Remember your first time....?

[Can Hahaka]

Wrong...I am talking about your first whitetail encounter.    

I've been shooting a stick bow for more than 50 years, but only really seriously for the last 3-4 years.

Two years ago I was hunting on public land and started out the morning still hunting into the area of the bedding zone. I found a trail that I had not seen before about 8:30 AM and set up on a stool about 10 yards back in a pine forest.

It wasn't long before the buck came in from the right. Not the deer I had been seeing but a very nice little 8 point. He was in no hurry and just kept coming along at an even pace. The wind was tricky due to the kettle hills in the area and therefore was swirling about. Once he got to 8 yards (quartering to me) he stopped and knew something was up. He was beautiful. The detail of the eye coloration and the way he stood there just set me back. My heart went wild. If he came along another few yards he would be broadside.

But as my luck would have it he caught my wind. Didn't bust out but mearly turned and feed off in another direction.

Man, if I tought I was hooked before, I am really hooked now. Someday it will happen for me. But the trill was there and is there every time I get out.

What is your story.

[trapperDave]

ahhh, I was remembering another first  :D

[Whip]

First whitetail of any kind?  
First buck?
First one with archery gear in my hand?
Or first one taken with traditional gear?
Each and every one of those firsts are etched deeply in my mind, even now forty plus years later. Your question caused me to recall them all vividly.  Thanks for taking me back!

[Steve P]

Yup, it was the last Sunday in the month of October....1968.

I remember it just like it was yesterday.

Steve

[L. E. Carroll]

Yep !!!! Her Name was Mickey.........Never forget her!! Where have the years Gone [1966]???                        
Hunting my first Rut....What a pretty little Doe                  
Gene

[smoke1953]

Brings me back to when I bought my first hunting bow somewhere between 72 & 74 at Lakeland Sports in Fort Atkinson, Wi.  A Shakespeare Necedah.  Never learned to shoot it properly, first putting on an elevated rest then taping on a makeshift site.  It took a couple of years to get the first opportunity as I was perched on a branch, no stand, leaning against the trunk. A doe came in lying directly below the tree.  Believe it or not I shuffled out on the branch away from the trunk to find room to shoot directly below me. It took several times of going back and forth between the trunk and my shooting position about 3 ft. out from the trunk.  No safety belt, of course I was invincible at that time.  I took my shot straight down glancing of her shoulder. She moved out 15 yds. where I shot again.  Missed.  She moved 10 yds laterally I pulled another arrow and missed again.  She than scampered past the tree 180 degrees from my first shot where I was able to unleash my final arrow and final miss.  After that I switched to a compound and it took until two years ago for me to rediscover the joy of shooting my longbow.  I think I'll head out rabbit hunting now after that recollection that I will never forget.

[Intuit]

When I was a kid in the 50's I was constantly "making" bows and arrows. No one in my family hunted so this passion was not fed by anyone other than myself. No one understood my desire for the gift of a "real factory made" bow and arrows.

In my teens I hunted small game with guns and finally deer. Long story short, I talked a friend into taking up bownunting. We got talked into compounds, practiced for the summer and finally October came.

I still savor the thoughts in my head that day as I stalked through the woods. "I'm home, this is what I was meant to do".