your first deer

Lastmohecken · Post by **Lastmohecken** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 6:49 pm

I started deer hunting in the 60's, and back then, the deer were pretty scarce, it was really something to celebrate if you killed one. I only got to hunt maybe 3 days a year or so for deer. But the year I turned 21, I said to hell with it, and I layed out of college, and hunted the whole week with my grandfather. I ended up shooting two coyotes and a nice little 4 point buck.

Even though I hadn't killed any deer, I was on my 4 deer rifle by then, which was a Remington 700 BDL in 270 win topped off with a Weaver 2x7 widefield scope and a Canjar Trigger. My first deer was killed at around 200yds with an offhand shot, I hit it in the top of the back and it went down right there. When my grandfather asked me where the deer was and where I was when I shot, and I showed him, he didn't hardly believe it. I can still remember him saying " you shot that deer from all the way up there?"

Admittedly, I wasn't much of a deer hunter back then, and I had blown a few shots in the past, usually at running deer. So I had spent quite at bit of time practicing and tuning my rifle, which was a good lesson for me. Because for several years after that, and before, I learned the hardway that usually I would get maybe one decent chance at a buck during a whole deer season and if I blew it, I usually blew my year. It seems like lately, nothing much has changed, although the deer are more plentiful then back then.

bigblue · Post by **bigblue** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 9:41 pm

My first deer was a 160 lb., 6 pt. Whitetail Buck when I was 29 yrs. old on 12-02-2000. Shot him at about 30 yds. with 12 ga. OO Buckshot. He was slipping out ahead of the hounds.

Scott64A · Post by **Scott64A** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 10:28 pm

I was 28 years old, and had hunted unsuccessfully a few times in my 'tweens with Dad's Iver Johnson 12ga. My wife-to-be, (still got that great gal,) bought me a Winchester model 64A for an early Christmas present and I got right into reloading there and then. I never have shot any factory ammo through it.

Anyhoo, I developed a good load for it and a-hunting I did go. I was in a ladder stand on a Sunday morning in NH, the 20th of November in 2001. It was bright and sunny, about 30 degrees. I had had enough of sitting there, and was getting a bit more than grumbelly. After hunger got the best of me, I climbed down and was putting my mittens back on when I saw movement on the skidder trail to my right. It was a DEER!

I knew where that trail came out, and followed him with the barrel of that gun aimed at his chest as he went behind some short pines. He popped out and stood there 20 feet from me. My heart went into my throat, and the adrenaline juiced me up as I looked up to see... an antler! He had one half of his rack left, a four-pointer. I shot him in the chest, imagining where his heart and aorta would be. He ran back down the trail from whence he came, and stoppped to get REALLY light headed, sway a bit and then drop.

I couldn't believe it... When I gutted him out, I had split his heart lentghwise from base to apex; the bullet sitting just under his skin on the other side: a perfect mushroom.
I still have his half-rack and the bullet I shot him with, but lost the brass.

I was pretty excited for about a week over that one, and he tasted good!
I still have a picture of me and my first, but for lack of a scanner, I can't post it here.

Good times.

Keith D · Post by **Keith D** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 10:38 pm

I got my first deer yesterday....actually, I got two of them. 37 years old with a Marlin 1894 in .44 Magnum with a 20" barrel. I was at the Indiana Dunes National Park for a deer cull. I hiked the sand dunes for a couple hours since dawn. A group of 3 does came out of the woods towards me and I got two of them.

I dragged them both, together, for almost a mile back towards the parking lot until the helpers on ATVs came and took them the last hundred yards or so. I'm still hurting, but it was worth it.

leveractionjunkie · Post by **leveractionjunkie** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 12:36 pm

Well my first "Deer" ever was actually a moose, and I was 19, two shots with my .280 remington. I haven't used that gun since, cause I fell in love with leverguns

My first deer came when I was 25, a mature two point mulie crossed my trail and met one of my 400gr speer handloads from my 45/70. a month later I found a mature doe that also didn't like my handloaded Speers

I hit her a little high in the back and she required a second round to the chest. I haven't used any other rifle since.

gumpond · Post by **gumpond** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 5:18 pm

My first deer was shot with a 68 Pontiac Tempest. Man I was cool! I've still not shot as many as I hit with a car.

danthegunman · Post by **danthegunman** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 5:24 pm

Remington 870 Wingmaster, I was 17 yoa, I don't know how big he was but he was a cowhorn.

