got up to it, it had bout 3 inch spikes. My first deer and first buck.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Dman on May 18, 2007, 08:45:41 AM
 I remember it well, -and am constantly reminder of it. I was a fisher-kid growing up, I'd play hookie just to fish, got my picture in F&H news with two kings at 12 years old. Discovered deer hunting right after High School, my relatives had already been going to the Republic area for 20 years or so, so I decided to get my first tag and go over with them. I took my dad's lever action Win. .308. The 2nd day my cousin and I were headed back to camp when we see a whitie run accross the NF road well ahead of us. Joe says he thought it was a doe, but I got out and told him I'd look around anyway, so I tracked it through the woods a ways. I caught up to the deer on the edge of a clearcut while slowly sneaking along to look up and see it facing me. What looked to be a two point buck flipped over backwards as I hit him under the neck in the chest area. To my amazement he got up and charged off, I shot again from hip level, hit him again and he stayed down. Just when Joe was bringing up the knife, he got up and went in to the deep timber, after the toughest job of tracking the tiniest spoor, we found him, a big bodied??? "Palmer the Hanford Buck" as he was later called in camp was a freak, he had two ducks feet on his head for antler's, to this day I don't know if it's a spike, or a three point....
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Muleyslyr on May 18, 2007, 02:04:02 PM
Mine is definately tainted.  I was 14 hunting with my Mom, Aunt, and Grandma.  My Dad, and uncle were up in Alaska fishing.  Only year my dad missed opening day.

Opening day, First Creek outta Winthrop, guys everywhere in the hills.  It was my second year hunted by myself with and old 30-30.  As I'm walking across a sage brush hill, I looked up to see 6 doe and a little 3pt. in tow.  Maybe 100yds up hill.  As I shot the buck immediately stumbled to the ground as the does took off.  As it regained it's balance he staggered his way another 50yds. or so into a patch of trees.  Not real thick, but just out of my site. 

As I finally made my way up to were he had enter the thickets, I could hear some guys kind of talkin'.  As I continued on, there were three guys already standing over my deer!  I say, "Hey that's my deer!"  Immediately one says, "No.....there was another buck with the does, they went that way."

I knew right there I was not getting that deer.  No other shots had even been fired in that area, let alone by any of those guys.  But when your just a kid by yourself, and got nothing but women back at camp, what can you do?  What love for that to happen to me now.  :guns:

Anyway....finally killed a buck I could claim and keep the year I turned 18.  Lake Pearrygin, Winthrop.  Just a little 2x2, but still got the antlers in the garage.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Dman on May 18, 2007, 02:17:49 PM
 That sucks, I'd be pissed!  >:(

 I'll post a shot of "Palmers" huge rack when I can. -sympathy shot
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Dman on May 18, 2007, 09:31:12 PM
 Here's my first, "Palmer the Hanford buck".
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Ridgerunner on May 19, 2007, 11:00:18 AM
That is one wierd looking rack for sure.  Looks like a little bit like a moose the way it palms.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Dman on May 19, 2007, 12:05:52 PM
 The deer was pretty old, teeth worn down. It went nearly 200lbs. Good venison anyway, but definitely needed to be culled out of the herd.   :)
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: hunterofelk on May 19, 2007, 04:15:47 PM
I was thirteen and growing up in Livingston, Montana.  Just south of town is a mountain called the Wineglass.  My mentor, Lawrence, was teaching me how to hunt mule deer.  We would hunt a section of private land we called 'the pocket'.  Back in the seventies it was easier to get access to private land and Lawrence had hunted this area since the thirties.  I was alone one Saturday morning waiting at the pocket for Lawrence to drive a deer in front of me.  Just as planned a young buck walked out and I laid down a barrage of fire.  I had a Remington 742 .308.  All three shots went behind the shoulder.  He didn't know what hit him.  I still didn't know how to gut a deer, so I waited for Lawrence to show.  He was very happy to show me how.  I finally gutted an animal myself two years later when I got a cow elk.  We took pictures on the side lawn of my home, now days there is a park and twenty homes where there was a cow pasture.  The pocket is the site of someone's trophy home and no one can shoot a buck there anymore.  All the country I used to hunt just twenty minutes from my home is off limits to public hunting.  Developed for houses and private hunting clubs.  Progress my ***!!! 
Well, anyway here's a bad scan of an old picture.  That's a tree branch we used to drag the deer, I don't know why we included it in the picture.

(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi3.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fy94%2Fhunterofelk%2Fscan0008.jpg&hash=48f1cc7c406240e4fe3ce0c6eefcef5d74781e71)
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Idabooner on May 19, 2007, 06:18:51 PM
What a day it was, I was 11 yrs. old, I had been following my Dad for a few yrs. and was raised in the bush so I knew the ropes. We only had one rifle, a 32 Win. Special. So Monday morning Dad went to work, I purposely missed the school bus (a mile from home) and sneaked back home and got the rifle. I was slipping down this old cow trail, I can feel the beautiful morning, it was after a rain but now the sun was out, the steam was raising from the brush, about two miles from a road I  slipped silently up to a cattle salting ground and there lay 6 doe, (doe was open for a week) they looked at me, stood up and stretched while I picked out the best one, a perfect heart shot at 150 feet, the doe ran 50 yd's through the brush and broke her front leg. Dad had let me gut one before so I knew how, when I quit shaking. That night with a full moon Dad, me and a neighbor drug the deer out. I was so proud I helped feed the family that winter. That 32 Special has put a lot of venison on the table through the yrs. and I think my Granddaughter will start hunting with it maybe this year, I have loaded up a bunch of light practice loads for her. When she gets her first deer I hope it will leave as clear and exciting memory as mine did 61 yrs ago.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Kent Hunter on May 19, 2007, 06:59:10 PM
It was 1967 and I was 10 years old. my late stepdad and I were staing at his sisters house (Dot Albin) in Winthrop and we hunted the Roundvous area just outside of Winthrop. Opening morning found my dad and me up on the hillside looking and waiting. My dad had sset me down in a good spot and then he moved off about 400 yards to another spot. I couldn't see him and vice versa. I had been sitting in my spot for about 20 min when I heard my dad shoot. I ran over to where he was and he had a fat two point on the ground. he told me to get my tail downhill a ways because tthe two point that he had shot had broke away from agroup of other deer.
 Well I hightailed it down the hill a ways a sure enough, tere were the deer that the two point had been with. They were making their way up the hill and the last one was a spike. I quickly got into a prone position and got the spike centered in the Williams peep site that was on my old WWII 7MM Mauser. I let fly with the first round and surprise surprise, he hit the deck!! I can still see it like it happened yesterday. I've been hooked ever since. I have been blessed enough to have killed many many deer since that day and I owe it all to my dad. He taught me to be the very best stillhunter that I can be. I do pretty good. Hey Boneaddict and Idabooner, ask Claude how that old fat guy that goes by the name of Spike Nail does when it comes to muley huntin. I'm a stillhunter through and through. I just love it and it is my preferred way to hunt.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Fletch on May 20, 2007, 03:19:16 PM
I was 14 the year I shot my first buck.  Hunting some of the area my family homesteaded in the north okanagon.  My uncle was helping me as he had my brother while my dad and Grandfather hunted there old ranch.  Opening day, Saturday we saw 7 bucks but for one reason or another could not get a shot.  Sunday morning my uncle left me on the side of a grass field while he hunted a different area.  Somebody pushed 4 does and a spike through the field.  I shot and he went down, I was shooting a shortened 6mm.  He of course got back up and a couple shots later he was down for good.  Ive shot alot of bucks since then and alot bigger for sure but its funny how I can remember each and every one! Good luck this fall!
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Ironhead on May 20, 2007, 04:04:02 PM
 I was 12 years old and we walked off into a canyon on Birch mtn and imediately saw a 3pt and 2pt standing side by side at about 70 or 80 yards. After emptying my .243 my brother says gimme a rock . Finally dropped the 3 pt with my next shot. The start of many great deer hunts. My Dad and Grandad took me hunting and fishing with them all the time, and I have them to thank for my hunting and fishing passion along with many other things.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: boneaddict on May 21, 2007, 03:21:08 PM
D-man you are killing me, but out of the kind spirit of this board and this post I won't pick on you too much....
shooting from the hip...not having your own knife.....and that buck being old and recessed....   There needs to be a smiley face which he is biting his tongue. ;)

It amazes me that I drove all the way to Alaska and back with the man, sat around more fires than you can imagine and I don't think I knew that story. I knew being on this board was a good idea.  You're in trouble Booner.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: MichaelJ on May 21, 2007, 03:57:04 PM
My dad being the non-hunter that he is thinks we should carry him out indian style on a pole.  So we tie the legs up and try doing that.  Never again......Thankfully we didn't have far to go.  That first buck is a sweet memory, took 4 years to get him, if I had a clue what I was doing it wouldn't have taken that long.

And I thought I was the ONLY one that wasn't started out hunting by my father and having only shot 1 buck in 6 years of hunting!  Like you said, we'd be more successful if we knew what we know now! lol

Michael
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: PolarBear on May 21, 2007, 04:14:57 PM
I am another one who was taught how to hunt and fish by someone other than my Dad.  He was a revenuer in Tennessee, spent all of his time in the woods and never hunted deer in his life, even to this day.  He did teach me how to sneak through the woods and be quiet and invisible.  My Uncle and cousins taught me how to hunt and fish while my Dad was rounding up bad guys.  My Dad has been going hunting with me for the past several years but he is the camp cook. We use to hunt birds, squirrel and shoot competition together but never big game. This year he might try for his first buck (at age 72).  He is the main reason that I am hunting modern firearm for the first time in many many years.  I cant wait to finally hunt deer side by side with the old man. 
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Guy on May 21, 2007, 05:47:32 PM
I'd rather tell the story 'bout my youngest son's first deer. Just a couple of years ago over in Douglas County, wheat country. He'd practiced with a .22, and then graduated at 13 to a 6mm Rem that I put in one of those smaller Rem "youth" stocks for him. He got kind of rattled the first weekend, hunting around other folks, and seeing deer running instead of holding still like the targets at the range. So the first weekend of the season didn't pan out, but we had a great hunt anyway. Next weekend the two of us walked slowly up a little draw, found a small herd and put the sneak on 'em. We ran out of cover at about 275 yards according to the rangefinder. He flipped down the bipod, dialed the scope up to 6x, put the crosshairs right on her back and smacked the mulie doe with a pretty darned long shot. She crumpled immediately. That little 95 gr Nosler B-tip did some serious damage going through. He was a happy camper, and I was a proud dad. It was a great way to finish up his first deer season.

