First Deer

First Deer



Just picked up my fishing and hunting licences. Makes me remember my first deer all those many years ago. It was a tough year for getting out. My Mother-in-Law was visiting from New Zealand, so I had only spent one afternoon up near Howard Lake.

Now it was the last day of the season and I was checking out the Bald Range between Summerland and Princeton. Six inches of fresh moist snow covered the ground, so it was easy to see where the deer had been active. However, I was hoping to find where they were now.

Since first light I'd been driving from old road to old road and carefully checking them out. Now I was heading down the last one I could check and light was fading fast, only about a half hour of shooting light left as I parked at the log landing at the end of the road. Discouraged, I still slipped out of the subaru and began walking around the clearing a few yards into the trees.

Suddenly two deer bounded out into the centre of the clearing and one was a nice buck. A quick shot from my 30-30 dropped it in its tracks and the doe took off. Just as I got up to the buck it raised its head. Having read about people being injured by a wounded animal. I put the rifle to its throat and shot into its brain.

Rapidly I cleaned it as well as I could from all that I remembered that Dad had told me. Then dragged it about 300 yards down to the car and tried to load it into the back. All I could manage though was to get the back end in and it would slip out as I tried to lift the rest. Remembering I had passed a couple of men cutting wood a half mile back, I tied the antlers to the trailer hitch and drove back down the road, hoping they would still be there.

Luck was with me and the three of us managed to lift it up onto the roof rack. I got their name and address so I could repay with a venison steak. Now in the gathering dark I drove back home. One hand held the sagging roof and the other on the wheel. This first deer is still the largest deer I have ever taken and we ended up with 165 pounds of venison in the freezer and enjoyed roasts again for the first time in years.

A friend who was an avid hunter, came and helped me finish dressing it out and hanging it before we later skinned it out and took it to the butcher shop. To his surprise he could not find a hole in the body. If you enlarge the picture and look carefully you just might see where I hit the buck.

Earlier today, one of my readers suggested that I also include some articles about survival. So I'll give that some thought.