I remember from my first deer season building a "stand" which was a cedar board nailed to a nice branch in a huge white pine along a trail that paralleled a small river. The steps to get to the branches were large spike nails. The first morning I had two does come down. I shot the second one in line. The memory is etched in my mind right down to almost every little detail. Actually, I can recall the details of almost every deer I have shot since then, but the emotion of that first experience really stands out. I really didn't know much then since my father didn't hunt, but figured things out as I went.
Anyways, the next season I sat in the that stand for several days seeing just one other deer, a doe that I passed on. It snowed 18" one night and I went out tracking the next morning. It was mostly sunny, bitterly cold and windy from the NW so I struck out into the wind. About 2 miles in I came over a little rise and there was a good sized doe browsing about 15 yards from me. I could only lift my rifle a bit at a time when she put her head down to browse before jerking it back up as she was wary with the heavy breeze obscuring her senses. Finally I got the Marlin to my shoulder. That last little movement was sudden and she literally jumped straight into the air while doing almost a 180. In that instant I shot her quartering away through the boiler room tagging my second deer. The drag out would have been very hard by my standards today, being much older, but I was walking on air that day as a young man.
I went a couple years passing on some other does determined to get a buck. We don't have a lot of deer where I hunt and was about 10 days into my fourth season and loosing some hope, but if anything else I am persistent. Finally one day walking south of our home I stopped against a tree and instantaneously heard something coming toward me from the south with the wind. It was a doe followed by a buck with his nose right in her behind. He ended up being a decent 7 pointer. The very next morning I was some scouting around a beaver pond in some new country and no sooner had I stopped to survey my surroundings, when a nice 8 pointer walk right in. As he was facing me I dropped him is his tracks with a shot in the center of his neck right under his chin.
What do you folks remember best from those early days?
