Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors 2022/2023/2024 kill page

Thanks Jeff. Hunting blacktails like this is my dream hunt. I'm fortunate to be able to do it every year. When I got him home and went to hoist him up in the garage I realized my hoist was still in deer camp, 30 miles away. I looked around and found my dads old hoist, the one I grew up using when dad, grandpa, mom, and I got blacktails. Cool I thought, I'll just use this one.

As I began to lift him out of the truck with the old hoist a wave of emotion overtook me when I saw that blacktail going up that hoist. I got all choked up and had to stop for a minute and get my composure.

Dad and grandpa must be looking down thinking "I think that boy was paying attention".

Sure wish they were both here now so we could talk about big ol' blacktails like the old days. Dad could repeat the story of the one he jacklighted in the orchard and shot with the Parker shotgun and how it charged him and he bent the barrels of that shotgun over it's rack when it went by him. grandpa could tell the story of how he jumped a big 4x4 blacktail from his bed and shot it in the back of the head as it dodged and weaved to get out of there. On his way over to find it, it jumped up and he had to shoot it again.

When he got there, there were two big bucks laying a few feet apart. That happened in 1924 and you were allowed two deer back then. This is that pair (on each side of a mule deer I got archery hunting in 1987).