 For my first story I thought it would be appropriate to write about my very FIRST deer hunt.
Well it all started actually in September of 1996. This was the month that I started dating my husband Brent. He had been a hunter for 16 years and was so excited to find out about my interest in hunting. I had explained to him that my curiosity in hunting started as a child and was continuing to grow all of the time. The timing couldn’t have been any better. Brent took me under his wing and we began together to develop my skills even further to become a hunter. I’m sure he felt like he had won the jackpot finding a girl who would share the same interests as him.
Our general firearms season opened on November 18, so we had about two and one-half months to prepare me for my first solo hunt. I did not have any hunting gear of my own. I had hand-me-down cotton coveralls that were given to me and a pair of LL Bean rubber boots. The only thing I had to buy was a blaze orange hat to keep me warm and legal. I borrowed dads .35 Remington which had open sights. I didn’t want to invest a lot of money in hunting gear or a rifle for myself until I knew that this was something that I would really like. So with all of the equipment rounded up, Brent started to devise a plan on where he was going to put on the farm. My family has a 120-acre farm in central Virginia that is a nice mixture of hardwoods, pines and fields. Brent had hunted the property for several years now and knew it quite well. Brent had built a nice permanent tree stand on the edge of a thicket, where he thought the deer were bedding. It was a nice stand about 15-feet high with a wooden ladder that would safely take me up to the platform. I am not scared of heights, or climbing tree steps, but I had never even climbed up screw-in steps before so we thought this big permanent ladder stand would be the one for me.
Everyone progresses as a deer hunter over time, and that was the year that Brent had decided to start letting the little bucks go and to only shoot bucks that were older and sported nice racks. He had told me that he REALLY wanted me to pass on spikes and 4-pointers. If it was a huge six or an eight then that would be fine to shoot. Even though the farm is not Brent’s, he was the only one hunting it and he was the one making all of the management decisions on it. I knew in the back of my mind that I could shoot any buck I saw to fill my tag though. I mean you have to start somewhere, but I respected Brent and I knew that if that was important to him to start managing the property, than I was behind that idea as well.
Doe’s are not in season at that time, so I knew I would be hunting for a big buck or nothing. The odds in Virginia are very good that I would NOT see a big buck; the season is very long and with liberal limits. There are not many older mature bucks running around, like say…Iowa. I was optimistic though, I figured you’ve got to start somewhere and that was fine with me to have those restrictions put upon me.
Brent explained that any deer as wide as his ears is a shooter! Being that I did not have any experience field judging deer, that was a good point of reference for me. So with all of this knowledge I was ready for my first afternoon out in the deer woods. It was Wednesday, November 20; we got off work, raced home, took scent free showers, got dressed and headed for the woods. Brent walked me to my stand to make sure I would get in safely, and then proceeded to his stand about 500-yards away. It was about 45 degrees and I was pretty comfortable. I would have to sit for two and one half hours, sunset was at 5:00 P.M. and I could hunt until 5:30 P.M. I sat still and quiet trying to not move a muscle, my eyes would scan right to left and back again looking for any movement. The sound of leaves rustling would make my heart race; adrenaline would overcome my whole body only to see a gray squirrel hopping around! It was so exciting just hoping to see a deer, any deer. The hunt would have been a success at that point for me.
The temperature was starting to plummet and I was getting cold. I wanted to stick it out and stay to the bitter end, but my feet were starting to go numb. I was starting to shiver. I was trying so hard, saying to myself “Christine you can do this, it’s only 4:30 and all I have is one more hour.” But when it’s cold, it’s hard to endure minutes let alone another hour! I had decided I would take that grunt call and blow on it a couple of times to see if I could roust up a deer, that would also take my mind off how cold I was becoming. Brent had given me a crash course on how to use a grunt call, he said make a short series of grunts looking one way then looking the other way to try and vary where the actual sound was coming from. Do that a couple of times, then stop, be quiet and listen. No sooner than my last grunt, I heard the light sound of the leaves crunching behind me! I froze…I NEEDED to look so badly behind me to see what was there. I just knew it was a deer. I craned my neck backwards cautiously and out of the corner of my eye was a buck! He was a NICE buck! I was completely in the wrong position, I had to turn my body around and face the back of my stand to get the shot off. My mind was racing, I had to pull this off, so many thoughts were going through my head, and I didn’t want to blow it! Why couldn’t the deer have just come out right in front of me for an easy shot? I decided quickly that this deer had come to my call and he was not going to stick around very long. He was looking for the deer that had just called him in. I had to move quickly but at the same time it had to be in slow motion. I scooted my butt millimeter by millimeter around moving my gun with me; I was not taking my eyes off this deer. I got turned around in a matter of seconds; it felt like an eternity though. I rested my gun on the side of the tree trying to be as steady as possible, I settled my open sights on the vitals of this deer, he was about 60-yards from me right now. My heart could not have been pumping any harder or faster. I now knew what buck fever was all about! I was shaking, I was a nervous wreck! I squeezed the trigger, the recoil jolted me, but I saw the deer react! He jumped straight up in the air and took off. I knew it was a good hit, I was proud of myself, I just knew that Brent would have heard the shot and would be on his way to coach me on what to do next!
It was 4:45 and there wasn’t much light left, I was so anxious to find my buck, I couldn’t stand it. Brent met me at the base of my tree about 5:00. I was jumping and talking so fast trying to tell him what had just taken place. I finally calmed down, only about one notch, just enough to get my words out. We slowly walked over to where the deer was when I shot, to look for blood. We found good blood right there, we decided that since the sun was setting and it had only been 30 minutes since I had shot, we would mark the spot and return in the morning. (Better safe than sorry)
 That was about as sleepless of a night as you could get. We woke early the next morning, picked up the blood trail and followed it from the hardwoods to a pine plantation that had been planted for about eight years, it was thick. At that point, the trail petered out. We separated and I took a row and he took a row, we were going to cover every inch of this pine thicket to recover MY deer. After about 30 minutes of zigzagging, I walked right up to my expired deer! I was elated! I did it! The shot was a little back, but he had only gone about 120-yards from the stand. At that point I knew I was hooked, I felt so proud of myself, I had told Brent that the deer was an 8-pointer as wide as his ears, and I had judged him right! Brent was so proud of me! We took pictures to capture the moment and headed straight to the taxidermist.
I felt like I had accomplished something that a lot of men had tried whole lives to do! We knew guys that had hunted years before bagging their first buck, and I had just done it! I was on cloud nine, if this was beginners luck, than I’ll take it! Brent had put me on a stand I will never forget, the stand that I shot my first deer! What a great beginning!
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