My First Deer

    The day I turned 9 years old, I was excited because it meant I could hunt my first blacktail.  Oregon’s Mentored Youth Program allows me to hunt deer with my dad using his tag.  We knew right where we were going to hunt at the Big K Guest Ranch as guests of Gary Williamson.  

    Our hunt was set for late-October and I could hardly wait.  The first time I went deer hunting, I was two, along with my mom who shot a deer with her muzzle loader.  The hunt I remember most is when I was four and along with my dad, he let me skin almost the whole deer.  My brother had already got three deer, so it was finally my turn. 

    It was a cold morning, I woke up very excited.  After a quick bite of breakfast we headed to the Big K.  We drove around, hiked and glassed and all we saw were does and small bucks.  We made a stalk on one little buck and watched him eat blackberry vines.  Dad unloaded my gun and I looked at him through the scope.  He was only a forked horn so I passed him up but it was amazing to watch buck behavior up close.

    We saw a lot of deer that day but I didn’t see one I wanted to shoot.  Dad taught me so much about animal behavior and it was just so neat to be out in the woods together.  After we watched a beautiful sunset, we headed back to the Big K and played ping-pong and pool.  

    The next day was my lucky day.  On our way out to the hunting area we saw a doe with two fawns feeding on moss on the hill, I never get tired of watching deer.  

    We hunted all day and tried both rattling and calling.  It was fun because Dad let me work the rattle bag and grunt tube.  We saw several bucks but they were too far away.  Then we saw a deer that looked like a mule deer, he was only a forked horn but he was a blacktail with a really white face.

    After watching him raking up against a tree and feeding, he finally bedded down after about 20 minutes.  That’s when I decided he was the one I wanted.  We planned our stalk up the slanted hill.  Everything went according to plan, I set up the sticks at 30 yards.  I could only see the antlers, I was nervous and excited at the same time because it was my first hunt and we were filming it for my Dad’s TV show.  

    The only thing I needed was for the deer to stand up.  My dad blew on the grunt tube and the buck stood up.  The deer looked huge in my scope, with a burst of adrenaline, I squeezed the trigger on my Nozzler .260.  “Boom!” it was like the bullet moved in slow motion.  It hit a spot behind the shoulder and the buck went down after 20 yards.  It was a perfect ending.

    My whole family helped to butcher the deer, I even got to do some of the canning myself.  One of my favorite things to make from game meat is jerky.  My first blacktail was the best meat I have ever tasted.