The year was 1966. The rifle was a Remington model 740 in 30-06. The deer,,,a 100 pound button buck. Long story, so I'll forego it. My buddie has an 1899A Savage in .303 Sav. It belonged to his father.He still owns it to this day, but sadly neither he nor his rifle make it to the deer woods.

Just reminicing on this day.

Ruger 77 30/06 with a 2-7x Leupold and a little Sitka buck in velvet, August 6, 1984.

Wonderful.................Making me smile. That's a GOOD thing.

Don't have a picture of mine, that I know of... Was in South Central Ga. along the Ohoppee river swamps in Emanuel County. We ran dogs back then and I had a Steven single shot 20 ga. shotgun with #1 buckshot. Spike buck came bouncing out through a clear cut right towards me. I took aim and POW. The shot rocked me so I didn't see anything of the deer. Went over to where I shot and there he laid, piled up. Was a great day.

Still have the gun in the safe!

Steely-that a Tang M77? I shot my first deer with a Tang M77 in .270 with a 130 Sierra Bt and IMR 4350.

Dober

Was Nov 1978. Both of my brothers had tagged out and I was left to go at it alone. Best thing they could have done. Anyway, Win 94 in 30-30. Still kills deer after all the years. Might have to take it out again sometime.

Love the smiles. Yours and Steelies are second to none!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1969 or 70 with my dad (the one on the right). Rifle was a 6mm.

BP...

'80, TailGate N Garage, rule Retro...

1991 give or take(12 or so years old), out checking cows with my dad and brother.

M70 in 22-250 and one 55 grain soft point.
Still have the rifle, horns are hanging above the stairs in my folk's house.

And yet more great pictures. You guys are making an old man smile!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks.......

Happy Birthday "old man".

BP...

A few from the "old days".....

Yeah, Happy B-Day LBK!

Week or two before the deer..

Still use that vest...grin

LBK,
I was too poor when I shot my first deer. Here are pics of my first Whitetail and Mule deer shortly after I bought my first camera.

1965 - Ten point, 247# field dressed, Savage M99EG 250-3000


1966 - Mule deer on the left, 4X4, Rem722 .257Roberts. My uncle was fooling around and handed me an old single shot to pose with.

On the back of a CORVAIR, no less.

Haven't seen one in a LOOOOONG time.

Can't tell if it's a Monza??

Thanks. Bittersweet. I bought my very LAST hunting and fishing license today. Starting next year, they are all free. I just want to live long enough to reap the benifits.

[quote]Thanks. Bittersweet. I bought my very LAST hunting and fishing license today. Starting next year, they are all free. I just want to live long enough to reap the benifits. [quote]

I do believe your are just ornery enough to do so.............

Too bad your ass is stickin' up outta yer collar like that. Kinda ruins the picture. What the hell are those humungous white things stickin' outta yer crack, beaver teeth ?

My first buck Oct 1999. Killed it an hour or so into the first day of my first big game season. Had it dressed out and was back in time for church that morning. 6x7 Mulie. 350 yard shot with my Mawmaw's 700 ADL 270 Win, 3-9x40 Vari-x II, 130gr Nosler Partition that my Dad helped me load myself.



Dad and me

1959, Absorkas, south of Big Timber Montana, Independence mine area. Forkhorn, 50 yds shot, model 71 Winchester, 348W, 250gr silver tip. Were hunting elk. Don't know how to get picture posted.

No deer yet.

Hopefully I might have access to private land where the man took some nice blacktails, my luck might change.

5 days before I was born! haha!

East of Denio NV at about 6,500 feet, five years ago. Mr. Tasty (aka lumber as he was a 2x4). Packed out 75 lbs of field butchered and boned meat.
Ranger Arms (Damn fine rifle) 25-06, Federal Blue box ammo.

Yes sir, it was my only rifle for many years.

November 1984, 12ga Ithaca Deerslayer, Leupold 2x7. Shot from a rickety old wooden tree stand only a fool would get into!!

No pics, it was in 1960 up Browse Creek in southern Utah, I will never shoot a bigger one. But at that time and place there were many much nicer looking racks taken but few deer were much larger in body.

My friend and I had a wager with a fellow student in High School that whoever shot the smallest deer (measured by outside spread) had to buy the others a milk shake. My friend and I with my dad shot two very large bucks; his rack was a little wider than mine because of a cheater. Mine was a 6X8 and about 31" wide (as I recall), our friends' was just slightly (about 1/2") smaller than mine so he had to buy!

My rack was sort of flat and not nearly as nice looking as the ones in the local hardware store so we didn't think much about it.

