Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting After a 39 year hiatus, another Whitetail

For some reason, I lost interest in deer hunting as an early teenager. I apparently determined after harvesting a few, that it was far too easy, and I'd rather stay warm than brave the chilly outdoors. Trust me, this was one of the milder bad decisions I made during those years. When I renewed my interest in hunting, I sought elk, moose, bear, sheep, goats, hogs - everything but whitetails. I still didn't see the challenge.

Enter the Shaman. Having connected a few years ago through the 'Fire, we meet every couple of months to quaff beverages & swap stories. We even went on a hog hunt back in '19. This summer he invited me to dip my toes back into the whitetail waters at his farm south of the river. Not being one to turn down such a hospitable offer, I accepted.

Knowing the severe limits of my social graces, I figured that if I showed up with food, my hosts might be more forgiving of my unavoidable breaches of camp etiquette. Brisket would be just the thing to grease the skids here:





Propriety called for a special rifle for the occasion, so I selected the one Dad bought me when I was 12. This 788 began life as a .243 Win, and it accounted for all the whitetails I'd ever taken. After I began hanging around here, however, I learned that its accuracy was sorely lacking, so I sent it off to be breathed-upon by the late, great Mickey Coleman. He turned it into such a shooter that I subsequently sent the stock to Karnis for some liposuction & beautification.





After a couple sessions on-stand, a dink presented himself for collection:








Not a bad way to ease myself back into things. 120 NBT at 2,930 fps liquified the lungs, but had no exit. Also, a shout-out here to MichiganRoadKill, whose Michigan Slim is featured in the first photo. A wonderful li'l knife, that one.


Having re-bloodied that rifle, I took Great Grandad's 7x57 afield for what would be its first whitetail since at least 1980. 160 yards was no problem for the 2x Lyman scope:





The 160 NPT definitely had an exit: Partitions gonna partition.

The Shaman knows his stuff, & treats his guests like royalty. I'd have been happy with the dinkiest of dinks, but I ended up with a nice bag for the trip.





It's almost enough to restore a guy's faith in the 24HCF.

FC