Do you remember your

[Duncan]

It was 1979 and I had bought a used early 60's Bear Alaskan recurve bow from a co-worker for 15.00. I had started a new job and met some guys at work that bowhunted and they took me in. I saw their Baker stands and being a welder I made one out of steel angle. So after work we would hit the game lands and hike in to some bean fields along the river, me toting my Alaskan and my homemade stand wearing old grey uniforms much like MEC Lineman did.(I was a gas utility worker) So we spread out along the river and there is good sign in the wooded strip between the bean field and the river. I finally pick a tree and shinny up a ways, probably 10' and get settled. It wasn't long when I hear shooting and talking. Then here comes a doe slipping along the trail and it stops right in front of me and looks back. So I start to draw and she sees me and bounds off leaving me to my shakes. But it was a good shake. Then here come the "dove hunters" who ask me if I saw any deer. I said yep and point them off in another direction. My buddies heard the commotion and come to check on me. We decide the area has been spoiled for the day and pack it out. Despite the outlawing I witnessed I was hooked and went on to take deer with that bow and other bows.

[hawkeye n pa]

1969 I was freestanding  on a big apple tree limb about eight feet up on a old grown up farm stead.  That doe came in eating apples and I was going to make Dad proud, shot low with a Browning Mohawk.  Still  not sure how I picked a "vibrating" apple tree, seemed more like a earth quake at the time.  LOL

[Bowwild]

Sure do!

1970 and I was 16. I had never seen a live deer  in my life.  Cross country teammate invited me to bowhunt 120 miles south of my deerless county.

Opening afternoon a 5-point came out of Brown County state park (Indiana). I killed it with a Bear razor head on cedar sfhaft from a Pearson cougar.

An encounter 7 years later, with the stranger who built the stand, is more amazing than that first deer.

[Cyclic-Rivers]

It was 1991, I was 12.  Had a doe come in on high alert. I could only see her head and bits and pieces of her body.  I was perched on a piece of plywood wired to two branches in a pine tree.  This was my second night deer hunting ever.
I had a 1969 bear grizzly, 45 lbs at 28.  It was my dads now and my uncles before that.  
My adrenaline was pumping through the roof. My tree was shaking violently from the hunter who may as well been holding a jackhammer.  
A red squirrel( fastest one is ever seen) jumped on a dead pine tree and make a humungous racquet thus sending the deer on her way at warp speed.  For years I blamed that squirrel. Lol. Now I know it was a number of other reasons.

[kennym]

My first trad deer came in 93, had shattered my left knee and lower leg in 92 and it slowed me down.

That probably helped my hunting as much as anything.

Read that again young guys!!

Don't break a leg, but slow down, you can't outrun em anyway!

I was limping along next to a road in the timber when a 7 point came thru at a pretty good clip,I shot without thinking and it hit high and a bit back. I remember seeing the blood spray from around the arrow when it impacted. He went about 30 yards and was down. Lucky artery shot.