(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hunt101.com%2Fimg%2F308005.jpg&hash=cbe68e8dccb0719fffdd7099ff66abb1f73ee1f7)
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: boneaddict on May 21, 2007, 05:55:15 PM
I can only imagine how that felt Guy.  I know how it felt when I got my wife into her first bull elk, and my Dad into his Booner Moose, but when my daughter or daughters get their first deer, well, I can only imagine.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Krusty on May 21, 2007, 06:27:45 PM
I shot my first deer last year, at the age of 44. :dunno:

The story is fresh in my mind, and it's a little long.

As a kid I was too invovled in sports for deer hunting, but did hunt birds.
In my late teens I gave up hunting, for other hobbies, and returned to it a half dozen years ago or so. Mainly predator calling, and bird hunting. And last year I got my trapping license.

Even as a kid I would go to deer and elk camp, to help out, and go on deer drives/hunts (to hunt for campmeat mostly).
The last few years I'd done the "camp cook" thing.
 
Last spring I decided to put in for a doe tag, mostly to build up some points, for our group application.
I didn't get drawn, so I hunted through the early season halfheartedly, mostly "guiding" my ol man (who is a senior now, and gets "any deer" is the area we hunt) until he got his doe.

Neither myself or my brother got a buck in the early season, so we went back for late buck and to set some cat traps.
I had gone a day earlier than my brother and my Dad, to scout some new areas.
I was mostly driving around that day, looking for places to call and/or set traps.
I got one of those "hey pull over" feelings, and hit the next pullout. I'd reached a flat on the top of long ridge, it looked like a good place to do some calling.

(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv107%2FKrustyklimber%2FHunting%2FUturn_uphill.jpg&hash=b42ccd073834dff23e317649f0f4303083644925)

The area is logged by skidders. A bulldozer makes main roads every so often, all running parallel, then a skidder makes runs across from road to road and in between.
The whole place turns into a "basket weave" of roads and tracks.

I grabbed my rifle, a heavily customized Russian Mosin-Nagant mil-surp, in 7.62 x 54R (yeah one of those Big 5 rifles)... but that's a whole story in itself.

(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv107%2FKrustyklimber%2FHunting%2FMosin_Black_left.jpg&hash=7ec660634478aa8def1a23327d845225b70f575f)

I had wandered a mile or so from the truck, and found myself in a thinned area of forest, overlooking a long shallow bowl almost devoid of underbrush. On the far side of the thinned trees was a fresh cut.

It was the perfect area for bobcats, where three ages of cut forest meet... one old (30+ years) and free of undergrowth, one newer (10-15 years) thick and brushy, and a third fresh cutover in the last few years and bright and sunny.

I was standing on a push-up of dirt left by the skidder or dozer, stamping out a seat in the dry grass so I could sit down and call, when I heard the footfall of hooves behind me, accompanied with a snort-wheeze.
Suprised, I whirled around to see what I thought was a "nice doe!" hopping off down the left edge of the dozer track. I was mezmerized by it's white tail flagging, just like I'm supposed to be. ;)
It turned 90° to the right, hopped across the track and into the brushy side, and danged if it didn't have antlers... LOTS of 'em!

A startled deer never hurts a calling stand, so I sat down and went back to what I was doing.
I called for about 35 mins, waited quietly 15 more, and decided I better get back to the Ranch to meet up with my dad and brother, and some GRUB.

I had hunted into the wind the whole way in, figuring to do a one man wind drive, in a big loop back out to the truck.
I pulled my varmint rounds out, and replaced them with four 180gr roundnosed cartridges.
Leaving the spot I took a path to my right, paralleling the brushy edge where the buck had disappeared, and following and older skidder track.

I hadn't gone 20 yards, when I see the buck coming back my way 175 yards ahead on the next skidder track (over to my left 50 yards or so).
I can just see his head, over a stump in the center of the track, so I dropped to the ground.
When he passed behind a few small pine trees I moved out of the deep track and up next to a tree (for a rifle rest), and to hide behind.
I never had it happen before, but when I mounted up there was an earthquake in my rifle. :chuckle: And it didn't even have a scope on it.

I calmed myself down and waited for him to present a shot, when he did I let 'er rip.

The front leg on the far side folded, just above the elbow, and for a second he looked right at it.
I had forgotten to adjust the ramped battle sights, when switching to the heavier bullets (which didn't group well anyways). :bash:
I quickly cycled another round (somehow actually being careful not to lose the empty round), held a little higher, and just as he hopped forward fired a second round. This one hit him right where his neck meets his chest, just peircing through.
(*There will forever be debate in camp, as to whether or not this shot killed him).
I figured I was doomed, and I also figured I was going to do everything I could not to let him run off with them horns.
Again cycling the empty onto the only clean spot on the forest floor, I ready for another shot.

He coughs, and bolts forward! With a slightly higher hold yet, I fire again... he buckles upwards and kicks, and a tuft of hair floats on the breeze.
He finally realizes where the shooting is coming from, and somehow takes off running back to my right, quartering across my skidder track.

Instinctively I chamber my last round, placing the third empty neatly on the growing pile, I shoulder it, track and fire.
Directly between myself and the deer the bark explodes from a tree.

He goes another 20 yards and piles up, just out of view in the next deep skidder track to my right.

I cleared the chamber, put a varmint round in it, and safety my rifle.
Then I gathered my empties, and myself, and went to get my deer.

I found him parked upside-down, like you park a bicycle when you work on it, so I still didn't get a good look at his rack until I flipped him over.

That's when I realized two things... one I just shot a really big buck, and two I am a long way from the truck and all by myself.
My truck is a Suzuki Samurai, and was fairly full of gear.
I had left the truck with calls and a rifle, no knife, no drag rope, nothin'.

The only thing I had going for me was my GPS.
I waypointed my deer, after tagging it and covering it with a little snow and some branches, and went down the skidder track it had landed in, in the direction it was going, towards the newer cut.

I knew they had to have driven in and out of that cut on another dozer road, because the one I had parked on was blocked.
I soon found that road, and headed back out on the three mile walk to my truck.
I could barely move my buck, I had no way to butcher it, and dangit I just remembered I was hungry. :drool:

The weather was cool, and other than coyotes, I knew my deer would be okay.
When I got to my truck there was a fresh coyote turd right behind it. I didn't like that, as a sign.

As I was pulling out, I ran into a guy who let me use his cell phone, I called my brother and left a message that I got a buck too big to move.

He thought I was pullin his leg, since I had joked the day before I'd get er done before he even got there.

I ran back to the Ranch and got Jim, he runs the Ranch and does a lot of loggin', we took his truck (a flatbed Toyota with a boom winch).
We were able to 4-by our way in to about 50 yards from my buck, and used the hoist to lift him up onto the bed.

My brother and my Dad were just getting there when I pulled in with this;

(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv107%2FKrustyklimber%2FHunting%2FBuck_Jim.jpg&hash=bc53b6e835c45a69a92bb788e8ae93805a36121e)

(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv107%2FKrustyklimber%2FHunting%2FBuck_Horns_Hanging.jpg&hash=4eaa38660c41799ff7bc05975959a69de7b28294)

The bucks from this area tend to have basket racks, but big bodies.
He was about 225 on the hoof, and scored 112 1/2.
The neck roast was huge, the backstraps alone weighed 22 pounds, and we forgot the cooler with all the hamburger meat in it... so I ended up with a couple dozen jars of canned meat instead.
Ohhhhhh it's so much better than meatloaf!

I keep joking that I'll have to bring the skull to camp this year, and like on the NASCAR commercial, just hold it up whenever somebody starts telling me how to hunt...

No really, I got lucky.
It was the rut, and he had other things on his mind, otherwise I wouldn't have seen him the first time, let alone twice.
I've had lots of family and friends help me learn to be a good hunter... but like the saying goes, "I'd rather be lucky than good".

Krusty (https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fpages.prodigy.net%2Frogerlori1%2Femoticons%2Fwave1.gif&hash=a79b2b094946ae3edb92c1d87183753de8213bad)
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Guy on May 21, 2007, 08:43:34 PM
Krusty - nice buck and a great story!

A hunter like you needs a better rifle! Treat yourself... You deserve it - especially with a first deer like that one!
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Fletch on May 21, 2007, 10:33:34 PM
That is a great buck...not only the rifle you deserve but guys...why are you going into the field without a knife...if you dont have one a pocket knife or $10 at walmart buys you one...be prepared...my dad always said when you fish without a net you will catch the big one but really stick a pocket knife in your pocket . you never know when luck will shine your way! :chuckle:
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Krusty on May 22, 2007, 12:58:40 AM
Guy,

Thanks, but I don't think I need another rifle, I actually went to great length in picking this one.
I wanted a rifle, legal and effective for most all American big game, and I wanted it for under $100.

The M-N carbine is a wonderful choice.

The 7.62 x 54 lies between a 30-06 and a .308, ballistically.
Townsend Whelen said "It's one of the finest cartridges designed..."

The rifle has a bottom drop box, interupter magazine, and a field strip-able bolt, all on a true battle-axe of an action.
My particular rifle had never been issued, and came to me new in the box.
It actually shoots loads it likes, very well, despite the horrible trigger.

I have the opportunity to use one of a dozen or so "good rifles", from a Model 7 in 30-06 to a pre-64 Model 94 30/30, to any number of "regular" rifles most guys own.
We got lots of rifles.

