My First Deer Hunt

I am not sure of the year, but it must have been in the late 1960s when I went on my first deer hunt. Clifford, a good friend of mine since our days at Burbank Junior High School, asked me if I wanted to go with him and his younger brother Billy to hunt deer. He had bought a few acres in an area that had been a large ranch southwest of Smiley Texas. His father-in-law had also bought some acres right next to his land. As landowners, they had hunting rights in that entire area that had been the ranch. As a kid, I had always wanted to hunt but I never had the opportunity to do that. Neither my dad nor older brother hunted, but I thought it would be fun to do.

At that time, Clifford still owned his 1965 Dodge Cornet with a 383 engine and 4-speed transmission, not your typical hunting vehicle. I did not own a hunting rifle, but my father-in-law told me he had a good hunting rifle that I could use. It looked good to me; it already had a decent scope on it, and it was a .30-06. He told me it was a great gun and shot well. I did not have time to take it to the shooting range, but I bought some fresh ammo for my trip.

That was more than 50 years back and the highways were a lot different than today. Getting to that part of the state required traveling on a lot of county roads with few road markers and places where the roads could flood when it rained. Deer season started on the first of November and ended at the end of the year. All I remember was we had at least one extra day to hunt that weekend and it was cold out in the open with no building or a tent. Clifford had a small utility trailer that he had carried the equipment for cooking and ice chests.

It was late when we got to his property that night and by the time we got set up, the temperature had dropped. There was a frigid wind that caused us to rethink our sleeping plans. So, we unloaded the trailer, and the plan then was for the three of us to sleep in the trailer. We would put the tarp over the top of the trailer and slide in under it and close the tailgate to stay warm. As I soon discovered, the trailer was too small for three people to lie down without big problems. I chose to sleep in the car only to find out how cold that would get without the heater.

Our plans were to get up well before daylight to walk to where we would be hunting when it got daylight. Clifford and Billy had been on the property other times before and they knew where they would be hunting. Clifford told me which direction to go and told me there were clearings at the edge of each property section that would provide places to watch deer moving through the clearings. I left the camp not really knowing what to expect but feeling excited enough that I had become less aware of how cold it was at that moment. After I had walked for about thirty minutes, I came up to a clearing that I thought looked good and decided that I would wait there and watch for deer for a while. Daylight was about to break in a few minutes anyway. It was a clearing between two different sections with a fence post as a divider, but there were no fences on any of the land. I noticed the post was about the right height to rest the rifle on for shooting down that clearing.

There was a little bit of misty fog at daybreak. I kept staring into that clearing and into the trees on each side. The wind had stopped, and it was calm enough that I could hear movements in the trees, even when birds moved from one tree to another. I heard a sound that was like small limbs snapping like something had stepped on them. A few minutes later, I could make out the shape of a deer just on the edge of the trees about 150-175 yards from where I was standing. I positioned my rifle on the post and kept my eyes searching from side to side of the clearing, waiting for the deer to step out into the clearing.

I saw a decent size doe along the right side of the clearing, so as I focused on it, I clicked off the safety on the rifle. Then I noticed another deer behind it in the middle of the clearing. There stood a ten-point buck looking toward me. I focused the scope on his chest and fired. One deer went left and the other one went right into the trees. I hurried down to that spot to follow the deer into the trees. I had no idea which deer I was following, but I would hear it moving through the brush and would catch a glimpse of it for a second. I quickly found out how many cactus plants there were on that land. I had two pairs of jeans on and every time I moved; the cactus needles caught in my jeans would stick into my legs again.

I finally gave up my chase and went back to the spot to see if there was any blood to follow. When I got to the spot, there was no blood, but it looked like the bullet had hit the ground right in front of where the buck was standing. That was my first indication that the rifle had not been sighted correctly. I gave up and went back to camp to wait for Clifford and Billy to get back. A little while later, Billy and I went looking for Clifford and we found him walking toward the camp. He had blood all over him and a deer on his shoulder.

Back at the camp, he told his story of how he had killed his deer. He had not seen anything all morning, but he needed to “go” bad. When he had his pants down and was squatting, the deer walked out in front of him and stood there looking at him. He reached over and got his rifle and shot the deer. That was the only deer killed that weekend, but the story has been told many times over the years. We set up some targets to sight in the rifle I was using, only to find the elevation setting was off, giving me an excuse for missing my first deer.

After we got back home and I returned the rifle to my father-in-law, I asked him how he had sighted in the scope. His response was, “I did not need to, when I looked through the scope, I could see clearly what I looked at.” He told me he had gotten it as a downpayment on a used car that a customer had bought from him. You had to have known him and how a scope works to fully appreciate his answer. Later, I had Eva buy two Marlin .30-30 rifles with scopes mounted. One for me and one for her dad. I knew I had to get both sighted in before he got his. He never understood the concept of the scope needing to match the point of impact of the bullet from the barrel.

I have a few more hunting stories to share at another time, but I hope this one made someone laugh a little.