The two deer were together and headed for the top of Pine Valley Mountain when we got them. I was using a pre-64 M 70 270 bought earlier in the year. It was used, barrel had been cut to 20" and a different stock put on it and the trigger guard and floor plate had been chrome plated. I was too poor to buy a scope so had a Redfield peep sight on it. My fried was using a used Model 99 Savage in 243 he'd just bought also. My dad used his 760 Remington 270. My friend and I made the final killing shots on the individual deer so we claimed them.

It was all we could do to put them on my friend's horses to pack them out. Skinned, with much of the neck gone they weighed over 170 lbs in the butcher shop.

That was about the last year when large southern Utah bucks were relatively common; so much so that wholly inept, bumbling 16 year old amateurs expected to get a deer with a 30" rack! Oh! the ignorance of youth!

In 1968 I hunted with dad in the same general area and shot a 5 point about 25" wide and that was considered a nice deer for the time but in 1960 it would not have won a milk shake! That was the last year I hunted in southern Utah with grad school demands.

Every time I pass through Kanab I always stop and eat at the little cafe downtown that has all those giant bucks on display that were killed in the surrounding area. Still a helluva lot of big bucks roaming around in that area.

This is the first deer I killed after I got out of college, had a job, and could afford a camera. I never got any photos of the first few deer I killed. The rifle is a Ruger tang safety 270 with a Leupold 3X9 loaded with 130 grain partitions. The camera was a Pentax 35mm. I was young and just starting out but I knew enough to save up and buy decent gear the first time.

It was back in 1982, youth hunt. I got a 10 pt and a buddy and his dad camped with us that weekend and he got a 7pt. Can remember that weekend like it was yesterday,even though it was 30 years ago.

In Greene County Alabama. .45-70 with Garrett 415 grain flat nose lead bullets. A family friend took me out a couple of times, and I screwed up a ton of shots before finally getting my act together and drilling this little one's shoulders.

Lord how I woulda loved to hunt muleys in southern Utah in the 60's. Wasnt of age to hunt till the mid 90's. Dont have a pic, but it was a little 3x2, and i was damn proud!

With any luck, some day I will pull a henries deer tag..That place is something special..I often wonder if its a throw back to what it was like throughout the state back in the 60's.

Dad and I didn't carry cameras afield when I started hunting. Not often anyway. No photos at all of my first few deer. Here's my son's first though, a mule deer buck taken at 275 yards with a single shot from "our" 1974 vintage 6mm Remington all dressed down in a Remington youth stock:

My first buck, used my Winchester 70 Classic Featherweight .243win.

Cool! Didn't think any states had a youth hunt back then.

The buck on the jeep is pretty good too. Neat!

I don't have a picture of the first 3 or 4 deer I killed and only a few between then and mid 2000s when I received a digital camera as a gift. My Dad never took pictures and we never kept racks either.

My first buck I killed hunting with my buddy, though we separated out of the jeep hunting different drainages. I followed tracks around a mountain top into a bowl, the buck came running out from a cut under me and along the far ridge. At about 200 yds, as he turned to go over the ridge, I was following him in the 4X redfield, he was broadside before he was going over and I shot with my savage 99 in 308. He disappeared over the ridge at the same time. I was calm at the shot but knew I must have missed and was disappointed, I ran down and back up to the far ridge hoping to see the buck in the distance and about tripped over him... his momentum took him just over the ridge from where I shot him... it was a sliding DRT.

My buddy and I were so excited, it was a first deer for either of us. He was a big bodied 3X4 muley and we took hours dragging it out whole/gutted, we wanted to hang it in camp before our Dads came in to show off.

Kent

I don't have any pics of my first few deer, all does, but I decided to mount my first buck.

Got him while sitting in my shooting house on family land right behind my home Dec. of 2010.

Wish I could claim hunting prowess but it was just luck. I'd never seen anything but does and an occasional spike out of that spot. He just came walking out by himself about an hour before dark and I dropped him at about 150yds with my 300wsm.

Took a few shots of my first one, but the glass plates got broken in one of my moves long ago (grin).

Actually, we never took pictures of dead deer. The first of mine that was "immortalized" on film was a really nice whitetail that I killed on the Norias Division of the King Ranch when I was in graduate school. That picture was taken by my friend John Roberts (the trapper) who guided me to that deer and rattled him up for a shot. If I can find the slide, I will scan and post it.

Tatelaw - that's a great looking buck! What's the spread? Looks like he's trying to keep up with mule deer for width!

Thanks GuyM

He measured 20" inside. Several of my friends told me I screwed up by killing him first because there's a good chance he'll be the biggest I'll ever kill, especially around here in North MS!