Oh I did treat myself, after deer season I added a scout scope mount, a red-dot scope, and a LimbSaver recoil pad.

I'd honestly recommend the Mosin-Nagant Carbine (especially the M-38 without the attached bayonet) as a first rifle, only rifle, or truck thrasher

Fletch,

I had a knife, and a saw, and some game bags, etc, in my truck, in my hunting pack.
If you knew me, and my phenominal rate of failure at actually killing what I call, you'd understand why I didn't think I'd need it.

I didn't think I was going to see anything when I left the truck, for sure not a monster buck. :o

If you were the kinda guy who couldn't catch a fish in a barrel, you wouldn't bring a net, would you? :P

P.S. I am also not very good with "warm blood", I can gut fish, or skin cold beaver all day, but I turn green if I stick my hands in something warm.

Krusty (https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fpages.prodigy.net%2Frogerlori1%2Femoticons%2Fwave1.gif&hash=a79b2b094946ae3edb92c1d87183753de8213bad)
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: boneaddict on December 23, 2007, 10:44:44 AM
Finally dug up te pics.  Here is Boneaddict with his first buck.  Still have those antlers.  I was 13 years old.  I shot him with the 25-06.  My Dad was at work and I was with my brother.  Idabooners truck almost slid off the mountain, but we managed to get it chained up and arrived late on the mountain.  I got to gut the thing by myself with no direction and then skin the fellar.  Notice the upside down action and the bandage on the finger.  Lots of firsts that day and I remember every second of it like it was yesterday.
(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv47%2Fboneaddict%2Fbonesbucks%2Fmyfirst2.jpg&hash=b7c6c9026467972c0c543a20792027670c198a1e)
(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv47%2Fboneaddict%2Fbonesbucks%2Fmyfirst.jpg&hash=c86ada81f012bd38476a1f504d90d20b25b597e7)
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Skyvalhunter on December 23, 2007, 10:54:31 AM
Too cool Bone!! Those are some awesome glasses too!! :chuckle:
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Hunting Cowboy on December 23, 2007, 12:36:04 PM
The year was 1984 near Cub Creek in Winthrop WA. We had 4 hunters in our party, My Dad, My brother, me and a friend of ours. My dad had just killed a 2 point the day before and deer were running everywhere. A camp down below us was also having some success. Nothing big though. The problem I was facing is that I had blew my knee out in August in a logging accident and was still on crutches from major reconstruction surgery.

I was in charge of delivering our hunting party to their desired locations in my brothers "Bronco". After the deliveries, I hobbled into the timber overlooking some fresh deer sign. It had been snowing all morning and the deer were really moving. The bucks were rounding up the doe. After a couple of hours and me feeling sorry for myself, I heard a shot at the top of the hill and pretty soon I saw some deer coming from off the hill. It took em a while but they did move down the hillside.  Unfortuantely, they came out in a spot I was not expecting and I saw a three point go by me which I was unprepared for, consequently I didn't get a shot. I was sick about my inattention.

20 minutes later I heard another shot up on the hill and sure enough it wasn't long before I noticed some deer coming down the hill.....again?. So I prepared myself for them to pass by me where the previous deer had passed. I used my crutch as a shooting stick. Sure enough, here they came. Each deer passed in front of me one by one. All doe. Until the last deer. A buck!  He was a 23 inch 4x4 w/eye gaurds. I drilled him at 100 yards and dropped him on the spot. Fortunately for me he didn't move!

I got up to him a quick as I could and was shocked at how big he was. I decided to try to hide him until I could get some help so I started laying bows and brush over him. Just as I finished I heard a voice behind me...."Nice buck ya haver there." I thought to myself....Damn. Well, The guy offerred to watch my buck while I went to get some help.... (ya right) I thanked him but told him "Nothin personal, but I wasn't comfortable leaving a four point with someone I didn't know." He basically said something like suit yourself and walked off. As he made his way up the hillside, he ran into one of his hunting partners dragging a spike down the hill. I over heard the partner ask what was going on? and his reply was...."Some poor *censored* on crutches just killed a four point." Well to make a long story short, the guy with the spike came down and helped me field dress the buck. He had one of their hunting party deliver me and my buck to our camp. My dad was sure surprised. I was so proud of myself!

We went 3 for 4 and the camp just down from us went 5 for 6. Guess who didn't get his buck? Yep, the guy who offerred to watch mine. My brother, dad, and I all got our deer. It was the best hunt cause it was my brothers and my first deer!
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: huntnphool on December 23, 2007, 12:42:33 PM
Good story Cowboy, sounds like the green monster of jealousy was rearing his ugly head :chuckle:

Do you happen to remember what time of year it was? With snow I would assume beginning of November? Ah the good ole days when the season didnt end in the middle of Oct. ;)
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Hunting Cowboy on December 23, 2007, 01:09:39 PM
Huntingphool- Thanks man.....I don't know for sure on the date, but I know it was the last weekend if I remember correctly and it was later than we go now days. (Unfortunately, we never use to take many photos or write down all the info like we do today). It was also before the 3 point restrictions. I remember that driving over Washington pass in my old 68 chevy pick up with a beat up old camper in a snow storm and cars everywhere. In the ditches, pulled off by the side of the road choining up, spun out in the middle of the road.......My dad was with me and he's an old truck driver...."easy does it, keep up your momentum, don't spin the tires, etc. We knew that snow was going to help us out and sure enough! Good memories



"Lots of firsts that day and I remember every second of it like it was yesterday"

For sure! Love all the posts and particularly your pictures bone! Awe.... to be thirteen again!
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: DOUBLELUNG on December 24, 2007, 12:36:23 AM
My first was a very unlucky fawn whitetail in New Hampshire.  Thought she was the buck I was snow tracking, fortunately it was any deer.  Like a couple of others on here, grew up in a non-hunting family.  I was 19, my second year hunting, learning it all the hard way.  Shot her bedded under a spruce, couldn't see her from the neck up.  The buck track passed within 4' of where she was bedded. 
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: mossback91 on December 24, 2007, 01:10:15 AM
I was 11 had hunted all season long an dall season the year before and it was the second to last day. I had a chance at a nice 3point bedded down but couldt get around my dad in time and he got away. Then we found my buck hunting further on down the ridge. It was a 2x3 both sides had little three points but only count the one side because its an inch anyways 21 inches wide and a huge body. Still the biggest deer Ive ever shot. I was so excited I had missed a couple chances at a few nice 4 points the year before great redemption.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: hunterofelk on December 24, 2007, 07:21:34 AM
My first deer was guided to me by my hunting mentor.  We usually hunted just south of Livingston, Mt, a place we called 'the pocket.'  Now it is off-limits to the public since several houses were built there.  The picture of my first shows a background that was absent of the houses, streets and yards that now exist next to my parents house.
Seems as though the population of that county has increased ten fold since the seventies.

(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi3.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fy94%2Fhunterofelk%2Fscan0008.jpg&hash=48f1cc7c406240e4fe3ce0c6eefcef5d74781e71)
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: boneaddict on December 24, 2007, 08:08:58 AM
All great experiences guys.  Theres got to be about 800 more out there.  Love these pics from the 70's.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: addicted on December 24, 2007, 09:08:51 AM
Lets see here. it was last year. i was 18 and it was my first time deer hunting.  before that i had only gone on a youth elk hunt(another story) Well anyways i was green and i really wanted to hunt again so smdave said i could tag along with him.  So i got the gear. (most of it makeshift) and some really cool bullets(first time i had ever seen nosler balistic tips) and we went on our way.  We went over to the dry side and after shooting at 5 deer in the first two days we woke to a stormy foggy rainy monday. I ended up being the only one to get up and head out and even with rain gear i was soaked in 200 yards. I hiked the mile into "the spot" sat down and i couldnt barely see 100 yards with the fog and the rain. After a little while i pulled my head and my arms inside the coat spun my fanny pack around in front and began to rummage through it with a flashlight in my mouth looking for Peanut m&ms. looked up, didnt see anything  so i went back to the search. looked up again a few minutes later and there was a nice whitetail standing about 20 feet infront of me looking at this weird stump with a flashlight in it's mouth. The deer then proceeded to boing boing boing away at this point i was battling with the raincoat almost breaking the zipper. He stopped about 100 yards away, i tried to put my shakey crosshairs on him, pulled the trigger saw his tail flip up and he dissapeared in my fogged up scope.

i was pretty pissed cuz i thought i missed him :bash: the 6th one in 3 days :bash: :bash: i waited around about 20 minutes then i started to walk toward where i had shot to look for blood. came up over the ridge looked down and there was a nice whitetail lying there dead with a nice hole through the base of the neck.   :IBCOOL:  when i called up smdave and his buddy on the walky talky there was speculation that i was playing a practical joke on them to get them out of bed and a mile up the hill. there was also talk of killing me if it was a joke :chuckle:

(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi37.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fe96%2Fiseemetoo%2F1306039369_l.jpg&hash=93cda4b8f3f35cac88ba31f4aa1fe4690c2a6482)
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: WAcoyotehunter on December 24, 2007, 09:26:15 AM
I grew up in Iowa and killed my first deer with a shotgun when i was 12.  I was in a treestand on opening morning and at about 7:00 a bunch of does came through the timber with a small buck in tow.  I got him in the neck at about 50 yds.  He had one mainbeam that dropped straight down alongside his face and had two points, the other side had four points.  He wasn't too impressive- but i was pretty proud of him.  Later in the week i filled my older brothers tag with a 4X5...i was strutting around like a rooster and my Stepdad was pretty determined to shut me up.  He finally killed a 163" nontypical with 16 scoreable points on the last hour of season.   That shut me up.  ;)
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: actionshooter on December 24, 2007, 09:35:52 AM
 I started hunting when I was 15 for blacktails on the west side. I was a tag bearer for the older guys, If I had a chance I could shoot a buck if I saw one but the way it worked was the old timers shot first and I (or my brother) tagged it. I was bitter for a long time but looking back those guys were all about the meat, not the hunting. Needless to say I didn't shoot a deer until I was 19, My first year hunting in eastern Wa with friends. We were in Chiwiwa muzzle loader hunting. I am really big on taking my kids now and if its possible I want them to get thier deer first.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: huntnphool on December 24, 2007, 10:58:30 AM
Great stories and pics guys. Hunterofelk, what year was that pic? Addicted, not to preach but there is a very good lesson in your story. What does most of the hunters on this site with big animals and lots of success have in common? They all do the things 99% of others are not willing to do. Congrats on a super whitetail and well done on getting out of your comfort zone and sticking to it, your already in the 1% group. Actionshooter, looks like a nice buck, do you have it mounted or still have the rack so we could see a little better pics of him? Looks like you had one hell of a drag ahead of you.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: addicted on December 24, 2007, 11:12:14 AM
thanks huntinphool. this is one of my favorite threads right now. reading all these stories from different generations is great. Might make some of you feel old  ;)
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: huntnphool on December 24, 2007, 11:31:22 AM
"Might make some of you feel old  "

You had to go there didn't ya :chuckle:
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: LongTatLaw on December 24, 2007, 11:37:26 AM
I started hunting before I was 5.  When I was 19 I decided to figure out deer hunting on my own. I was an Active duty soldier stationed on FT Stewart GA which is swampy with pines with lots of green rye food plots.

