When I was about 8 years old some family friends offered to take my father and I on a fishing trip to Mirror Lake. They talked a lot about this renown lake and for several years, I thought it was the ONLY Mirror Lake (I’ve since come to learn that there are thousands of “Mirror Lake”).

Mirror Lake was a mountain lake in the High Uintas of Utah. After what seemed like a couple of days of drive (probably no more than an couple of hours), we arrived at the location. Mirror Lake was a relatively small lake surrounded by pines and quaking aspen. There was evidence of beaver activity.

Fairly early on, I cast out and apparently hooked the big one. It was fighting. Another member of our party on the opposite side of this small lake cast out and also hooked something.

While we were both fighting, the “big one” surfaced. The beaver. I had hooked it’s tail, and the other guy had hooked something on it’s head. He wasn’t very happy. He thrashed around a bit and the lines broke.

But Mr. Beaver got even. That day we had caught several fish and left them on a line in the cold lake. We walked to another near by lake planning to come back and clean the fish before heading home. By the time we got there, the fish and line were gone. Since there weren’t any other people up there, we’re pretty sure Mr. Beaver had himself a nice fish dinner of rainbow trout.

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I was standing a good trail that led from the swamp below up through some oak trees into planted pines. We were a small group: My Dad, his buddy and my brother. Oh, and Homer, the beagle. Homer was a crack deer dog, only he didn’t bark much, so you really had to pay attention. I took a spot behind a low oak, but as the sun came up I was facing directly into it, peering down the trail. About thirty minutes after good sunrise, Homer barked twice down below, his yelps echoing in the thick cypress. I squinted against the sun for a while, then relaxed and looked to my right for several seconds, then swung my head back to the trail. My movement caught the deer’s attention, and it dropped its head to get a better look at me. I froze. The rack on this deer was enormous! It had to be 10 points or more and the thick body was amazing, probably the largest deer I had seen up to that point in my young life. The deer looked left and right and snorted, then Homer barked again. When the deer swung its head around to view the back trail, I raised my Remington 870 Wingmaster in 12 gauge and sent 1 load of #1 Buck to the target, just 10 yards away. The deer went down immediately. I shucked another round and held ready, but the damage was done. I had just killed the biggest deer anybody in my family had ever seen! Imagine the shock and disbelief when I walked up on the biggest doe anybody in my family had ever seen! What? I ran my hand over the smooth head again and again. Yes, it was a doe. We finally figured out that when she dropped her head to see me better, she had lowered it beneath a woody bush with no leaves. The rack and tines I saw were wood limbs and twigs, now hanging in shreds where my buckshot had ripped through!! I had killed the deer, but I killed the bush too!

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