Haven't topped it yet. Ended up scoring 179 and change. Was quite a hike. Great day, saw several bull elk and bighorn sheep. Shot with a Remmy 700 270 I bought at a pawnshop with money saved up from my summer job.

This is working out to be a GREAT thread. Thanks to all who took the time to respond and post pictures. Great stories of great memories.

not really a deer but my first at 15

1st deer ever 1983 Rem 870


1st deer with bow 1984 Oneida Eagle


1st good buck Rem 870


1st Turkey taken 2nd day I ever turkey hunted gotta love the mullet!

Thanks again to everyone for the stories and pictures. I had my first hunting license at age 16. I had hunter with my father as long as I can remember. I was ALWAYS the "dog". I shot AT many deer before I got my first on on the ground. My father was the kind of a guy that never shot unless something died. 99% of the time, when he shot, it wasn't legal. Never ever "wasted" a shell on a paper target. He was a depression hunter and killed for food, not sport. Times are somewhat different now, but I still feel that I hunt because I like to eat what I shoot. Thanks again to everyone for posting.

Great pics

I'd post one but can't seem to master the task of posting pics. Regards, Woody

Woody, I just sent you a PM.

I like this...

My first one was the day before cameras were invented.

1949, I don't have a pic....I know we had a camera because Dad brought one home from Germany...along with an 8mm mauser, 6X binoculars from a german officer and a 22LR single shot. A desert mule deer, six marvelous points with a .257 Roberts. Seven years old and for those who say seven year old children won't remember...well I do and can tell you what I had for breakfast that morning. And thats 200+ ungulates and two continents ago. bear

Don't have a picture, just great memories !! The year was 1967 and we had a Blizzard the day before season with almost 18" of snow on the ground. My Dad had just returned from town & had spotted a nice buck in the woods near our farm. I volunteered to push the woods to him down the ridge, being only 16 & just legal here in NY. But I had been hunting everything else since I was 7 so I couldn't wait to get a deer.

Well pushed the woods & a nice buck out, but Dad was not there - the snow had flooded the creek & he could not get across. I decided to go up the hill about 200 yards or so to sit & stew about a lost opportunity. Suddenly I heard pounding hoofs & a decent 6 point came running up the hill following my tracks, scared out by Dad. He stopped about 15 feet from me looking down the hill at Dad. I aimed for his neck, closed my eyes & Shot. Well, when I opened my eyes, the buck was doing a backflip, landed on his back & was sliding back down the hill with his hooves pawing the air. He went about 50 yards down hill with me running after him, until he got hung up on a barbed wire fence. I caught up with him just in time to see the big buck looking at me from about 40 yards away - he was standing broadside & was just looking to see what the commotion was about. Having one deer on the ground & one tag, I obviously could only look at him until he decided to scoot out of there.

Probably one of my fondest deer hunting memory. Dad & the farm are long since gone, but those memories live on.

Man, that's a GREAT story. Thanks.

Woody emailed me the picture of HIS first deer ever. I am sure there is a GRESAT story to go with this fabulous picture. So let's hear it.

YES that is a GREAT story.

Not a lot to tell. I was ll yrs. old. This Blacktail forked horn came out of a lodgepole thicket near Deadwood Jct. on the Dead Indian Road in So. Oregon. Dad and a family friend posted me where the lodgepole thinned out a bit, circled around and still hunted toward me. This guy came out ahead of them and I popped him at about 60 yds. Rifle was/is a Winchester '94 eastern carbine in 30-30 of course. Thinking back on it, I think Dad may have been more excited than I was and I was plenty excited. Didn't get around to taking a photo until the next summer. The tree I'm beside in the photo is now only a rotting stump. Regards, Woody

There are some great photos in this thread!

This was 1987 or 1988 but I can't remember which. I was either 9 or 10 years old and it was a button buck at 100yds or so. Shot it with Dad's M600 Mohawk .308 as I sat on his knee in a box blind. We were shooting the reasonably new 150gr Ballistic Tips. This was near the middle of my ten year or so "awkward stage". LOL....

I got a bit of a late start. The first season I deer hunted was 2010. This is my first buck, 11pt at 25 yards with single shot H&R 20ga. I killed a doe a couple weeks earlier.

That is a neat looking buck. Congratulations !!! Let us know how you do this coming year, too.

"I got a bit of a late start. " Better late than never! I envy you guys with opportunities for multiple deer. Regards, Woody

cool pics. love the vintage hunting outfits.

This is what started my mule deer addiction almost 40 years ago. I did the deed with a Marlin 336 30-30 and Weaver K4.