I read some magazines, watched Real tree videos...and no clue what I was doing. I sat on a logging road in between two deep mud puddles on opening morning of Black Powder. I had to move twice for other hunters driving through...lol  30 minutes after sun up I came to find out I really couldnt hit a 6 pt buck at 100 yards with that muzzle loader. lol

3 weeks of black poder hunting and never even saw a spike.

On opening Morning of rifle... I found myself on a 8 acre rye grass field up a tree with a 300 win mag and a high powered scope. As soon as the sun broke I found 2 nice sized wild boars feeding right below me. I decided to take the bigger one...it was a EASY 20 yard shot. I shot and the pigs ran off never to be seen again. I climbed down the tree and found no blood. Confused and upset I almost packed up right then at about 7am. But I decided to climb back up.

After about an hour I was so frustrated I went to sleep in my stand. I jerked awake to see a buck standing broad side at 125 yards straight across the field. He was motionless and beautiful. I threw up the scope and got ready for the shot...by then he was walking...on a string straight toward me. I thought thousands of thoughts... I knew I didnt want him to get close enough to smell me since I didnt have any cover scent and after two tree climbs I probably stunk...

however, I had missed a large boar an hour before at 20 yards. So I better let him get close.

100 yards. 75 yards... 50 yards   coming fast and not grazing...just trying to cross the field back into the pine thickets.

At 30 yards...i couldnt take it anymore. I aimed for the front shoulder and he stopped perfectly for me.

I pulled the trigger and he dropped dead before he hit the ground. The second that I realized he went down I was so excited I truly couldnt bare to look at it for almost 10 minutes. I kept checking it out of the corner of my eye.

After I had decided to shoot him I never looked at his horns... I didnt know how many points he had until I walked up to find my beautiful 2x2    1 year old monster buck.

I had him stuffed and put him in my living room. Ive been in love with whitetails since that day.

ps- while I was waiting to calm down after shooting my buck I saw a huge hole in a limb next to me. I realized that my 50mm lens scope on a high level mount makes it hard to see something blocking the barrel from 5 feet away. I missed that boar because my effort to sneak a shot through the limbs didnt work and I killed a decent sized oak but missed a 20 yard shot at a boar.

I loved that deer but wouldnt have been mad if he would have had a 150 pound baor riding to the check station with him.

I hunted another 70+ days that year and never filled my 2nd buck tag. Ive downed close to 100 whitetails now in over a half dozen states....many are much much bigger. Im not sure any of them are more important than my first little 2x2 was.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: bowman on December 24, 2007, 12:44:00 PM
It was 3 years ago when I was 12 years old.  I remember my dad and I putting in for special tags that year.  He put in for the late hunt in the Alta, Gardner, and peargain unit.  I put in for the youth any deer tag in the Alta unit and sure enough I got drawn and he didn't.  So that night before we were going out everyone was sitting around the fire and my dads friend told us were to go"the secret spot". That area is right behind my dads friend's house.  Over the years there has been about 10-15 bucks shot out of there.  Including my dads first. 

Well any way we were told to go and sit up on this nob and the deer would be there at about 8 am.  Sure enough at about 8:15 we hear click click click click.  My dad said to me "do you heat that its the deer crossing the road." He was only kidding then to our surprise there's 3 doe's working there way up the hill.  My dad thought he saw a buck so we looped around to check it out and no buck.

So back up the hill to wait it out.  Right when we sat down I spotted a 2 point about 30 yards in front of us.  So I pull up my 257-Roberts. The only problem was there wasn't a shot the deer wouldn't stop moving.  It kept walking until it was out of sight. Then my dad and I hurried over to were the deer was and it was still there.  So 40 yards away.  Pulled up the gun and placed a perfect heart shot on it.  That deer didn't go 15 yards.  That was fun skinning it and everything.



Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: deerslyr on December 24, 2007, 01:07:04 PM
I started hunting when I was 10. Opening morning was a wet soggy day like most in western washington. We parked at a landing and waited for it to get light. Once it was light we decided to walk in the timber. I had no idea what to do so I ended up getting soaking wet with out seeing anything.
 We headed back to the truck to get warmed up. On the way back I saw some fresh tracks but didnt pay much attention to them. When we got to the truck another truck was parked there with two guys looking down into the clearcut. They told us that a spike and a doe came out of the timber(that we were just in) and went into the clear cut. They didnt want the spike and told me where they went.
  This clear cut was STEEP and BIG so I went down one of the draws while my dad bs'ed with those guys. About half way down I decided to sit and wait on a stump. I wasnt there for a minute when I glimpsed a deer. I put my scope up looking for the deer when I saw a spike and a doe looking at me only a 100 yards away!
   I layed on the stump and put my little 30-30 to my shoulder and thought to my self right behind the shoulder. BOOM, the deer just kept feeding. I jacked another shell in, BOOM the spikes starts rolling down the hill. I start yellin to my dad that I got him. My dad gets down there ands says we got a hell of a pack out!! 4 hours later we were finally back at the truck and celebrating. That was one of the most memorable days I ever had and also one of the worst pack outs I have ever had!
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: hogsniper on February 13, 2008, 05:33:10 PM
my first buck..lookin through pics today and found this one...i was 11 years old and was hunting above my house after school when i found this deer....
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: gunner on February 13, 2008, 06:03:25 PM
I was introduced to bird hunting at the age of nine and didn't hunt deer till I was twenty six.  that year I bought a tag and off I went!!  Hunted around up above Randle.  I hiked in about five miles and camped up there with a friend.  Opening morning shot my first buck which was  a forky.  To this day was one of the most thrilling moments in my life.  I spotted this buck heading up a finger which he dissapeared over the ridge.  I ran 500 yards down a old logging road around the corner and got set up for him to pop out of this little draw which ran up the center of that ridge.  He popped out, I took aim bang!!!!!  I hit him right behind the shoulder spinning him around and down the hill he came.  Cartwheeling down the hill.  I was so excited, I wuhoooooed so loud That my buddy heard me all the way across the valley.  I started running up that hill towards where I saw the buck go down.  I clean ran right by him forty yards before I figured out where he was.  Been hooked ever since.

Gunner
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: skinzner on February 13, 2008, 07:54:04 PM
(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi71.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fi134%2Fkinzner%2FCIMG0465.jpg&hash=2074a1109843db0de3fcefcaa71d65f97f4e1cd5)

Heres my first deer i was probably 23 or 24 in 1995 or 1996 i did not grow up in a hunting family but some of my friends got me hooked. .....Now the story i had never hunted before this day and just bought my rifle the week before  and just shot it at the range to sight it in a few days earlier. Well me and two buddies who were hunters went out behind one of their parents house on some timber company land until we reached a big clearcut. Once we reached the clearcut one buddie peeled off and we hiked a little more until my next buddy went his way. Now i was on my own and walked a little farther down the clearcut and found a stump in a little depression to sit on. As of now i'd probably been carrying a rifle in the woods for 20-30 minutes tops, so i sat down for maybe 5 minutes and heard something walking. I look up and i see antlers , i'm shaking so bad i cant tell how many points i just know its any buck and he's legal. So i aim behind the shoulder (75 yards) and boom the deer drops i'm amazed i hit it i was shaking so bad and i had my scope on 9 power (lesson learned) i'm amazed i hit the deer. I dont know what to do so i called my buddies and told them i shot a deer and come help me, they asked what did you get i told them i'm not sure but from where i was 30 yards away i know its at least got 2 points.For some reason i would not go any closer until they got there but soon enough they showed up and we walked up to a nice  4x4 blacktail. Well theres a lot more stuff we talk about to this day me gutting it and almost puking  a half dozen times and my buddie showing me how to cut off the tarsal glands and instead of cutting i drug the knife over the top and squeegeed all that stinky pi$$  all over the place and almost puked again. Oh and my shot behind the shoulder turned out to be a spine shot i guess i was shaking pretty good. Well to sum it up i thought this hunting thing was pretty easy i was hunting for 30-35 minutes and shot a nice buck ,well nothing has been close to that easy since
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Bookworm on February 13, 2008, 09:32:53 PM
When I was growing up I was more into fishing, which I still love to do. My best friend in high school was from a hunting family so he finally convinced my to tag along. I'd shot a few ducks before but had never really big game hunted. His wife's family hunted a ranch over in eastern wa. I went over there with an old model 94 30-30. I saw a few does in the morning but nothing with horns. After I walked back to the truck my friend wasn't back yet. I started walking back towards the ranch . One of the ranchers kids picked me up after a short distance. As we were driving back a couple of deer ran across the road in front of us. We took off after them across the wheat stubble field. When we got up beside them he told me to shoot. We were doing 15 to20 mph across the field. I shot once hitting it in the neck,pure luck. 
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: boneaddict on December 10, 2008, 06:04:57 PM
anybody get their first deer this year?  There are about 2,000 more members here...any more stories to add?
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Elkrunner on December 10, 2008, 06:21:29 PM
I didn't get my first deer this year but I did get my first deer with a bow this year.  I really wish that I had it on video.  My hunting partner and I had pulled into camp around 1 pm, we decided to put the bare minimums up for camp and do a quick scouting drive.  We ended up driving along the chewuch in winthrop when all of the sudden he said to stop.  He mentioned that there was one lying down next to the river.  It was a doe laying across the river about 3 feet from the water.  It was just laying there trying to stay cool.  I backed the truck up about 500 yards and dropped him off and pulled forward about 300 down stream from the deer.  We both got out and started to weed our way through the thick brush.  As I popped out of the brush I realized that I was directly across from the doe.  I pulled back and hit it pefectly from 28 across the water.  She imediately jumped up and ran into the river, swayed a bit and fell over.  I had to wade into the water cheast deep to retrieve her.  It was one of the most exciting times,
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Dslayer on December 10, 2008, 06:32:43 PM
I got into a little later than some of the stories here.  I had hunted with my dad and brother around 16 0r so with some guys they know out of White Salmon, a big party hunt with more bitching about where to go and who was standing and who was driving-seemed like my brother, who is 2 years younger than me, always got one though, but it didn't seem like hunting to me so I struck off my own.

