Opening day of the deer hunt is always filled with excitement and anticipation, even more so when it’s your first hunt.
I had already hunted for some years with my husband before our oldest son joined us. This season would be the first hunt for our second son, Steven. Since we hunt in a MN state forest, we are a little apprehensive on opening morning if some other hunter will be in the area we’ve scouted.
All is well as we approach our stands this November morning. We wish each other success and a safe hunt as we disband, each to our own stands.
It’s an overcast morning with average MN November temperatures (cold). The darkness slowly subsides and the dawn breaks. I take in my surroundings and am thankful to be in the woods on this calm, peaceful morning.
There are occasional shots in the distance but none close enough to be one of my fellow hunters. It is late morning and I’m cold and stiff when I’m suddenly jolted by a single nearby shot. YES!!! It’s from Steve’s direction. I calm my excitement to sit quietly, watchful in case a deer heads my way.
After a time, I make my way down from my stand and head in Steve’s direction. His stand is a distance from my area, on a very wooded, slight hilltop with the ground covered in moss…hence the nickname we use, Moss Ridge. As I approach, Steve is standing in his deer stand with his rifle casually laying across his arm.
“Where’s your deer?” I ask.
He replies “I figure about 2 miles from here by now” in a very disappointed tone. He relates the story. Four does, on a nice trot, passed right in front of his stand, quiet on the mossy hillside. He got a shot off at the last one as it passed him. I chuckle silently to myself at the visual of his story.
“Well, come down Steve and we’ll check it out”. When we get to the area where he thought the deer was when he fired, sure enough, sign of a hit.
As we follow the faint blood trail, I’m hopeful my son has bagged his first deer. Suddenly, the deer jumps up in front of us. Steve confidently brings up his rifle and fires as the deer is bounding away from us. The shot drops her in her tracks.
The thrill and excitement of my son’s first hunt culminates in his bagging a nice doe. He has since taken many deer, including a couple of nice bucks. But nothing can match the memory of being a part of his first deer, standing alongside of him as he takes down that doe.
Posted in honor of Steven’s birthday…Happy Birthday, Steve!

( Average: 5.00 out of 5)
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This post was submitted by Jan Lust.

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!

( Average: 4.00 out of 5)
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This post was submitted by chris.

I grew up in south MS and my father was a hunter. Years ago we used hounds to run deer. It was the way to hunt in the old South,…accepted, legal and exiciting for the hunter and from memory, quite stimulating for the deer too. The strategy was to select a section of timber bound by logging roads and “stand it off”, placing hunters far enough apart and strategically where they didn’t pose a risk to each other. When the hunters were in position, which could take 30-40 minutes, then the dog man would release a set of hounds. Ok, ok,…hounds might be a generous description of the canines we used. Some hounds, some ‘yard dogs’, some strays we picked up,…all they had to do was bark and run the deer.
One particular hunt remains etched in my memory. I was the dog man. After releasing the dogs I fought my way through saw briers and pine tree tops in a logged out area. My dogs jumped a deer and took off hammering him over the hills and hollows. I continued on walking and with the sun high in the sky I got hot wearing a layer of insulated clothes. When I got too hot to walk, I decided to take off a layer and sat down on a big pine stump to strip down. When I got my pants and insulated underwear off I looked up to see a small buck running straight at me. Standing there in only my Hanes Whitey Tighties, I reached back and picked up my Winchester .30-.30 to take a shot. When I picked him up in the sights he stopped behind a 2 foot diameter pine tree and I lost sight of him. As I leaned to the right to see him he stuck his head around the tree and looked straight at me as if to say “What???” At that point he didn’t hesitate long, deciding those bright white legs just weren’t his cup of tea, wheeled and headed back into a thicket. I fired a shot, but cleanly missed. Afterwards, I lost it laughing out loud, trying to imagine what that deer thought he had seen.

( Average: 4.00 out of 5)
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This post was submitted by Carey A. Buckles.