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What , When and Where was you’re first deer

First deer for me was a yearling with a muzzleloader in 2015. I was so proud, shot it at 80 yards with open sights and it was so small I couldn't see it over the front sight post. You can see the white belly of it if you look closely. I had hunted scrub pieces of property before and had only seen a handful of deer in the years before.
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Malmaison Management Area in Miss Delta before it was state owned. My Dad knew the owner of 9K acres of hunters paradise. The old man let a few select people hunt the property and we were included. We ran dogs and I took a spike with model 742 in 3006. It was my Christmas gift and I took the deer a day or 2 before New Year's 1973. 5 years later it became the WMA. I still have the 742 and keep it in perfect condition and retired to the safe. My Dad killed one of the largest deer ever taken in the area with it the next year. It was a great time which we cannot recreate today and I am forever thankful for these memories.
 
A button head taken with Bear Kodiak magnum Bow and an aluminum arrow back in 1974, standing one of those heavy Baker climbing tree stands, I was 16 years old. Living in Cadwell, Ga. The deer was killed along the Oconee River in the Ranger Hunting club as a guest. I was so proud of that deer and killing it with a recurve Bow, it just didn't get any better than that I thought.
 
Man I’ll never forget my first deer....sorta.
I was living in Pennsylvania.
I was 20 y/o and just started hunting my first rifle season out.
I lived on a farm with a thousand acres of hardwoods as my back yard and I lived on a dead end road that went right into the heart of it.
The rut was in full and I was backed up into a tree root ball that was the perfect ground blind.
We had about 10” of fresh snow on the ground with light flurries.....very cold out with light wind.
I could not believe the does that were coming through.
There were groups of does and yearlings coming by every few minutes and I could hear deer running on the ridges all around me as I was in “the bowl” which was a really cool spot.
I saw a big 12 point and several 8 points chasing does......we had some nice bucks up there...and I’ve never seen anything like it since.
I heard a shot in the distance.
About 15 min later I had an 8 point walking by with his head down and he appeared wounded.
I aimed for a double lung with my winchester 94 .
He ran off into a thicket and got quiet.
I waited for about 40 min and the neighbors Son came walking by.
He asked if I saw an 8 point cause he took a shot at one from a distance of 100 yards.
I said yeah he came by with his head down and I think I double lunged him.
We waited for another 20 min and talked about the extreme madness of the sheer amount of friggin deer running around.
He said it’s absolutely insane.
So we decided to go into the thicket in together so we didn’t get caught in each others crossfire for any reason.
We saw the buck laying there with his head down.
When we got close enough I went to poke his eyeball with my rifle muzzle and he jumped vertically about 12’ high over top of a big pile of deadfall and bolted.
We were stunned in amazement of the sheer athleticism of this animal.
We ended up tracking it for about 40 minutes and we saw him bedded down in some briars.
I took a neck shot and that’s what finally put him down.
Turns out my original shot hit him way low since he was so close to me I didn’t compensate for the scope and just grazed him underneath.
The original shot from the neighbor was a gut shot.
He was a beautiful 8 point, very big mature deer.
I ended up letting the neighbor kid take the deer cause he really wanted it.
My next real kill was a four pointer a couple days later with the 30-30 in the same hunting spot.
I have never seen such nice deer or deer activity than I have when I lived up there.
I turned a boss from texas on to that spot when he got repeatedly skunked hunting public land with a co worker.
I kept telling him to come hunt on my father in law’s farm.
Finally he came up to scout and told me that night that he’s never seen so much deer sign ever and was going to go set up in the morning.
By 1:00 he came by with the biggest 11 point I’ve ever seen.
He took him with a custom .50 caliber hand cannon.
He could not quit smiling.
He parked down the side of the access road and the deer dropped dead three feet from his jeep.
i know he will be telling people that story for life.
Good times up there.

The only thing I miss from up there is the amazing hunting and sheer amount of wildlife.
It truly is a hunter/fisherman’s paradise.

Up there if you don’t shoot a deer every year...chances are you’ll hit one with your car.
 
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