When I was 20 or so, I killed my first deer, a spike, above Sheep Lake on Chinook Pass back when it was not quite so inundated with tree huggers as today.  Hit it at about 50 yards, went down immediately, walked over to it and couldn't immediately find antlers.  Turned out that one spike stood straight up and was buried in the dirt and the other had grown along the top of it's head and I hadn't immediately seen it.  After that wee bit of a heart stopper, I gutted it, taking about forever.  In those days I hadn't given a great deal thought to moving a dead animal; I drug it down the hill and onto the PCT toward Chinook Pass, about 1 and a half miles away.  I got some interesting looks from hiker types who weren't very impressed, but were rather apalled actually, really the first time I had experienced that sort of folk.  Finally, I decided to take it straight down a  drainage to the Chinook Pass Hwy., which I could hear below me.  This started off pretty easy, then eventually devolved into me lowering the deer one minor waterfall after another until I reached the Hwy.  By that time, about all the hide had been stripped off the deer, kind of looked like a Mexican hairless.  Boy I was beat, walked up the highway and came back with my pickup, wrestled into the bed, took it home, skinned it and cleaned and took to the butcher shop.  Kind of a sorry looking thing by the time I got it home, but I had done it all by myself-the first of many, though I have greatly refined my packing style.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: huntnphool on December 10, 2008, 06:41:00 PM
Got my first moose this year, isn't that part of the deer family? ;)
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: EastWaViking on December 10, 2008, 07:20:39 PM
My first deer was in 6th grade in 1977 down by Washougal.  I had an old H&R single shot 20 Gauge with open sights and slugs, (still have it) and I missed lots of deer that year.  Once my mom got her deer I got to use her .244 with a SCOPE!  I remember lots of cold rainy days in the brush sitting on stumps in my school jeans, freezing, while my dad pushed the brush for me. Why didn't anybody think of rain gear or gortex back then?  My second deer,  the next year is my biggest blacktail to date.  (then again I haven't hunted them since 1979) 
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Elkstuffer on December 10, 2008, 10:32:22 PM
Shot my first deer in 1977. I was 12 years old. It was a HUGE doe. After I shot her I walked over and carried her out with one hand and she wasn't even dragging on the ground. She looked alot bigger thru my scope.
Killed my first buck five years later. A nice fat grain fed forked horn mulie.
Last year I took my first archery buck, a 2x4 blacktail. It was like I was 12 years old again. Love that feeling.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: bigdave on December 10, 2008, 10:40:04 PM
1982, huckleberry unit back when they used to issue 1500 doe tags a year. I was twelve and had worked all summer buckin' bales to save up for a rifle. (Ya, 12, they don't call me bigdave for nothin') Dad said it would mean more to me if I bought it with my own money. I remember being really disappointed when I went into the White Elephant to buy my Savage 30-06 and they told me I had to pay extra for a lefty. My dad felt so bad he ponied up the cash to help me out. My dad used to hunt back in the day and I vividly remember asking him how far would a bullet go if it went through another deer. He said not to shoot if there was another deer directly behind the one I was shooting. I said OK and that was that.

Flash forward 2 days.  A herd of whitetail does and fawns in a farmers alfalfa field, I creeped up a fenceline with my Dad and put my iron sight on an old doe at 80 yrds. Dad had a tag too and so we tried the old 1,2,3 thing. Anyway I squeeze the trigger, my doe falls like a ton of bricks and about 50 ft off to the side and behind her so does another deer, it's a fawn with SPOTS. It's kickin' and floppin' on the groud like a chicken with it's head cut off. Incredulous, I look at my Dad and ask him why he shot a fawn. And you guessed it, He looks at me and says he didn't shoot. I made him empty his rifle so I could count his bullets and he was still full.

He made me tag the fawn so that I would remember it for the rest of my days. He tagged the doe and our hunt was over. After we took it home and showed my Mom and sisters they didn't speak to me for a week. Sorry, no pics, I think you understand. Important lesson learned that day.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: huntnphool on December 11, 2008, 11:02:33 AM
Thanks for the story Dave.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: croix on December 11, 2008, 11:54:45 AM
I started hunting with my dad in the Black Hills of South Dakota at about age 12 and continued to do so until I was 16 without any luck. Then I got a car and discovered girls and didn't hunt the rest of my school days :rolleyes:. In fact I didn't hunt again until I had moved to Washington under Navy orders. After several years of trying to figure out the whole Blacktail thing, I finally got my first in 1995.

I had hunted most of the season with a couple of good friends, but they were on different boats and had to go to sea before the end of season. Luckily I met a guy leaving work one day who was in a simialr situation and we decided to make a go of it on the final weekend.

We headed to Brown's Creek - Mason County, NW of Shelton - and spent all day Saturday and most of Sunday hiking some pretty tough terrain. After lunch on Sunday I talked him into crawling through some old willow trees to a small clearing that I had seen plent of sign in earlier in the season.

I hunkered down under the boughs of a Fir tree and he found a spot in an old snag pile 50 yards from me. We sat in the rain and sleet for over three hours. It was nearly dark and I was miserable. With 15 minutes of legal light left on the 31st of October, I started to get up and this big bodied blacktail with a small forked rack walked out in front of me at about EIGHT yards. I am sure that he only stuck around to find out what the shaking was all about since I had suddenly come down with full blown buck fever.

He had turned to face dead away from me and was looking back over his shoulder. My inexperience got the better of me and I tried to make a head shot. Of course I did not account for the range of EIGHT yards and my shot was a complete miss. Miraculously, instead of running for the hills, this suicidal deer simply turned broadside in pure amazement. I think even he was confused by my ineptitude. His confusion was his downfall, however, as even in my shaking buck crazed state I couldn't miss a broadside shot at ... that's right... EIGHT yards.

Despite the 7MM mag shell blowing through both of his shoulders, he still managed to run / hobble 25 yds across the short end of the clearing and reach the 20 foot straight drop at the other side before expiring at the base of a tree. I suppose that is my retribution for missing the first shot. The first 20 feet of that drag took almost as long as the rest of the drag to the truck.

Naturally, my new found friend was confused at the whole affair. He heard the first shot....  second shot..... crazy raucous going over the bank. Thank god he was there though, or I might still be trying to get that deer up the first 20 feet. He earned his share of the deer meat that day.

