Got my first deer

Growing up my father used to tell us deer stories every year.   It was one of the highlights of our Thanksgiving break and probably the best example of oral tradition from my family.   This year, I have a deer story of my own.


I went hunting again this year, which is an annual tradition in my extended family.  My father, brothers and brothers-in-law all went to a cabin on my mother's inherited land in Upshur County.  I was glad to get the time off work and be able to go.  I missed last year being sick with the flu and was happy that things worked out this year.  The weather was relatively good; at least it was not freezing.  We arrived at the cabin late on Sunday and set up our generator and kerosene heat.  We stayed up playing cards for a while.  When we were getting ready to get some sleep, I realized that although I had packed my CPAP and distilled water, I had forgotten the mask for the CPAP and at that point I knew I wouldn't get any sleep  I probably got about 6 hours of restless sleep over the 2 nights we stayed at the cabin.

The first day of the hunt I got out to the spot I usually hunt in relatively early.  It was very foggy and I could hear deer all around.  Soon after the sun began to burn off the fog I heard some deer coming up over the ridge behind me.  I stood up and turned around to see what was coming.  That alerted them to my presence and all I saw were three white tails running quickly away from me back around the ridge.   I think they were all does.  About an hour later I heard another coming around the ridge.  I was more prepared this time and the spike wasn't scared off until I missed it from a standing shot @ about 30 yards away.   Later in the day I missed a doe from about 80 yards.  I struck out the first day.

That night @ about 3 in the morning after fitfully trying to sleep in my camp chair because the air mattress had deflated and I knew I wouldn't sleep well without my CPAP, my Dad and I decided we couldn't sleep and built a nice campfire outside.  I kept it going all morning.  When the fire was hot, I got some sleep in my chair by the fire.

The next day, which was our last day of the trip, I got to a better spot that could see the deer coming from both directions around the ridge and at about 7:30 or so I heard something coming through the brush.  I saw a nice sized doe walking through some thick brush and patiently waited for her to come out to a clear shot.  When it finally came clear I had time to line up a shot, put the cross hairs on it and press the trigger.  Click.  But no boom.  The gun had misfired.  I ejected the cartridge and this got the doe's attention. She looked right at me.  Being as deer don't have very good vision I suspect that she thought that was a funny noise coming from a funny looking tree further up on the hill.  I chambered another round and again lined up the sight.  This time the gun fired.  But I missed.  The doe flinched but didn't run.  At this point I need to explain one of the intricacies of this gun.  It was my brothers gun.
A bolt action 7mm mag with a scope.  The reason he wasn't using it is probably because after it fires the bolt action has a hard time ejecting the spent round until the gun cools.  Not exactly sure why this is, but  you either need to jerk hard and expend a lot of force, or wait until it cools and eject it or some combination of the two.   I knew that if I jerked hard at this point the doe would bolt.  I waited maybe 20 seconds while pulling on that bolt action with some controlled force until it finally let go.  I chambered the final round from the magazine and lined up the shot again.  At this point I figured I had missed all my shots because I had nothing to stabilize the gun when I fired it.  I calmly move a leg in position to stabilize the shot and aligned the cross hairs to middle torso of the doe and fired.  It died instantly.

All in all between us we harvested 5 deer on that trip.  Because my brothers-in-law were both moving soon, I was able to put away 3 deer for my family.  I love venison stew.  With the price of food going up, this was  a real blessing for us.  My brothers all got their first deer much younger that I, but I haven't been as serious about it as they have.

Another thing I learned from the experience is that I don't want to use my good pocket knife to field dress a deer.  It gets soaked in blood and guts.  Deer fat doesn't come off easily.  I also need a lock blade or a fixed blade when skinning as it takes too long being careful not to collapse the blade on yourself.