One, Two, Three...He's down!

So this past weekend was opening weekend for firearm deer season in Missouri (Nov 11). As tradition we went out to our 'camp site' to camp opening weekend. We had about seventeen people there, eight of which actually hunted, that camped out on Friday night. By Saturday afternoon, seven of them went home due to it being cold and the kids were about to go stir crazy. Or maybe the kids were driving the parents crazy...anyway, when I returned from hunting Saturday afternoon camp was 'much' quieter. We all had a good time...we weathered rain, wind, frost, and below freezing temperatures but we made it. (Woo-Hoo!!)

I took a friend out with me this year, she wanted to experience deer camp and hunting. I've told stories about the 'hill' that I had to climb one year to come up out of the 'draw'...I think everyone thought I was exaggerating, but T found out Saturday morning around 10:30 exactly what that hill was made out of. She refused to go back down that night. So I gave her my tree stand (which was on top of the ridge, not very far from camp), and I went down by the river with my dad. Needless to say by the time Sunday night rolled around I had plenty of exercise in.

Now to the good part...I GOT MY FIRST DEER!!! I killed, with the help of my cousin E, my first deer ever. It was a five point buck. What a story I have....me, dad, and E were heading out Sunday afternoon to hunt. We were walking along talking about where each of us were going to be sitting, when I looked up and there was s a deer walking through the woods ahead of us. I told them I saw it, they said shoot it...so I took a chance on a chest shot and let the gun fire. The deer took off running, dad fired off two shots and we watched as the deer ran on. So we start looking for it, E said that the deer hunched up when I shot...so we knew he had been hit. They jumped him in the thicket right under the hill. So dad decided to give the deer time to lay down and die and we went for a walk to the other ridge while E sat and watched the thicket...he decided not to go hunting. We found where the deer was standing when I shot, there was a pile of hair on the ground...dad told everyone we were looking for a deer with a fresh haircut. (We use walkie-talkies) About an hour later we come back through on the backside of the ridge, along the draw, and E comes down off the ridge where I shot the deer...we're boxing it in. Dad tells E to take a shot at it if he gets the chance, because we didn't want to have to track it forever. E was following it down the hill, giving us a play-by-play on where to expect it to come through; Dad and I are coming up along the sides looking for it. E takes a shot at the deer, then another...blowing it's back leg off. The deer is down, I see it crawling around on the side of the hill and E and Big E are coming up to it. Thinking about taking off another shot, I tell them that I'm below them behind the stump and not to fire a shot. The deer finally stays in one place, I finally make it up the hill (mountain), and then I put the final shot through the deer's neck (after failing with one attempt...I could barely breath after my climb up the hill). High fives all around, the deer is down with a group effort, S comes down to save the day with the four wheeler (so we don't have to drag the deer all the way out), and we go back to camp to clean the deer.

The people that were left at camp had a walkie talkie and had heard the whole scenario that was playing out on the hill side. We supplied the afternoon entertainment. I was happy to finally have a deer, though my cousin did help somewhat. The weekend was a lot of fun, and another memory to go down about opening weekend at deer camp.