I know it's a bit of a long rambling story, but that is partly because I  can still remember every detail of that day - just as I can remember every detail of every deer I've taken since then. I hope that I never lose that feeling I get when I take an animal, or the complete roller-coaster of emotions leading up to it. I want my last hunt to feel just like this one did.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Skyvalhunter on December 11, 2008, 11:56:36 AM
Got my first moose this year, isn't that part of the deer family? ;)
Yes indeed and you earned every ounce of that big deer!!
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: TeacherMan on December 11, 2008, 12:21:11 PM
I was 9 years old when I shot my first deer and elk. This is the story of my deer. I was above Loomis in the Okanogan, we headed up toward Chapaka lake, we had crested the lop of the graid and there was a sage flat off of the right side of the truck and about 10 does where out at the edge of the flat. My dad let me out of the truck and drove just up the road to park it. He expected me to sit there and wait for him, I didn't  :chuckle:. I loaded my 243 and set out over the flat, I got within about 150 yds of a big doe and shot, wack, they all ran right into a fog bank, I went straight at them. I crested the hill and saw the deer they where moving around a hill I could see blood on the side of one of them in my scope so I fired again, missing, I laid down and shot again, she jumped again. About this time my dad got down the hill to me and was about to have a heart attack figuring he would see a herd of deer laying dead. I explained to him what I had done to that point. I started to head toward where to deer went and he grabbed my shoulder and had me go around the hill, instead of headed at them I went to where they where going. We looped around the hill and where within 50yds of my doe, she was all hunched up. I lift my gun and got ready to shoot again but my dad stopped me. He ad me use a log for a rest and shoot her in the head. I still remember her head didn't move but her entire body did a back flit and it was over. I hit her 3 out of the 4 shots. 3 in the guts one in the head. Pretty stinky. We cleaned her up, got in the truck and ended up driving back to Auburn that night, I had ruined my hunt, I shot one on the way to camp. We never even took our tent out. I didn't get to go camping  :'( . November rolled around and I got to hunt for elk in the Little Naches and I got a nice big cow on that hunt. I got to camp that week. Man what I would do to be back in school, take advantage of it with your kids if you have a job that allows it. I don't and I don't get to hunt like I use to, your kid will appreciate it in the future.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: walt on December 11, 2008, 02:30:08 PM
I killed my first deer when I was 11 years old.  I grew up in a hunting family and had been raised around guns and hunting.  I started shooting a 22 and a 410 at about 7.  Eleven was the magic age when my mom agreed that I was ready to take hunters safety and carry a rifle.  I think Dad thought I was ready as soon as I could walk.  Well, after passing the test and practicing throughout the summer with my new to me winchester 30-30 opening day finally came.  Dad and I were up well before dawn and headed up Wenas Rd. into Umtanum.  We parked just before dawn and started working our way east, toward the river.  About a mile in we split up with dad working the north side of the canyon we were hunting and me on the south.  It was a pretty good sized canyon with a creek running down the middle.  We kept creeping side hill down the canyon about 2 more miles without seeing anything.  The plan was to meet at the bottom at 11 and decide what to do next.  At about 10:30 I was creeping through a small draw when I see a deer bedded in the game trail I am on about 60 yards in front of me.  I freeze and he picks his head up and looks back over his shoulder at me.  Its a buck!  I had played this scenario out in my head hundreds of times so I don't even remember easing my rifle up to my shoulder.  I placed the sight pin on his right front shoulder and squeezed the trigger.  BOOM!  followed immediately by me sqweeling "I got him Dad."  At the shot he tried to jump up but I had destroyed his shoulder.  He attempted to run but fell, tried again and fell again.  After yelling to my dad I racked another round and finished him off with one in the neck.  I don't know who was more excited me or dad.  Even the 3 hour pack back to the rig couldn't wipe the smiles off our faces.   I wish I had pictures to share but I will always have the memories. 
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: 7mmfan on December 11, 2008, 03:31:14 PM
October 13th, 1997. Sheridan Wyoming. I was 13 years old and had been on hunting trips with my dad and brother before but had never seen anything killed. This was the very first time that I ever got to hunt. It was about 15 minutes into the first day and dad and I split up in this big canyon. He took the bottom and I took the sidehill. I was walking along and saw this big pile of rocks that looked cool so I climbed up to them and low and behold, what was on the other side of them but a dandy 3x4. He saw me the exact same time I saw him and we sat there about 50 yards apart staring at eachother for what seemed like hours but was probably more like a second or two. All I could see was his head over the top of the sage brush so thats what I shot at... and missed. My dad said that he was sure someone with a machine gun fired the next three shots. The deer got up and ran sidehill right infront of me and and I shot 3 times at him hitting him twice right behind the shoulder. Later we found a hole in his ear where I think my first shot went. All went great until we looked at what we had to drag the deer up to the truck. About 1500' of elevation gain in about 1501'. We rallied the troups and got my two uncles and brother and got it up. They vowed to never help me drag another deer out again. Since then they've helped with at least half a dozen multi-mile drags. I guess thats what I get for not liking to hunt around other people!
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: PacificNWhunter on December 12, 2008, 08:21:18 AM
I was 13 years old and about 3 month out of hunters ED. My Dad and I hunted the entire general W. Side season without seeing any antlers, well he saw a few but I was trying to get the whole thing figured out and probably missed allot of deer along the way. It was the 1st day of the late season and I was chomping at the bit to get out in the woods, Dad had to work that morning and there was no talking my Mom into getting up and driving me out to the woods. It was looking like I was not going to be able to go out hunting.....but I had to go, if there was a way I was going to find it. I ended up finding a ride from my future brother in-laws father, Larry.  Morning came quickly and I awoke to find the morning clear and COLD...well for the west side anything in the 30's is good. I gathered my things and waiting at the end of the drive way to be picked up. We got out to the hunting spot about 45 minutes before first light, quietly managed to pick our way up an old clearing and positioned ourselves for the morning hunt. Light came and we saw NOTHING.....After awhile we decided to walk back to the truck and try a patch of timber down the road. While walking out I noticed a slight brown movement to my right. DEER! there were 3 does walking parallel to us paying us no attention. We sat and watched them for 20 minutes hoping a rack would be close by..again no more movement and the does fed off. We decided to move again....I followed up the rear as we headed back down the trail towards the truck. About another 25 yards after seeing the does I turned around for one last look and was surprised to see a 2x2 standing 45 feet away on the same trail I was!  I dropped to a knee took aim with my .300 savage and sent a 150 grn bullet speeding towards the buck. I MISSED! but the buck did not seem to care...he turned walked about 30 yards farther and turned broad side. This time I found a stump leveled the .300 again and delivered the fatal shot. Larry missed the whole thing except for the last shot. Larry assisted me getting the buck gutted and back to the truck. We took the long way home to show Dad my first buck, he was very excited and actually left work early to help me get the buck skinned.

I'm heading to my parents this weekend and will try and find the pic's, scan and then post them for you all. Bone, I have a too have a couple scars on my left from that first deer.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: strutnrut1984 on December 12, 2008, 01:52:16 PM
my first deer was taken at age 12 on ourfarm in crawford county pennsylvania in 1977. it was a very large doe. my dad set me next to a big tree in a fence row between a small hay field and a redbrush field. he  went into the thicket.next thing i knew there were deer runnig everywhere. and a big doe slid to a stop a mere 10 yds from me.i cocked the hammer on my 32winspl. shakin like a leaf i fired and dropped her.a spine shot i was so excited i couldnt rack in anothe round. dad came down and finished her off i was very proud.   the next year i baged my first buck in the same spot a small 3x2. we had got there about an hour before light on opeing day. and sat on our buckets we had built a nice little blind out of branches and brush and dad had an old car hood for the roof. well any way it started gttin light  i saw 3 deer feedin in the hay field i whispered to dad i think one is a buck. he said no all does. but it got lighter i said dad i see horns. he scoped them and said albe darnd one is a buck. so he got me ready for a shot. i fired and the dirt flew up under his belly lol he jumped and stopped lookin around m dad steadied my rifle with his hand because i really had the shakes then. and my next shot was on the money. i will always remeber those times with my dad. and thank him for making me a hunter. he passed in 03 from cancer. and even after 57 deer to my credit im still a shakin fool afterwards lol. thanks for your time      strut
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: fishseeker on December 13, 2008, 06:01:13 AM
Growing up it was more about fishing than huntig, Dad was a road hunter. Had hunted a couple time with guys from high school somewhere out of Orting. In 1972 at the age of 21, I went with my  Dad and new step brother-in-law on my first real opening weekend hunt. Jim and his brothers and their dad had cabins in Mazama on the Harts Pass rd. Opening moring we hunted across the rd. from the cabins below Goat Wall, saw a couple does. after breakfast and a nap we went down where Goat Cr. crosses the Rd. to Winthrop and went in twoards the Methow, I followed the cr. aways and Dad and Jim spread out in other areas. Hit the river and started back toward the rig. came to a small opening and saw some legs in the brush on the other side walk off.Waited a few minutes and creeped across the opening. Got down on my knee and was looking for the deer. Found legs again about 75 yards away,Steped to my right and saw the legs where twin forkys  walking head to tail, Drop to my knee and put the crosshairs behind the shoulders and fired. Deer jumped and ran. Jim hollered Hey. to let me know he was there. Told him I got one. Walked over to where the deer was standing and there was Pink and red stuff on the branches. Deer went 20 yards and died laying over a log. Jim went to get the rig but the rd. was blocked Dad was sitting in the car, Jim told him I got one but he would not come to leave the rig to come to see it. I was very excited and heart broke at he same time! Vowed that would never happen with me and it hasn't! That was the only real hunt I got to go on with my dad! Booze became more important to him after that than anything!
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: C-Money on December 13, 2008, 03:30:07 PM
I got my first deer in Pennsylvania when I was 12. I was the first day of doe season. A group of twelve doe came up into a bunch of hemlock trees where I was sitting out of the swamp. I had my doe by 730am. Used Grandpa's Marlin 30-30. Just about everyone in our family has killed a deer with that old rifle. My family has sure taken alot of deer back there! My first and only Elk to date came in 2006 from the Clockum. It was the only spike in a group of 50 plus. They all ran down the canyoun single file and the spike was about the 25th animal. Can you believe there was not another hunter around! Was a great experience Great times, and warm memories!
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Hoytstaffshooter83 on December 13, 2008, 03:48:34 PM
I was 12, shot my first deer with my bow on my 2nd day deer hunting, we were driving down a logging road and drove past this alder patch and a doe was standing it in, we drove past got out hiked back and my buddy said take her, I drew and punched the crap out of the trigger but the arrow went right through her, hit the heart dead on and got both lungs, she turned, walked a few steps, stopped and fell over dead!!!!! I will never forget it, but every deer since has been just as special
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: stlhdr1 on December 13, 2008, 04:47:36 PM
12 years old, shot a spike at 125 yards with a Remington pump 30-06.  I still remember the balling sounds it was making when I ran up to it...  Gave me nightmares for weeks. 

Keith :chuckle:
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: clindsayrun on December 14, 2008, 06:46:07 PM
I shot my first deer this year!  :rockin:javascript:void(0);
Rockin' at 28 years old!

I've been a bird hunter my entire life. My family used to live to duck hunt. I can remember being like 12 or 13 and being so disappointed when the hunting shows were about whitetail hunting. About the time my brothers and I were heading off to college we somehow made the shift into big game hunting. Now it feels like we've been chasing deer, bear and elk our entire lives rather than a few years.

I've previously had a couple of unsuccessful seasons in western Washington.  My little brother on the other hand has been a west side deer killing machine for like 9 years! I spent five seasons living in Arizona. You can hunt archery over the counter but rifle tags are by lottery drawing. I never drew a rifle deer tag and never connected with the bow! I did draw a cow elk tag down there and I shot plenty of Javelina, so it wasn't all bad.

This season I drew a special access permit for the Mary Eder Unit near Oroville. The Eder unit is about a half mile from my house. In fact I can see much of it out of my kitchen window. The day that tag showed up in the mail I almost had a heart attack I was so pumped!  I was saddened that I wouldn't be hunting with my brothers, but it was a worthy trade. I did quite a bit of scouting and saw a few pretty good deer.

For those who weren't aware WDFW gave out 5 archery, 5 muzzle loader and 5 modern tags.

Anyway October 11th is also my son's birthday. He was having his first birthday this year and the party was starting at 2:30. I made a promise that I would be there by 3.

