How about the pictures and stories of your first deer. I will start it off.
I started preparing about a year ahead of time by going to the shooting range a lot and shooting from many different distances, and many different positions that might be encountered in the field. I also took my hunter safety course (which I passed with a 100%) as well as pouring over topographical maps and actually visiting my hunting area numerous times to scout, and most importantly, I prayed a lot! Other preparations included reading every book I could get my hands on about shooting in the field, stalking techniques, field dressing, etc. and also talking to various hunters and asking them questions.
We left on Friday and because my hunting area was on an island, we had to take a ferry. Our ferry was scheduled to leave at 6:30pm so we made sure to be at the ferry terminal 2 hours early to make sure that we would get on. But Murphy’s Law came into play and the ferry was about 5 hours late due to fog and engine problems and we did not get out until about 11:30pm. After an hours ferry ride we arrived at my friend’s house where we were staying and did not get to bed until about 2:00 in the morning. I was so excited about the next mornings hunt that I got little to no sleep that night.
The morning started by getting up at 6:00am and eating a breakfast of oatmeal with brown sugar in it which was very good although I was very excited was not very hungry. We then grabbed our stuff and were out the door and on the road by 6:30am.
On the drive to our hunting area we saw about 3 does and 2 buck but nothing real big. It was a slightly foggy Saturday and it was a little cold but not to bad. The terrain we were hunting in was evergreen forests with very thick underbrush as well as a few more open fields. I had decided that although it was legal to shoot any deer, I was going to wait for a buck unless it got near the end of the day when we had to leave (I only had the one day to hunt because we had church on Sunday), then if I saw a doe I would take it.
The people I was hunting with were my best friend, his dad, his uncle, as well as my dad as the photographer. The area we were hunting was a small Island in the San Juan Islands of western Washington. It was a very beautiful area with a good number of deer that were not very big, but that was fine with me.
Since I was the only one that had not ever shot a deer, my friends were very kind to make the focus getting me my first deer. After walking together for a while, we decided to break up into three groups, my friend and his uncle on the left, my dad and I in the center, and my friend’s dad on the right. Before we divided, we went over safe shooting zones, making sure to stay even, and general safety. We then started walking and after about and hour, me dad and I decided to go find my friend’s dad to regroup. We started to head to the right and the woods opened into a field. Right before we stepped out of the woods I looked up, and about 75 yards out, a big-bodied 2x2 buck had not seen us and was heading our way. I very quietly told my dad to slowly get down and he did and we waited. The buck closed the distance to about 50 yards and then winded us and I rushed the shot and missed. I was very disappointed but was glad I had not wounded it. Right about that time I heard a shot and we went over and my friend’s uncle had one down, a nice 1x2. After dressing it out and loading it up, we decided to head back to the house for lunch. On the way back, out in a field that we had permission to hunt, I spotted about 5 deer, and after a little observation, we determined that one was a nice 2x3. I got out of the truck, loaded my gun and started to very slowly stalk it. After about 30 minutes I was pretty close and sat down to rest my Benelli Nova 12 gauge on my knees and when the buck stepped into an opening, I drilled it through the spine and it went down hard. My friends came over and it tried to drag itself away, but a second shot put it down for good! I was very calm during the stalk and did not start shaking until after the deer was down.
I then was able to put my reading into practice while field dressing it. We were able to get the truck pretty close so we did not have far to drag it which was very nice!
We then drove to the house for our lunch of sandwiches and told the story to everyone there. After lunch we hung it up and skinned it and then it was time to head back to the ferry and we were able to get right on which was nice got home and hung it up in the garage to age for a few days and went to bed with great dreams!