Charles · Post by **Charles** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 6:30 pm

Here are pics of both the deer and the rifle. The deer has been eaten, the 1956 Mercury went to the crusher long ago, and I still have the rifle. The year was 1959.

cutter · Post by **cutter** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 8:27 pm

Twelve I think? Thompson Center Cherokee .45 with patched roundball and 60 gr Goex FFg. Weird that I remember that. Deer number two , Marlin 336 35 Remington, one year later.

I still have both guns, the Marlin doesn't get shot much, but the TC get's shot very often.

I still prefer front stuffers.

guido4198 · Post by **guido4198** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 8:44 pm

Coincidentally....since we're on the Levergun forum here...
My first whitetail was taken w/ a Savage 99, 250/3000. It was a smallish, S.E. U.S. doe from about 60 yds. or so.

James Riley · Post by **James Riley** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 8:48 pm

cutter wrote:Twelve I think? Thompson Center Cherokee .45 with I still prefer front stuffers.

Here's my Lyman Great Plains Rifle, .54 front stuffer:

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geobru · Post by **geobru** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 11:48 pm

I got my first deer in 1965 when I was 14. It was a blacktail doe that I shot at 15 yards with a Remington Model 721, 30-06. I had saved my paper route money to buy a rifle. I went with my dad to a hardware store that had some used guns, and fell in love with a model 70 featherweight in 30-06, with a scope, monte carlo stock, etc., that was for sale for $89.00. My dad, being a very practical man, pointed out that the gun didn't have open sights on it, and advised me not to buy it because if anything happened to the scope, I would be out of luck. Being a kid that figured that my dad knew a lot more about such things than I, I bought the Remington with no scope for $65. (But now how I wish that I had bought the Winchester!!)

Dad took me hunting and placed me on a stand to watch a small opening. and said he would be in another opening on the other side of some brush. I waited and watched long enough to freeze my tail off. The doe materialized in front of me at about 15 yards and when I reacted by slowly raising the gun, she spun around and bounced toward the brush in the direction toward my dad. I was shooting a bow a lot at that time, and I ignored the open sights on that gun and aimed the gun like an arrow and aimed dead center at her rear end as she was bouncing away. She didn't act like I had hit her, but within 30 seconds I heard my dad shoot. He told me to stay put in case another deer came by. I thought I had missed her and when dad drug the deer into my stand and told me to tag it, I thought he was trying to get me to tag his deer. That is when he told me that he had just finished her off. I told him that if I hit her, I knew where the hole woud be. I lifted up her tail, and sure enough, there was a hole about a half inch to the left of her anus. I tagged the deer!

flatfender · Post by **flatfender** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 9:20 am

My 1st was in 1986, I was 35, I shot a doe near Llano Tx with a model 700 rem in 243. I had had the rifle since I was 12, my father traded a Smith and Wesson K22 for the rifle. Any way I was a late bloomer but I haven't missed a season since then.

32-20 · Post by **32-20** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 9:56 am

My first was a spike in 1966 in Potter cnty. PA., shot with my grandfathers NRA 30-40 krag. Still have the rifle. I was 14.

octagon · Post by **octagon** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 11:26 am

1970, 8 years old, Sonora Texas, 243 Husqvarna, Doe standing in front of a giant cedar...

Dad: Boy don't shoot that doe, there is bound to be a buck around in that thick cedar...

Boy: Don't worry Dad, I'm just gonna look at her through the scope...

Dad: OK, but Do NOT shoot that doe...

Boy: I'm just lookin Dad...

Dad: If you shoot that doe... BANG!

Behind the giant cedar, four BIG bucks ran left, Four bucks ran right and all I can hear is the Old Man laughing his *** off and telling me how he is going to mount the South End of the doe next to my brother's horns on the Wall of Man (he didn't). That Old Man and I have been #1 hunting buddies every since.