So opening morning I headed out, it was about a 60 second drive from my house. There were nine does in the Unit's parking area and about five more walking along the road. From sun up on I was counting deer. Over the course of my day I saw easily 400-500 deer. A good mixture of whitetail and mule deer. I saw quite a few bucks, but most were pretty small. I figured I had a week to fill the tag, and I most likely will never draw it again, so I wanted to shoot a pretty good deer. One of my brothers had predicted that I would hold out for at least a 5x5. My other brother thought I would shoot the first legal deer to walk in front of me. Anyway, lots of deer out there. I saw two different pair of whitetail is locked antlers, sparring over their respective patches of land. It was a pretty good show.

I saw one good 5x5 whitetail but couldn't make it happen. About noon I was working a rocky section of ledges up by the border. I came over a small rise and saw 6 mule deer at 50 yards working up the hill towards me. There were two or three 3x3's a bunch of forked horns and one 4x4 leading the bachelor group. He looked good enough to me so at 35 yards I put one in his neck. He went strait down like a ton of bricks.  Later he was scored at 140 gross.

I was pretty pumped. As it worked out my father and brothers had just showed up at my place for my son's birthday party. I gave them a call and they headed out to meet me. I gutted the deer and had to drag it for about a half mile until I ran into my dad and brothers.  We all dragged the deer the 3/4 mile to the gate and loaded him into the truck. While we were dragging the deer out we ran into a hog of a 6x6 whitetail at 75 yards.

Anyway it was a great hunt. I took a good deer and was still able to share the experience with my family.

A lot of guys have told me that I should have held out for a bigger deer, but it's tough when you're really looking to put meat in the freezer and you've never bagged a deer to begin with.

I also met a 9 year old boy who drew a tag. He was out there with his father and younger brother and bagged a fantastic 4x4 whitetail.

Oh, just for information I saw 12 other hunters (not counting the boy and his father and brother) that morning.  javascript:void(0);
Dunno
Maybe they all had the "extra-special access" permit. Fish and Game Officers can't be everywhere at once and these guys knew it. Later I talked to a warden and he told me last season they found 21 gut piles on the unit.

Attached are a couple of pictures. The first is my deer on the ground. The second is after I cleaned the skull.  Later I'll post pics of the finished european mount.
-Corey




Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Elk4me on December 14, 2008, 07:18:07 PM
I had to wait until I was 29 to get my first one. I didn't start until I was 27 when I got out of the Navy. I was hunting with Fishseeker and his wife West of Yakima on Whites Ridge. It was opening day and I was not far from camp, I could hear my dog barking and I wasn't sure what was wrong with her so I returned and untangled the chain. I walked back behind the camp a couple hundred yards and "Nature Called Loudly". Yup, you guessed it. :chuckle: :chuckle: Just about time for the paperwork and I hear "crash, snap, crunch", look up and about 100 yds through the brush is a four point broadside just lookin at me wondering "What is that aroma". :bdid: I grabbed my rifle and waddled sideways (pants restricting any full steps while around the ankles). I shot him through the lungs and he dropped where he stood. I finished the paperwork and went over to him, tagged him and went to find my brother to show me what to do next. It's the pits asking "little brother" how to gut your first deer. :bdid: I haven't lived it down yet. :bash: We had to bail out fast due to the temperature was hitting 70 before we got it field dressed and ready to go. I found out later that Fishseeker's wife had run him to me while she was walking back to camp because she got cold. :)
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: 270Shooter on December 16, 2008, 08:20:57 PM
Last year, about 40 miles north of Great Falls Montana. We hunted all morning and the other kid I was with shot a 3x3. We saw some pigs but couldn't catch up to them. Then as we were heading in for a snack we spotted about 10 deer about 1/2 behind the house. So we parked it and headed up through a little saddle and I looked over all of the deer and spotted a 3x3 with eye guards and said I was gonna shoot him. The wind was blowing about 20 mph and I ranged him at 285 yards. He kept on stopping right in front of and behind does so I had to wait and wait. Finally he stepped clear and BOOOOOOM!!!! My .270 Barked. I hit him a little low and back and he was headed up the hill but slowing down so I fired again and missed. Then I calmed down and shot him again as he was slowing down and that one knocked him down. But he quickly stood back up so I shot one more time and put it right in his boiler again and he was down for good! He died on a very steep him which made gutting him a little more fun. It wasn't pretty but it sure was fun and I can't wait to go back!
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: wilsongideon on December 19, 2008, 08:57:35 PM
I was sixteen using my dads 6mm. I had hunted for two years with my brother and brother in law and never seen anything legal hunting the lower okanogan and methow seems like we always sat out on the wheat fields three or four times a year but never seen much except hunters and a few doe coughing their lungs out trying to find a sage patch that didnt have two hunters sitting on it. I got lucky with my little brother who was eleven at the time and we hiked up a sage draw between two wheat fields and jumped what looked like a big fork with a couple doe. . . I wasnt sure of what i was seeing through my tasco 10 x 50s with one eye closed and so we trudged through the wheat in the general direction of where the deer had ran to. . .pretty soon we spooked them again and again i was pretty sure the main beams split  right out on the tips but i wasnt going to shoot unlesss i saw that one inch split for sure . . .my brother kept telling me he wanted to shoot it to and man that was tough not to but finally the third time we found that buck about 10000 dust filled boot steps away we were able to sneak up on him a little and at probably 50 to 80 yards could tell through the rifle scope that he did indeed branch at the tips again fullfilling the 3 point min. req. and as he winded us and started to quarter away that 6mm hit him through the lungs missed both shoulders and I harvested the first buck in my family.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: addicted on December 20, 2008, 12:20:41 PM
i love this thread. all these memories are awesome.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: PacificNWhunter on December 29, 2008, 02:16:38 PM
Took me awhile but I finally found the pic's of my first buck.... ALMOST made me think I should spend more time unpacking boxes in the new house then on here. Sorry if it is blurry, have not figured out the scanning stuff.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: deerhunter94 on December 29, 2008, 03:28:49 PM
I shot my first deer when I was twelve over by Dixie.  There was about 45 minutes of shooting light left and we had just seen a doe about 300 yards away, which is a little bit out of range for my .30-30 so I crept closer until I was about 100 yards away, still a ways for open sights, but we couldn't get any closer without the deer seeing.  So I aimed and right when  I was about to pull the trigger a giant 4x4 jumped out about 30 yards away right in between me and my dad so neither of us could shoot it. But then it started running and right at the right moment I shot open sights with my .30-30 it didn't even flinch so  I assumed I had missed it, so I reloaded and brought up my gun for a second shot but it had already ran over the hill behind us.  As I ran after my dad, who had a view of that side of the hill called, "I think you got it!" Sure enough, there it was laying on the ground just over the top of the hill. 
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: finnman on December 30, 2008, 02:16:38 PM
I was a late bloomer as well! I did not harvest my first buck till I was 21!

I made it count though!
A fella out by Eatonville needed his ten acres surveyed, so my dad and brother, WAPITIHUNTER, went out and did the job on a Friday, after talking with the guy for a while, he says he is having deer problems! My dad speaks right up and says, it just so happens we will take care of that for you for no charge!!! The next day they go back and sure enough my dad drops a little 2x3 with his 'ol 7x57 Mauser, as they walk to the buck a different bigger buck jumps down the trail and my brother takes a quick snap shot at, just grazing the rump, sending some hair flying! After a look around, no blood, no buck........
The next day WAPITIHUNTER and me go back and look for the big buck, no doing, we decide to drop into the dark timber on the north property line and still hunt the salal thickets. 15 minutes into it I look up and see ANTLERS!!! Big ONES! The big 4x4 buck is just 15 feet away hiding in the salal! One quick shot to the neck with my .270 and he is down!
That was in 1991, since then I have been fortunate enough to harvest a deer every year, except 2007!
Till this day he is still the biggest Blacktail I have taken!
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Emptyhanded on December 31, 2008, 02:14:44 PM
Hello. This is my first post and i really appreciate you letting me be a part of this forum. Anyways my first deer was 4 years ago when i was 13 yrs. old. I was hunting the Mt. Spokane unit with my grandpa in late buck and we had set up on a curve in the logging road we were on that over looked some thick underbrush in a draw and my grandpa wanted to try to calling for the first time. He got out his rattling antlers and grunt call and did a little of both and stopped and we sat and waited for about 5-10 minutes and i saw antler tips about 30 yards away and set up and i was watching a deer in the brush to what i thought was a 2 point and my grandpa said "take him in the neck". and i looked up with my scope and settled the cross-heirs on his neck and squeezed off a round from my .243. The deer dropped and i went down in the draw and found him and to my surprise it was a 5x5. That was a nice surprise! Haha. That was my first and only deer to date. I will post pictures as soon as i figure out how to. (http://)(https://hunting-washington.com/cpg/albums/userpics/12753/100_0533.JPG)
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Bofire on December 31, 2008, 02:39:24 PM
 :)It was 1957 I was 6, my Dad and brothers all got to go hunting deer, I didn't, I got to go pheasent hunting but not deer. So My Uncle Mack and Gramp Pete took me out walking along the RXR tracks by the home place.
As we walked along they were telling me stories, we saw a little Tow head buck at the bottom of the RXR grade about 25 yards.
Gramp Pete croutched down and put his arm around me in front of him. He held his old 25-20 winchester up for me and I aimed and pulled the trigger. Little deer went down, we walked up to him and Uncle Mack said, " Ya did real good boy, cept fer one thing, ya shoulda chased the little turd up the grade fore ya kilt im" I actually thought I did wrong and kinda tearred up over it. :)
When we got it back to the wood shed and hung him up my older brothers came in and had not seen a deer.
and Yup I gotta confess, I did not have a license or tag!!! That little bugger hung up on the wood shed wall with all the others until Gramp Pete died and Gram Bertha sold out.
Carl
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Pathfinder101 on January 03, 2009, 08:55:59 PM
I was 13.  My stepdad was a Spokane Indian, and without question the best hunter I have ever known.  He had been hunting opening weekend out of town, but took me out for my first hunt when he got home mid-week.  It was after school, and he figured we'd run up the mountain closest to town and look around for a good place to hang a treestand (always his preferred method of hunting).  We poked around up on Mingo Mountain (back when you could still set foot up there without trespassing) for about an hour.  It was getting towards dinner time, so we got back in the truck and started for home.  About halfway down the mountain I looked out my window and saw a set of antlers sticking out of the brush.  I started stammering, pointing, sputtering... basically, if you look up "buck fever" in the dictionary, that was me. :yike:
My dad got the point without me having to fully pronounce any word in the english language (luckily he spoke fluent buck fever), stopped the truck, and told me to load my rifle.  I was carrying a Model 94 Win. 30-30, which I actually managed to lever open on only my 3rd try.  Getting a cartridge in the chamber was another thing though.  I was shaking so badly, it must have taken me a full minute.  All the while this buck is lying bedded in the brush, not 30 feet from the truck.  In my defense, he was in fact a pretty big buck.
Of course, when I opened the truck door, he jumped up and ran off.  We watched him run through a stand of thick timber and into a small clearcut.  His tracks were pretty easy to follow until we got to the clearcut.  They were still logging the area, and they hadn't finished piling the slash to burn yet, so there was slash buldozed into piles everywhere.  After poking around for a bit it started getting dark, so we were headed back to the truck.  Man, was I butt-hurt!  I knew no one was going to believe me.  My first day of hunting in my life, 10 minutes from town, up a mountain that everyone and their brother hunted, and I had just missed my chance at the biggest whitetail buck I had ever seen in the flesh.
My dad was standing at the top of the clearcut, waiting for me.  I was at the bottom of it, about 100 yards from him.  Between us, at the east edge of the clearcut was a large, loosely buldozed slash pile.  I was walking back, doing my best impression of a kid that just dropped his ice cream cone, when I decided to climb up on one of the bigger logs in the brush pile.  Y'know, just to take one more look...  And I almost stepped on him.  God only knows why he hid in there, but he did. 
Didn't have time to get buck fever on this go-around.  He went bounding out of the slash pile to my right and I fired at the brown blur (we was about 15 feet from me).  He piled up face first on the opposite side of a log he was jumping over.
My dad walked up and inspected him.  Shot right behind the ear.  Let's just pretend that's where I was aiming...

