Your first deer hunt....

I can't remember my 1st hunt, I was 3, but I remember sleeping on the floor of the stand and dad would wake me up when he saw a deer

I remember waaaaay far back goin into the woods with dad. I'd wake up to the smell of bacon cooking, and we'd head off on the three-wheeler. We had a doe jump over us on the trail.

My first deer, was a 90 pound doe, with the same .270 I hunt with today. Can't replace those memories with dad for anything.

My Dad & Grandpa started me young. I was 5 or 6 and they ran dogs in Jackson Parish. My Grandpa had the dogs and organized the hunts.

I spent many a cold morning sitting on a road with my Dad. I always wanted to build a fire and eat Reeces Cups. The dogs would be headed our way and my Dad would say "get ready".

Of course I never did but he killed a couple nice bucks with me by his side.

With age and competition from my cousin, who was the luckiest hunter in Jackson Parish, I started to focus.

At age 12 I killed a nice 9 pt. on Hwy 4 two miles South of the Chatham Cemetary. Shot him with a single barrel 12 gauge.

Lord I miss those days.

I was 16 at the time. Duck hunted for years before that with the family, but never deer hunted before.

Anyway, this is how it went down. Me and 6 other family members set out to make a deer hunt. This was back in the early 1970's when one need tags for a deer. I was using a 30.06 WW2 bolt action rifle. Well 3 deer came running thru and I shot my arse off and no hits. It was like WTF?

Next day, I had my 12 ga pump with the same crew. It was cold and the bottoms were full of water, so I crossed 3 bottoms, wet to my waist. Its good to be young.LOL So I had set up on a ridge sitting on a stump not knowing what I was doing. After some time, someone was yelling charlie which was one of the hunters names. Well that kept on and was getting closer and closer. Charlie, Charlie, Charlie! Over and over and getting closer and closer. Well to my surprise, this buck is running right at me. When it got about 20' from me, I started shooting. Before I could stand up completely, I had emtpyed my shotgun with 3" 00 buckshot. The deer was down. Well that person that was yelling Charlie over and over was a dog which came running right up to the deer. I was like WTF? Didn't know better and at that time the dog started bitting the deer which I didn't know any better and I started kicking the shite out of the dog trying to run it off. After a few, the dog backed off. Now here I was at 16, weighting in maybe 150lbs across 3 ridges and bottoms that were full of water up to my waist. So I started dragging the deer to the road by myself. Well when I hit the first bottom, the deer sank making me shite. All I could think at that time was please don't let me loose the deer in the water. As I said, I didn't know what was what. That buck was a 5 pointer that weight and easy 150lbs, as much as me. Here over 40 years latter, I still have that rack hanging on the wall next to some nice 8's,10's and a 13 pointer mounted deers. And of all of the deer I killed, that 5 pointer makes me more happy everytime I thing about that hunt that cold wet day.

good ol one horsepower four-wheeler!