Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Who took you deer hunting first?????

I grew up near San Angelo on the Concho river and we had a very small place that very rarely had deer passing thru so we never hunted them. My dad was always working but I had a uncle who owned 300 or so acres just outside of Mason,Texas.

Uncle Howard Leifeste was a great man who overlooked all my stupid ideas and questions and I was truly blessed to have him as an uncle and a teacher. He used to tell my dad every deer I ever saw was a buck He instilled a love of hunting in me that still burns bright today. He would pick up my brother, myself and my cousin after school and take us to Mason for the weekend during deer season. I was able as a yong adult to take him to a lease I was on near Garden City only one time before he passed away and I still wish I could have spent more time with him.

I've stayed employed my entire adult life although I never manage to buy my own place. Due to a lifelong buddy from San Angelo I was able to introduce both my kids to deer hunting. Neither has the love for it that I do so I guess I failed to instill the love for it that I felt at a very young age.

Christmas time always makes me reflect on my life and uncle Howard was a gift that God blessed me with. Merry Christmas to all my Campfire friends. Some of you I've met FTF and many others I really hope to someday over a campfire and a beer!!!

My Uncle Rick.

My Father!!!

My Dad.

Great Uncle Donald. RIP.

My dad.

My Dad, one of the few things he got right. I'll always be thankful for it.

My Dad and Grandpa. They used us kids as drivers. They dropped us off and had us walk through the woods when we were like 5-8. Today they would get arrested but it was great fun. Little kids wandering around in a 1000 acre forest while drunk men shoot at deer at the far end. What could go wrong?

At the time my girlfriends father and woould be father-in-law..............

Dad.

Me, Myself & I.

My father used to take me goose hunting, which got me interested. Then I got into squirrel and rabbit hunting. While squirrel hunting, I used to see deer all of the time, so I figured I'd try this deer hunting thing.

I was 17 and totally clueless. I headed for the woods and walked around like I would do while squirrel hunting. No knife and no rope. The second day out, it had snowed a couple of inches, so when I walked, I was quiet. Luckily, my neighbor and his father were there and I told them I didn't have a knife. The father said, with a smile on his face, "if you happen to shoot one, just whistle and I'll let you use mine". Later that evening, one of them shot a deer. I probably pushed them to him. After the shot, here comes a doe 10 yards from me. BANG!!! She goes down. So I start to whistle frantically and out they come from the woods. Sonny's father hands me the knife, so I took it and looked at the deer. Didn't know what to do. He said, "here, I'll show you once and then you're on your own." He gutted it for me and then he said that I had to drink the blood and started laughing. NOT!!

After that, they went to find his deer and left me to drag it out about 1/2 mile. Luckily it had snowed, because I dragged it backwards with the hind legs. I had a 1970 Camaro and because of the snow, I had to park out on the road. In the mean time, someone locked the gate, so I had to lift it up over the gate. I looked liked a monkey f^cking a football. I had blood all over me. I put it in the trunk of my car, so my trunk was full of it also.

It was a great memory.

My Dad

I was lucky enough to grow up in a family with a very long, rich, and deep hunting tradition. My Dad's uncle was a professional trick shooter for Savage Arms. He did shooting exhibitions all over the Ohio and Pennsylvania area, bestowing the virtues of Savage Arms. Dad said he was an amazing shot.

My earliest childhood memories are of climbing over the mountain of gear that accumulated in the dining room before deer season. Dad took an old Army backpack and cut holes in the bottom for my stubby legs to dangle through, and pretty much from the time I could drink from a cup, I went hunting with dad. When I was about 8 I started small game hunting. Dad ran beagles for rabbits and pheasants, and his dogs were very good. An invite to join Dad for a small game hunt was not to be taken lightly. The dogs did all the heavy lifting, we just had to make the shots.

By the time I was 11, I was fully expected to put food on the table in the fall. We hunted squirrels and between me and my older brother, put a lot of meals on the table. The tails were kept and sold to Mepps. A year's haul of tails usually bought us enough .22 ammo to get us through the next year. My first deer rifle was a Model 94 chambered for .32 Special. It would be a full 10 years before I killed my first deer, a spike buck that walked in front of me up at camp in Pennsylvania. Sadly, Dad died the following spring.

I realize how lucky I was to grow up in a hunting family. It's too bad more kids don't get the opportunity. So many great memories. Squirrel hunts in the huge beech trees of Ohio, the whistle of a wood duck sideslipping down through the branches of a tree in a beaver pond, so many deer hunts with and without my father. As I often say, I'm a very lucky man.

My uncles took me. Dad went a few times later on just so he could take me , but fishing was always his thing.

My friend's uncles. My people were city folks and none of them hunted.

I went by myself the first time. Dad had to work and I wasn't waiting. Had a spike horn hanging in the barn by 9 AM.

My buddy Charles Bridges. We didn't kill anything and almost got arrested for unintentional trespassing, but we had a great camping trip with guns. My first steady girl friend's father (who eventually became my father-in-law) was the one that really taught me how to hunt, and he taught me how to organize a hunting trip and a hunting camp. He's been gone for a while but I still miss him.

My Father & grandfather.

My sister's future husband. My father gave up hunting after spending a year or so in Europe hunting truly dangerous game in 1944 and 1945.

I had to teach myself the finer points of hunting because my BIL was KIA in 1968.

My Dad, with all three of us boys and I always looked forward to it. He used to put oil of anise on his hat every year. When I smelled that in the house, I knew it was deer season!