The deer is hanging in my mom's living room in Kettle Falls.  Still the biggest whitetail I have ever shot.  I have never actually put a tape on him, but I figure him at about 130-something.  A testament to beginner's luck...
 
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Pathfinder101 on January 05, 2009, 04:46:09 PM
Regarding the above story.  This is the buck.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Pathfinder101 on January 05, 2009, 07:42:21 PM
Gotta put my boy's first deer up here too.  This was Opening Day this year, northeast of Walla Walla.  He has been tagging along with me since he was 3, but his first year carrying his own tag.  This was the 3rd buck we spotted that morning (the other two were hell-bent for leather, tounges hanging out, with half the county blasting away).  He was with 8 does and a forkie.  Someone took a shot at him, and they headed into a draw we were watching (a known hidey-hole when the shooting starts).  We let them get in there and clam down, then made a 45 minute stalk, including a 200 yard belly crawl.  Shot him in his bed at 40 yards, using my shoulder as a rest.  No buck fever until he was dead on the ground.  Dad couldn't be prouder!!
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: C-Money on January 06, 2009, 06:06:40 AM
Good story Pathfinder101! Glad your kid got a buck!
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: GUHunter on January 15, 2010, 10:18:04 AM
I got my first deer on opening day this past season at age 23 in my third year of deer hunting. I grew up in a family of bird hunters and got into deer hunting with friends. Not much to talk about for the first two years of trying. On opening day of modern firearm season, we had permission to hunt some private property in Lincoln County. We had planned to take a vantage point on a small cliff overlooking some barley fields. As we made our way in, we spotted a giant muley buck but we were more than an hour till daylight. He doesn't seem overly concerned with us, so we made our way to our spot where we would still be able to see the area he was feeding when the sun came up. When the sun did rise, he was nowhere to be seen. 15 minutes after first light, I see a buck walking towards me along the dirt road we drove in on. I immediately knew it was a buck, but had to confirm 3-point. He looked right at me and stopped less than 60 yards away and I froze. He went back to what he was doing and i took aim and fired one shot from my Rem 721 in 30-06 that my grandpa gave me 3 years ago. He jumped and kicked at the shot but only went 20 yards or so before expiring. A young 3X2. I was hooked before I got my first deer, but it's still nice to get one now and then.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: huntergreg on January 15, 2010, 11:33:53 AM
I had been hunting with my father since I was 8 years old. We always saw lots of animals but they were always running at full speed with no shot or way to far away. My father had been hunting for many years before I was born and he had the worst luck ever He didn't shoot his first deer until he was 53. I was with him when he shot his first deer. It was a doe. He got drawn for a doe tag in 336 unit. It was a fun day. When I turned 19 I got into archery. The first year out I missed a 3 point buck on opening day. Later in the day about 1 hour before dark we were heading back to the truck and we saw a spike elk at 45 yards and took the shot. It was a perfect hit double lung shot. He ran about 40 yards up this hill then rolled down to us. It was a cool experience to get you first animal with a bow. The very next year Me and my father were out hunting on opening day and I got my first buck a 2x3 at 50 yards.  He dropped in his tracks. I hit him a little high and broke his spine. The very next week was the opening for elk and again on opening day Sep. 8th. We were walking out through the woods and saw 2 cows together at 35 yards. I shot the closes one to us and it was a good hit. I couldnt believe it but she ran about 200 yards pumping out blood the whole time. It was an awesome second year of archery. From then on I have only hunted with archery equipment. I love it.  The pictures are in order My first deer my first elk and my second deer. My second deer I mounted my self. It turned out ok if you look at it from 8-10 feet away  :P :lol4:
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: whacker1 on January 15, 2010, 06:25:40 PM
Well - I just spent a couple of hours reading this whole thread.   Time to share.

I was a freshmen in highschool and I fished with my Dad a lot, but he didn't hunt.  All of my dad's brother's and my cousins hunted and it intrigued me, so I asked him one day if I could take hunter safety and learn how to hunt.  Well during that fall I went for a ride along with an older buddy during hunting season and he shot a 2 point buck not far from the road.  Well this really got me intrigued. 

Well Mom and Dad agreed, and I took hunter safety with another buddy from school that spring.  We were like oldest two kids in the hunter safety class. 

Anyway fast forward, sophmore year of high school.  I am going out hunting with my older buddy.  No luck on the weekends - I pushed some deer to them, but they were sleeping in the truck.  Anyway, while my buddy was out hunting on his own, his dad and I went out on the last wednesday of the general season about 15 miles from my parents house after school.  We had gone out a few times in the evening in an attempt to see if we could make soemthing happen.  He had already filled his tag, so he was just helping me out. 

we were road hunting, because he was disabled, and we got out to a landing of some reprod and we were walking the edges of the landing glassing for deer on the other side and he spotted a deer.  he told me it was a buck and got me ready.  Tore the limbs off a small jack fir and used it as a rest.  We were about 250 yards away and he told me to put the cross hairs on the top of his back and pull the trigger.  I shot - he yelled, and I was not even sure what to think.  He told me I got him and that he saw hair fly in the scope.  We drove around to the other side of the hill, and I asked "do we need to bring the gun down the hill with us?"  He said "no, i saw hair fly and watched him go down".  I was like cool.  We dove off this steep hill in the mud and went sliding down the hill.  We got to where he was standing, but very little blood, and a little bit of hair.  We followed a set of tracks a few steps and saw a skid going down through the mud.  Well we followed and found the deer about 100 yards below.  Still alive with a broken back and his antlers caught under a log, so he couldn't get away from us.   So my partners says, "where's your knife?'  I get it out, and he says, "Do you have another knife?".  To paint the picture, all i have is a folding blade knife - with out a lock.  2 1/2 blade.  Not the ideal choise.  So he says "stab it in the neck and try to puncture his wind pipe or artery."  So, I stab, and the blade collapses on my knuckles.  Well, as you can imagine this went on for some time 30 - 40 holes in his neck later, I finally got a good  couple of holes in his wind pipe and he expired. Not my favorite clean kill story.  So we hang the thing in a tree, and head home. 

My folks were at a meeting, so we head into his house and now my buddy is home and can't believe the story and the size of the buck.  This blacktail buck is a 4 x 3 with double eyeguards on the 4 point side and a single eye guard on the other.  But when measured by Boone & Crocket scores they actually score it as a 6 x 3, because it is only 7/8 of an inch on that 3 point side.  114 5/8 was the finally talley.  My uncle shot a regressed 2 point later in the season that was huge, so we used the cape from it for my buck and got it mounted.  Still sits in my living room next to my black bear and 2007 mule deer.

I was the talk of the school for the rest of the season - envy reared its ugly head for some, but most folks were congratulatory.  I'm addicted from that point on.  The intensity of the addiction grows each passing day. 

I shot my first elk during my senior year of high school - a cow on a special permit. 

Sorry this got so long.
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: carpsniperg2 on January 15, 2010, 06:32:32 PM
i will keep it short and sweet single shot new england 243 150 yards spine shot across the canyon ine more to the neck and i had my first deer he was a 2x3 and i was 10
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: Jamieb on January 15, 2010, 08:15:22 PM
I was 15.
(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv376%2Felkhunter%2Ffirstdeer.jpg&hash=62bfbbcfcbcf5785300b4b9e4530d17781aa07f4)
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: buck wild on January 15, 2010, 09:11:38 PM
I drew a doe tag last year (needs to be more of those) so i took the first one i saw and filled my tag as well as my first deer. This is my first buck (this years).
Title: Re: Your first deer?
Post by: huntnphool on January 16, 2010, 10:38:35 PM
Nice stories everyone, keep them coming.
SimplePortal 2.3.7 © 2008-2025, SimplePortal