Your First Deer!

[dale2242]

I shot my first deer in 1954.
I was 12 years old.
In those days you just bought a deer tag here in Oregon.
Now they are separated in God only knows how many different hunts. Black tails, white tails, and mule deer.
We live in SW Oregon and went to central Oregon to hunt with my Uncle Jim. Dads brother.
In those days there were plenty of deer and the last week of deer season was hunters choice. A hair tag.
Well, I shot a doe with my Grand dads 1892 Winchester 25-20.
Been loving deer hunting ever since....dale

 

[CZ93X62]

I got early training on skinning and cleaning game, some from Dad--some from Jiggs. That 1968 buck got dragged (downhill all the way to the truck) and up into the bed, and not too far west on Plunge Creek Road (now USFS #1N09) we went south on Elder Gulch Road (now 1N21, and unmaintained/impassible). There were some fir trees tall enough to throw a rope over their lower branches, and one end of that rope got secured to the antlers. We dragged the deer onto the ground, and tied the other rope end to the truck's bumper. We lifted the deer to working height, and Jiggs showed me how to open the body cavity and remove the innards. My thoughts at the time were "Like a cottontail, just bigger." And hung up at convenient height. Next came skinning, with that widened blade on Jiggs' belt knife that he used for about everything. I took to that pretty well, too. So began my initiation into deer hunting and meat prep. I have been doing it ever since.

 

[Charles Graff]

I shot my first deer, a spike buck in 1961 with a $15.00 Krag rifle shortened to a 22 in sporter. This happened near Hunt Texas. I was 18 years old.

 

[Ian]

Stowers ranch?

 

[Rick H]

1970 or 71. A fat little 5 pointer taken with a 20ga. Mossberg pump shotgun with Brenneke slugs. I shot him in the ribs at about 35 yards and thought I missed when he bolted....fired twice more, hitting him in the neck as he ran away....somewhere I still have that slug with the wad screwed to the base that I recovered from behind the ear after traveling from the shoulder and up the length of the neck.
I fully expected that deer to drop at the shot....he did, but not till he ran about 100yds.

 

[Charles Graff]

Ian, it was Owen Merrett's place on the bluff above Criders dance hall.

 

[Ian]

I know the place, west on 39 out of Hunt. There are dinosaur tracks down there in the creek (west fork of the Guadalupe) right below that bluff. Andrew Merritt is one of our customers at work. Small world.