The First Deer I Saw

I do not remember the first deer I ever saw in my life. But I do remember the first time I was sitting in a deer stand with a shotgun in my hand and saw some deer within shooting range.

          I was 12 years old. Up to that point I had always sat in the stand or on the ground with my dad. When I got to be 12 he decided I was old enough and knew what to do, so I could go sit on the stand by myself.           I remember the block of woods I was in and the exact stand. My dad walked me to it and told me he would walk down and come get me in a few hours.

          I climbed up in the stand and I remember it being windy that day. I remember the tree swaying making me nervous.

          I sat quietly and looked and listened. There were immediately squirrels running all over the place. A typical deer hunt, that is all you can hear.

          With the squirrels and the wind I couldn’t hear much but I heard what I thought was squirrels again behind me. I got up and turned around.

          Turning around backwards in a tree stand still to this day makes me nervous. I always either put the gun over my shoulder with the sling or hold it awkwardly against the tree. Then I also grab onto the tree as I awkwardly shuffle my feet around.

          I leaned against the tree and looked and saw 4 does walking nose to tail through the woods about 40 yards behind me. For some reason at 12 years old I thought 40 yards was too far to shoot a deer. I remember my dad telling me that day that my youth model 20 gauge Remington 870, that I still have, would have reached out there and got them.

          Because I thought the deer were too far I didn’t even attempt to put the gun up and shoot. But I distinctly remember watching them walk until they were out of sight and a chill running down my spine and my heart racing.

          I had never killed a deer or even shot in one’s general direction at that point so it is a bit wild that this made me feel the way it did. But the excitement was palpable. Seeing a deer walking through the woods is worth all of the times you sit there and don’t see one.

          When I am asked by people who have never hunted about it I am often amazed by how easy they think it is. It takes staying quiet, only moving when you are able to, calming your nerves, controlling your breath, and making all of the right decisions.

          They also tend to think that you go out there and kill a deer every time. When honestly the majority of the time you don’t even see one.

          But the biggest lesson I learned that day is about controlling that rush. I haven’t lost that feeling of chills running down my spine since that day. But I have definitely learned to control it. I have learned how far is actually too far to shoot a deer and when to move when they can’t see you.

          For all the times you go out there and don’t see a deer it makes it so much more worth it when you do. For the staring contest you get into with them. When you’re thinking to yourself “don’t move, don’t move, don’t move”.  When they drop their head and you realize you have won the staring contest but now have to slowly but deliberately get the gun to your shoulder. How you have to take your aim and try and hold the gun steady with adrenaline running through your body. How you have to control your breath and slowly squeeze the trigger and not anticipate the gun going off.

          The rewarding feeling of harvesting a deer is definitely something special. You walk around that day feeling powerful and like you are the king of the world. But just seeing one is still as much of a rush today as it was when I was 12 years old.

          I never did kill a deer with that 870. It’s a great gun and still shoots straight. But I killed my first deer the next year when I was 13 with my Dad’s Charles Daly 12 gauge. But that 20 gauge will always be special to me because I got it for Christmas when I was 12 and because it is the gun I was holding when I first felt a chill down my spine from seeing four deer walk 40 yards behind me.