My most memorable hunt I would have to say would be my first hunt ever, combined with a hunt years later. It goes something like this…
It was during the youth squirrel hunt here in PA. I followed my dad up what seemed at the time to be a mountain, we reached the top of the “mountain” (hill) and we were in a big oak flat, my dad helped me pick a spot to stand. We stood for about 30 minutes and I heard something crunching through the dry leaves I was sure it was a big fat gray squirrel, I said to my dad “I think I hear a squirrel” he told me “ok get ready”, soon after that I see movement, it was a deer, no two deer, no 3 deer, my dad says “stay still”. The deer walk about 40 yards in front of us and my dad says “two of those deer are bucks, nice bucks”, the other was a doe. We watched them for about 5 minutes feeding on acorns and then the 2 bucks squared off and started fighting, it only lasted about 30 seconds and they trotted off after the doe spotted us. I will never forget my first hunt as long as I live.
Fast forward 10 years and my dad is in the hospital in need of a new liver and kidney. Every other day I am up to visit him and he say to me “this is the first year we were not in the woods together on the first day of archery”, I told him that hunting was not top priority. He said don’t worry about me go hunt. I told him where I had been scouting and asked him if he knew where I was talking about and he said he did, that it near where we went for your first hunt and saw those bucks fighting I said yeah that’s the place. That Saturday I went to see my dad and he acted surprised to see me and asked why I was not hunting, I told him again that I had other things to do. He again said “if you mean coming to see me I told you to hunt” so I stayed for a while and went home I started to think about what he said about hunting so I decided to go out for the evening, I pulled off the road and got out of my truck, I started to put my camo on and an other truck pulled up, it was a father and son they literally got there stuff together and ran/jogged into the woods to beat into the woods, I thought to myself well that spot is no good and I was hunting out of a hang on stand, luckily I had a climber in my truck just incase and decided to hunt a different spot I drove down the road about a mile and pulled off the road, got my climber and started the hike up the hill, it was the same “mountain” that my dad and I had climbed up years ago on my first hunt, I found a tree and got settled in. It wasn’t 20 minutes that a doe walk under me and off to my right then it came back and walked across a power line and into the woods on the other side, about 5 minutes later I see movement across the power line it was a deer coming toward me, I said to my self this doe must be lost, then I saw the rack!!!! I got my bow and stood up. The buck entered the woods, and at 20 yards turned broadside, I shot, it hit low, he ran about 30 yards and stopped. I got another arrow I knew he was hit but I figured I needed to get another arrow in him, just then his tail started flicking erratically and he fell over. As I walked over to him I realized he lay dead just 5 yards away from the big old oak my dad and I stood by 10 years earlier. The next day I took pictures into the hospital to show me dad and told him the story and about where I shot him he just smiled and said “I wish I could have been there with you” I told him “get better and next year I’ll be with you when you shoot one”. The next week my dad passed away. Now my dad is with me on every hunt not mater how cold or miserable (he was never one for poor weather hunting. LOL)
Topic: some of your favorite memories from the field (Read 449 times)
