re: What are your earliest memories of hunting/fishing?

I remember my dad dropped me off the four wheeler to walk to my stand and he headed off to his, I walked around a corner of the turn road next to the woods and a cotton field, and came face to face with a monster 8 point. I only had a muzzle loader as I was 8 years old and dad hadn’t bought me a rifle yet. Deer was facing me 20 yds away, didn’t move. I slowly raises the gun and shot. Missed point blank. Dad hears the shot and comes flying around the corner on the ATV, deer runs about 100 yards and stops broadside. My dad proceeds to shoot 3 times and misses every time. And he wasn’t one to miss, at all. We still don’t know how we missed, he obsessed for a week over sighting his rifle but it was dead on. Luckiest deer I’ve ever seen.

I was cursed that year, crippled 5 deer including 2 nice bucks that we never ever found. My dad still talks about “the year I crippled half the deer in yazoo county”