I am happy to say that I shot my first deer at 7:30 a.m. Saturday morning. Seriously, what is so hard about this hunting thing?? I kept giving the guys a hard time reminding them it only took me 45 minutes to bag my deer. Alright so it wasn't that easy, more lucky that she wandered in my direction and I was fortunate not to pass out from how hard my heart was pounding, dang! I wasn't sure whether or not I'd actually be able to shoot a deer and all the while I had the cross hairs centered on her chest I went back and forth. I told myself I'd only shoot if it were a kill shot. Well it was, she sat perfectly still and was only 20-30 yards away. I don't mean to brag but I am a pretty good shot and knew it was a no miss. So I pulled the trigger and watched as she stumbled and then sprang back up and took off. WHAT!! My heart sank. I walked over to where I thought I shot her looking for blood, hair, any sign that I didn't miss. I couldn't find anything. I decided to look around where I saw her last and couldn't find anything. It seemed that my greatest fear came true and that I just injured the poor thing and now she was wandering somewhere in pain or that I just plain missed. We had all planned on starting to head back in for breakfast around 9, so I started plodding my sorry ass back. I came across my Uncle Bob who was successful in shooting a nice 8 pointer. My spirit was renewed when I found out that the darn buck had run about 150 yards after he was shot before finally dropping dead. Ooh, that meant hope for me. My brother Eric, Uncle Bob and myself headed back out after breakfast to my stand to see if we could find a blood trail. Eric is a pretty good tracker and I knew if anyone could find it it would be him. No blood. So they started wandering around and lo and behold Uncle Bob came across a pool of blood. Sure enough about 125 yards from my stand there she was as dead as could be. The brush was just too thick for me to see her earlier, I must have been within 10 yards of where she lay. Oh, I was so relieved and then realized they were going to make me gut this thing. I am proud to say I did cut the skin open all the way up, got my gloveless hands inside there and luckily my brother took over from there. Yuck. Here are a few pics, don't look if you don't like blood.
I was told I needed to have my rifle in the picture with me. I think I'm supposed to know what kind it is. All I know is that it belonged to Neil's grandfather Theodore. I think it is a Mauser. It takes 7mm Mauser cartridges.
Me and Uncle Bob with his buck.
Neil got a little buck on Sunday night. It was after dark when we got it back and this is the only picture I took. It's the one on the right.